We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Birenboim a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’ve known I wanted to work in the theatre as long as I can remember. The story goes that at two years old, when my grandparents took me to see my first show, a regional production of Peter Pan, I cried at intermission, because I thought the whole experience was over. I have been trying to make that feeling last (way past intermission) ever since.

I was hooked! I started by doing community theatre, mostly with an amazing organization called Play Group Theatre, that never, ever talked down to us kids or “dumbed down” the material, and taught us to respect every single person who has a hand in the theatrical process (a lesson that has served me well in my career thus far). As I got older, I always knew, however, that it would be really tough to forge a professional career in the business.

I credit two of my bosses, John Rando and Jenn Thompson, with helping me see a challenging, yet achievable way forward. John was the first person who gave me a professional directing job and, in a way, gave me “permission” to see myself as a director and leader. My current boss, the great Jenn Thompson, has been a model and a mentor in every way. She shows me every day how a woman — also a wife and mother — can build an exciting, challenging, and evolving career in this unwieldy (and male dominated) business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

After starting out as an actor (most people’s “gateway drug” into the theatre), I now wear many hats. I’m a director, and I’m currently the Associate Director of the Annie National Tour, which is coming to Madison Square Garden this holiday season, featuring EGOT-winner Whoopi Goldberg as Miss Hannigan. It represents my second year working on that show, and my fifth production with the great Jenn Thompson, my boss, mentor, and friend. I have also directed a production of The Secret Garden, various workshops of a new play entitled Complicity, an evening of short, new, Jewish plays for the Jewish Plays Project, and an upcoming new play in 2025. In addition, I am a producer — I recently co-produced a revival of Sunday in the Park with George at Axelrod Performing Arts Center — and I’m a podcast host and producer. My podcast, entitled Call Time with Katie Birenboim (which you can find on all podcast platforms), was sort of a passion project born out of the pandemic, but it has grown into something much larger and more exciting. Focusing on casual yet cerebral conversations with arts leaders, I’ve been lucky enough to have interviewed people like Tony winners Christian Borle, Jack O’Brien, and John Rando, former CEO of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Henry Timms, principal dancer for New York City Ballet, Megan Fairchild, choreographer and theatre-maker, Ogemdi Ude, Pulitzer Prize winner, David Auburn, and many more exciting thought-leaders in my field.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think in life, and particularly in the arts, people love to categorize you — I get it; it’s human nature! But I’ve definitely been challenged by people’s initial response to someone who wears many hats or does many things in their field, what we in the in the theatre often call “multi-hyphenates.” I can’t tell you how many times people with whom I had “general meetings” said something like, “You’re very impressive, but you need to lead with or focus on just one thing. Otherwise, I’ll be confused! Which do you do?” I’ve had to unlearn that attitude within myself. I think the arts landscape is changing significantly, particularly post-pandemic. Indeed, it’s my belief that in order for theatre to survive and thrive, the way we make theatre, and think about making theatre, needs to change significantly. You can look at the proliferation of small, commercial Off-Broadway productions for a hint of the way the tides are turning. Those kinds of new, “do-it-yourself,” nimble productions are necessarily led by people who have many skills and many passions, people who direct and produce, people who write and act, people with a knack for both PR and fundraising. While I definitely believe these kinds of leaders, who do and love many different things, represent the future of the business, embracing the fact that I’m a multi-hyphenate — and want to be one! — has definitely been a process, and it’s something on which I’m still working!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I feel incredibly lucky to get to do what I do as a career. The older I get, the more I realize how rare it is to be doing what I wanted to do as a little kid — my dream has never changed; it’s the first great love of my life; and I don’t think many people can say that. Every day is a privilege.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://katiebirenboim.com
• Instagram: @kbirenboim
• Other: Call Time with Katie Birenboim, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you enjoy podcasts!

Image Credits

Photo credits to: Justin Patterson, Berkshire Theatre Group and David Dashiell, and Julia Kaplan