It’s great that Hollywood has finally awarded the Best Director Oscar to a woman, namely Kathryn Bigelow. It only took what, 167 years? But in our little theater patch, we’ve been there, done that. In 1998, Julie Taymor won Best Direction of a Musical for “The Lion King” and Garry Hynes won Best Direction of a Play for “The Beauty Queen of Leenane.” Double whammy! Susan Stroman took the Musical Direction trophy in 2001 for “The Producers,” Mary Zimmerman got Play in 2002 for “Metamorphoses,” and Anna D. Shapiro got Play in 2008 for “August: Osage County.”
Granted, women on Broadway get twice as many chances as women in Hollywood since there’s two directing categories at the Tonys. And okay, five winners still isn’t very much in the grand scheme of things. At least if “The Scottsboro Boys” transfers to uptown (read my rave review here), I don’t see who could stand in the way of Stroman taking another award home.