Steven Maler

Steve Maler is the founding Artistic Director of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC), which presents free productions of Shakespeare on the Boston Common. His CSC 2001 production of Twelfth Night won the Elliot Norton award for “Best Production,” his production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream won the Norton Award for "Outstanding Director,” his production of Suburbia for the SpeakEasy Stage Company won the Norton Award for "Best Production," and his production of John Kuntz’s Starf***ers won the Norton Award for “Best Solo Performance.” Starf***ers was presented in the New York International Fringe Festival and won the “Best Solo Performance Award.”
The critically acclaimed Othello starring Seth Gilliam and James Waterston, played on Boston Common for CSC and was seen by over 110,000 people. Other productions include the American Premiere of Peter Eötvös' operatic treatment of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America; The Taming of the Shrew, starring Jennifer Dundas, Hamlet, starring Jeffrey Donovan, Macbeth, starring Jay O. Sanders, Henry V, starring Anthony Rapp, A Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, and The Tempest for CSC; the World Premiere of Enrico Garzilli’s Michelangelo for Opera Providence; Turn of the Screw for The New Repertory Theatre; Santaland Diaries and Porcelain for the SpeakEasy Stage Company; Top Girls and Weldon Rising for The Coyote Theatre; and The L.A. Plays by Han Ong for the American Repertory Theatre, where he was the Artistic Associate for New Plays.
His New York City credits include the New York Musical Theatre Festival production of Without You, written by and starring Anthony Rapp for which he was recognized with an Honorable Mention for Excellence in Directing by The NYMF 2010 Awards for Excellence. The production recently concluded a successful run in Seoul, South Korea.
From 2002-2006 he was the Vice President for Artistic Programming at Citi Performing Arts Center (formerly The Wang Center). At Citi Center, he created the Programming and Investment Committee to engage Trustees around programming challenges; he launched American Voices, a series of staged readings of classic American plays featuring some Broadway’s best actors – Leslie Uggams, David Morse, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Denis O’Hare, Blair Brown, Anthony Mackie, Charles Busch, Paul Rudd and Fred Weller; and he launched Artropolis, a subscription series offering high quality family entertainment with educational study guides and artist talkbacks (productions include Rachel Portman’s operatic treatment of The Little Prince, Deaf West’s production of Big River, Project Bandaloop, and AGA-Boom).
His feature film, The Autumn Heart, starring Tyne Daly and Ally Sheedy, was in the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival and won the "Audience Choice" award at The Nantucket Film Festival. It was released in September 2000.
He is a graduate of the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University where he directed Woyzeck, Pericles, The Duchess of Malfi, and Ghosts. He was the associate director of Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V at the American Repertory Theatre, and Titus Andronicus and Hamlet in Tokyo.
He grew up in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the John Motley Morehead scholarship. He has lived in the Boston area for twenty years.