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Sam Gold &
Directed Plays
By: John McCall
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Sam Gold
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Sam Gold was raised in Westchester and New York City. He
graduated from Cornell University with a degree in
English and had internships at Playwrights Horizons, and the
Signature Theatre.

He attended the directing program at the Julliard. He spent
three years as an assistant director and dramaturge at
the Wooster group.

He says that, for a while his career has been very focused on
brand-new plays. Although, the reason he got into the theatre
was because he was inspired by the classics he read while he
was an English major, because he loved those plays. He
thinks information from the old plays has always been a base
or foundation when working with new writers.

Sam Gold was also Resident Director at the Roundabout
Theatre Company.
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Directed
His Broadway credits include:
(2022-2023) - Three Sister (Off - Broadway)
(2022) – Corsicana
(Off - Broadway)
(2022) - Macbeth
(2019) - King Lear,
(2017) - A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Tony Award nomination)
(2017) - The Glass Menagerie
(2015) - Fun Home (Tony Awards)
(2014) - The Real Thing
(2014) - The Realistic Joneses
(2013) - Picnic
(2011) - Seminar.
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Other productions include:
The Flick
Kin
The Big Meal
Circle Mirror Transformation
The Secret Life of Bees
Hamlet
Othello
The Glass Menagerie
John
Uncle Vanya
TheRealistic Joneses
The Cradle Will Rock
Look Back in Anger
The Aliens
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Three Sisters (20222023)
Gold will direct Oscar Isaac and Greta
Gerwig in Clare Barron’s new adaptation of
Chekhov’s Three Sisters at the New York
Theater Workshop.
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Corsicana
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Corsicana

Directed the world premiere at playwrights
Horizons which featured Jamie Brewer from
American Horror Story,

Synopsis: In Corsicana, a small city in
Texas, a woman with Down syndrome
named Ginny and her half-brother
Christopher are unmoored in the wake of
their mother's death. Their close family
friend, Justice, introduces them to a local
artist named Lot, a recluse and outsider,
hoping that he and Ginny can make a song
together. That that'll help somehow. In this
restless quartet about care-taking and caregiving, in which the very fabric of reality is
up for debate, Will Arbery charts the quiet,
particular contracts of the heart that forge a
new family.
Reviews
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
Frank Scheck(New York Stage Review): “The
problem is that the delivery system in
Corsicana isn't particularly efficient,
squandering the overall impact with its
discursive dialogue, excessive length and
unwillingness to articulate its themes.
Directly Sam Gold, fresh off massacring
Macbeth on Broadway, doesn't help matters
with his lethargic staging”.

Melissa Rose Bernardo(New York Stage
Review): Not surprisingly, director Sam Gold,
who loves a pregnant pause, leans into
Corsicana's many quiet moments, causing
more than a few...pacing...problems. A bizarrely
clunky rotating set also slows things down
unnecessarily, disrupting the mood at each
(literal) turn. The actors eventually bring us
back in, but it's a detriment to a play that relies
so much on aura and feeling.
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Macbeth
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Reviews

. Jesse Green(New York Times): says the
production was “uneasy” and “overthought,” one
that feels like “an endless rehearsal rather than a
Broadway revival.” He describes Daniel Craig as “at
his best in physicalizing Macbeth’s transitions,” and
Ruth Negga as “extraordinary” and “wonderfully
physical she can seem quicksilver and weightless
or, when enraged, menacing and bristly and twice
her size.”

Christian Lewis(Variety): enjoy it less saying: “isn’t
much substance in this production, which clearly
prioritizes an aesthetic and a mood over acting ,
coherence and Shakespeare’s text,” He goes on to
describe “Macbeth” as only “marginally” better than
Gold’s “King Lear.” Of the acting, Lewis notes that
“every single actor is in their own play,” with most of
the ensemble “adrift.” They write that Craig “does
not capture the transformation of Macbeth into a
power-hungry tyrant,” but say that Negga is “the
bigger disappointment” because she gives “a
generic performance.”
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King Lear
Reviews
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
David Gordon(Broadway): While a lot of his choices
are distracting (we'll get to them), to Gold's credit most
of the storytelling in this King Lear is surprisingly
digestible for audiences who may not be well versed in
the Bard's works. Lear,

his staging admirably also draws no attention to
Jackson's gender at all. In Ann Roth's chic suits,
Jackson is every inch a king, and he's not going down
without a fight. It's an impressive show of stamina on
Jackson's part, and her level of technique is wholly
unparalleled in terms of diction, lucidity, and clarity of
speech. In that regard, I've never seen a
Shakespearean performance that comes close to
achieving what she miraculously creates onstage.
(Age:82) Gland Jackson as King Lear
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Fun Home

Gold, who helmed the show's OffBroadway premiere at the Public
Theater.zre-imagined the show's
original proscenium staging for its
Broadway transfer, which was
presented in the round.

12 Tony nominations. It was the first
musical to reach that benchmark at
the venue.

Five Tony Awards, including Best
Musical. (Best Musical, Best
Direction, Best Actor, Best Score,
Best Book)

Fun Home previously broke records
at Circle in the Square.

Jake Gyllenhaal will produce and
star in an upcoming film adaptation
of the Tony Award-winning musical
Fun Home which will be directed by
Sam Gold.
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Review

David Gordan(Broadway Review):
“the thrilling nature of this
groundbreaking look at
adolescence and acceptance has
increased with its uptown move,
in a mounting by Sam Gold now
completely staged in the round
(as opposed to the traditional
proscenium structure it had
downtown).”
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References:
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Playwrights Horizon - Corsicana https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/corsicana/

Broadway World website: https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Sam-Gold/#bio
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David Gordon Review (Fun Home): https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/funhome_72584.html
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Playbill, Fun Home, Tony Awards: https://playbill.com/article/fun-home-breaks-box-officerecord-after-five-tony-wins-com-350886

The New York Theatre Workshop: https://www.nytw.org/show/three-sisters/

David Gordon Review (King Lear): https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/kinglear_88326.html