"Obviously this show is all about not giving up and holding onto your dreams. Not letting society tell you who you need to be and that you can actually win in the end and have everything." That is Tony Award-nominated director Susan H. Schulman '64 discussing Little Women, a new musical based on the book by Louisa May Alcott. But that short description of the musical also fits Susan's life and her extremely successful career in the performing arts.

"They're all my favorites," says Susan H. Schulman of the many Broadway shows she has directed over the years.

With Sweeney Todd, The Secret Garden and The Sound of Music to her credit, there is no doubt that Susan is one of Broadway's most celebrated and respected directors. Though she started her career as an actress and studied at Hofstra's Department of Drama in the 1960s, she always sensed that she was more suited to pursue theater in a different creative capacity.

"I wanted to be a director," she said, "but there weren't a lot of role models for women. I fell naturally into acting because that's where the jobs were." Memorable Hofstra productions included Tennessee Williams' Camino Real ("There's a photo of me from that show in a green sequined bikini that makes the rounds every now and then.") and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Julius Caesar, where she played Portia, and Susan Sullivan '64 played Calpurnia.

Susan says, "It was a great time in the Drama Department. I mean James Van Wart was probably the most influential, but also Miriam Tulin, Howard Siegman and Bernard Beckerman, were as well. They were very encouraging in my continuing in theater and getting me into Yale."

Susan attended Yale on a playwriting fellowship. After graduating with a master's degree, she was still obliged to pursue work onstage. "The first professional job I had was as an actress at the Buffalo Studio Arena Theatre, and it was there that I was able to direct my first professional show." The respected theater was about to present an adaptation of Wind in the Willows when they unexpectedly found themselves without a director. "I was there," says Susan, "and basically raised my hand and went 'me, me, me.'"

Susan next set her sights on New York City's theater scene. "When I came into New York, I did some directing at the off-off-Broadway Equity Library Theatre, and my shows were very well received."

"From there I went on to do a production of Look: We've Come Through by Hugh Wheeler. He was a collaborator with Stephen Sondheim. Hugh came and saw the show and liked it very much. A couple of years later when I was directing a production of Company at the York Theatre off-Broadway, he told Stephen, and Sondheim came and saw that. One thing led to another and then I did Sweeney Todd on Broadway." For the musical about the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Susan was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical in 1990.

With the bloody but glorious days of Sweeney Todd behind her, Susan's work has been characterized more by shows that focus on love and family, even when world events are tumultuous. The Secret Garden opened in 1991, followed by the beloved Sound of Music in 1998. Little Women is her latest success, having opened in January 2005.

"It's very difficult to adapt a beloved classic to the stage because everybody is going to have their opinion on how you should do it. And a lot of people don't want to let go of the fact that a narrative is a narrative and a stage piece is a stage piece. "[With Little Women] we have been complimented on the fact that we have been so true to the spirit of the piece and not slavish to the narrative, which I think is the difference."

Susan says many of her musicals also share the theme of young women "wanting to have a place of their own. It's so interesting to me that Secret Garden is so much about Mary Lennox wanting to find a place where she can be at home and she gets the garden. Jo March in Little Women has her attic. The problem for Maria in Sound of Music is that she can't live by the rules. She's defiant. Fortunately there's someone who tries to put her out in the world so she can find a place where she can be herself and be appreciated for the parts of her personality that are expressive."

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