Meet the Director Kathleen Mahan, Clybourne Park

“I can’t imagine a more perfectly structured play than Clybourne Park,” says Kathleen Mahan about Clybourne Park, the play she is directing which opens Friday November 10. “The play has precisely woven the issues of race, segregation and gentrification into both acts.”

Kathleen, who teaches and directs children’s theatre in the Pelham School District and with the Westchester Sandbox Theatre, directed her first Elmwood mainstage production, Sweat, last year. Previously she assisted director Alan Demovsky on La Cage Aux Folles, Night and Day, and Little Foxes, and the late Larry Gabbard on Next Fall. She has been an audience member since 2006, when her husband Steve Taylor appeared in Ragtime.

“Complex and complicated,” is how Kathleen describes Clybourne Park. She believes that although its themes are heavy, and it deals with profound grief and loss, it has many moments of humor. “Every time I go back to the script I discover something, and in every rehearsal my extraordinary cast uncovers something new about their characters and, dare I say it, the human condition. This play takes my breath away.”