Anna D. Shapiro

ANNA D. SHAPIRO has directed some of the most memorable Steppenwolf productions in recent years, including August: Osage County (for which she received a Tony Award),Three Days of Rain, Drawer Boy, I Never Sang for my Father, Man from Nebraska andThe Pain and the Itch. Outside of Steppenwolf, she has directed at the Atlantic Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Huntington Theatre Company and Paper Mill Playhouse, among others. Shapiro is also head of the Graduate Directing Program at Northwestern University. (As of October 2013)

• “The best new play in many a season. There are heady, farcical peaks to this comedy that approach the manic genius of Preston Sturges. But Mr. Norris' real target is that great sentimental sham, the idealized American family.”

  — New York Observer

• “One of the most satisfying theatrical events available today…Norris writes with a mind that is attuned to the blindness that passes for a shared vision among the emotionally smug and upwardly mobile.”

  — New Yorker

• “BRUCE NORRIS’S THE PAIN AND THE ITCH IS ONE OF THE MOST SATISFYING THEATRICAL EVENTS AVAILABLE TODAY. SEE IT!”

  — Hilton Als, The New Yorker

• “WICKEDLY FUNNY. If you enjoy the bitterly articulate comedies of Edward Albee or the political provocations of Wallace Shawn, THIS PLAY IS NOT TO BE MISSED!”

  — David Cote, NY1

• “HILARIOUS AND VICIOUS. This impeccable production, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, is a high-wire act of surprise, nuance and timing. EIGHT VIRTUOSO ACTORS pass and duck one another with the cumulative force of farce and catastrophe.”

  — Linda Winer, Newsday