@EmilyBobrow
AS A TEENAGER, Sam Gold was drawn to the stage, but there was one difficulty: “I was a terrible, terrible actor,” he says, smiling. The problem, he explains, is that good acting tends to come from the heart, not the head, “but I was always very opinionated, always asking questions about the meaning, the content, the aesthetic. That just makes you a pain-in-the-ass actor. Mentors, older actors, playwrights—everyone at the time hinted to me that maybe I should get on the other side of the table.”
Twenty years on, that inquisitive nature has served him well: Gold is now one of America’s most sought-after theater directors. When we met in New York, he had just returned from launching a touring production of his multi-Tony-winning Broadway musical Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel about a lesbian cartoonist with a gay father. Gold is now back downtown, directing David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig in what promises to be an edgy production of Othello that opens at the New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) next month.