What’s the elevator pitch for Grim?

It’s about the daughter of the Grim Reaper, who’s supposed to be taking over the throne from her father. But this problem arises: She meets this human boy and he helps her fall in love with life, and it creates this big problem, since she’s the person who is supposed to be ending life.

What do you think happens after death?

Right now I’m sort of riding train Grim, and what the show would tell you is that there is this space between life and whatever comes next called Limbo, and that’s where all these reapers usher you from life to the next phase. Not to get too dark, but imagining that when I die, there will be all these kooky, funny, really-good-at-singing reapers who greet me is very comforting.

You recently directed an opening ceremony for the World Cup, is that right?

I show-directed an Independence Day ceremony before the match in Philadelphia; it was this huge extravaganza that had 212 cast members. I was also the creative coordinator on the 2026 Olympic opening ceremony in Italy. I love working in ceremonies, these sort of massive live events.

What can theatre learn from ceremonies?

There’s a fearlessness in ceremonies that I find incredibly inspiring. Part of that is enabled by the scale of the budgets and the fact that they’re globally broadcast events designed for a single night rather than eight shows a week. Ceremonies give directors permission to imagine the seemingly impossible. I think about the entire stadium floor flooding for the 2004 Athens Olympic opening, or the kilometer-long burning human figure at the 2015 European Games in Baku, and I’m encouraged to imagine something audiences have never seen before, and then figure out how to achieve that.

What are you looking forward to this coming season?

There are a lot of new musicals I’m really eager to see on Broadway: Paddington, Warriors, Wanted. I’m very eager to watch where the trajectory of the new musical is going right now, both as somebody who’s invested in it as a theatre worker, but also just as someone who cares about the art form. There’s been a lot of conversation around this past season, and the lower-than-usual number of new musicals. I’m hoping we can course-correct somewhere along the way.

What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever seen onstage?

It’s maybe not the wildest, but I’m really obsessed with Julia Masli’s ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. She breaks every convention of theatre, and then uses that to communicate the lesson that the answer to all of our problems is in each other. It’s so magical to me; it was a top three life-changing theatre experience.

What’s a piece of art you love in any medium that you feel doesn’t get talked about enough?

My sort of epitome of artistic creation is the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony. I think about it a lot. It’s the Danny Boyle creation that told the story of Britain’s sort of agrarian society moving into the industrial revolution. It was such an achievement in blending narrative and spectacle in a way that was so unbelievably thrilling. I watch it all the time.

What artist or company do you dream of working with?

Es Devlin is a designer I would really love to work with in any form. Other “bucket list” artists for me would be Kimberly Belflower, Sanaz Toossi, Chase Infiniti, Bess Wohl, Riz Ahmed, Sara Bareilles. In terms of companies, I’ve been lucky to work for Disney on the television side, but I’d love to do something with Disney Theatrical Group, as I’m so drawn to fantastical spectacle in theatre. I’d also really love to direct an episode of The Morning Show or Bridgerton.

What is your earliest theatrical memory?

The Broadway show Fool Moon had an audience participation element where they selected somebody to come onstage. I remember it very vividly. Mostly the memory is positive, but I think it’s also where I learned that being onstage was not my journey in life as a person. In fact, many of my early memories of theatre are moments where I ended up onstage and was very eager to get off! My home is not onstage; it is very much out in the house.