Masters of the Stage

In May of 1988, Peter Van Zandt moderated a talk with director and Lincoln Center Theatre artistic director Gregory Mosher, just weeks after the opening of the Broadway production of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow. In a conversation that focuses on Mosher's longstanding relationship with Mamet, and Mosher's leadership of Lincoln Center Theater since 1985, topics include Mosher and Mamet's first meeting in Chicago in 1974; the ambiguity of Speed-the-Plow; Mamet's preference for working with the same company of actors and Mosher's desire to open up the casting to a broader range of actors, including the casting of stage neophyte Madonna in her Broadway debut; the issues involved in releasing an actor; why Mosher loves producing perhaps more than directing; how the then-new Lincoln Center membership model compares with the classic theatrical subscription model; whether he believes Lincoln Center Theater should have a resident acting company, as it did when the Vivian Beaumont opened in the 1960s; the process of moving Sarasin!; and what he had learned from his new partner at LCT, Bernard Gerstein.