Interview: The “composer” and the “conductor”: An interview with director and playwright Emily mann on working with Albee

Emily Mann—playwright, director and, for twenty-six years, head of the McCarter theatre in Princeton, New Jersey—has directed three Edward Albee plays, including the world premiere of Me, Myself & I. In this interview, the first she has given concerning her work with Albee, she talks about their close collaborative and trusted relationship over three decades and provides scholars, critics, and general audiences with invaluable insights and information about the complexities of the process by which an Albee text ultimately becomes a performance. She also describes in detail the Albee plays she has directed as well as the playwright’s direct input into each production process, and she compares the experience of staging his works with that of directing other playwrights, including Tennessee Williams and Anton Chekhov, two writers Albee admires and cites as influences.