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Diane Paulus
Diane Marie Paulus (born 1966) is an American theater and opera director who is currently the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University. Paulus was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for her revivals of Hair and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, and won the award in 2013 for her revival of Pippin. In 2025, Paulus directed Masquerade, an immersive production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera at the former site of Lee's Art Shop. Most recently, Masquerade earned Paulus a 2026 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Creative Collaboration.
She received the 2009 Harvard College Women's Leadership Award and the Columbia University IAL Diamond Award. She was selected for the 2014 Time 100, Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world; as one of Variety's "Trailblazing Women in Entertainment for 2014"; Boston magazine's "50 Thought Leaders of 2014"; and Boston magazine's 2018 and 2020 "100 Most Influential People in Boston".
Paulus was born in New York City in 1966, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an American father. Her parents met while her father, a New York television producer, was stationed in Japan after World War II.
She attended the Brearley School, studied dance at New York City Ballet, and trained in classical piano. In 1988, she graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She then earned a master's degree from the Columbia University School of the Arts.
Paulus and her husband, Randy Weiner, along with a few other theater school graduates established a small theater troupe in New York City called Project 400 Theatre Group. With Project 400, Paulus and Weiner specialized in creating avant-garde musical productions which married classic theater and modern music. Paulus's first production with the group was a rock version of The Tempest. Other productions included an R&B Phaedra and a hip-hop Lohengrin. In collaboration with Weiner, Paulus co-created The Donkey Show, a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream which ran off-Broadway from 1999 to 2005. Critics cited the production as an example of a trend in which edgy avant-garde theater had become fashionably mainstream.
In May 2008, Paulus was named the artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, which is affiliated with Harvard University. The American Repertory Theater chose Paulus after Anna D. Shapiro, the August: Osage County director, decided not to take the job to replace Robert Woodruff. Paulus's first production was a revival of The Donkey Show, written by Paulus and her husband Randy Weiner. Paulus previously taught courses at Columbia University and Yale University.
In 2010, Paulus was selected by the magazine American Theatre as one of the 25 theater artists who were asked to share their vision of coming developments in the next 25 years in the theater world. In her comments she talks about her goal to "revolutionize" the theatre experience by making it more interactive, letting the audience participate and making theatre content more "open source". She has also argued that theater has the power to make people more compassionate and cooperative citizens.
Also in 2010, Paulus directed Il mondo della luna (The World on the Moon), an opera by Joseph Haydn, in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. A Gotham Chamber Opera, in partnership with the Museum and in association with American Repertory Theater, Paulus's production fused live opera and stargazing using the 180-degree dome with projections courtesy of NASA.
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Diane Paulus
Diane Marie Paulus (born 1966) is an American theater and opera director who is currently the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University. Paulus was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for her revivals of Hair and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, and won the award in 2013 for her revival of Pippin. In 2025, Paulus directed Masquerade, an immersive production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera at the former site of Lee's Art Shop. Most recently, Masquerade earned Paulus a 2026 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Creative Collaboration.
She received the 2009 Harvard College Women's Leadership Award and the Columbia University IAL Diamond Award. She was selected for the 2014 Time 100, Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world; as one of Variety's "Trailblazing Women in Entertainment for 2014"; Boston magazine's "50 Thought Leaders of 2014"; and Boston magazine's 2018 and 2020 "100 Most Influential People in Boston".
Paulus was born in New York City in 1966, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an American father. Her parents met while her father, a New York television producer, was stationed in Japan after World War II.
She attended the Brearley School, studied dance at New York City Ballet, and trained in classical piano. In 1988, she graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She then earned a master's degree from the Columbia University School of the Arts.
Paulus and her husband, Randy Weiner, along with a few other theater school graduates established a small theater troupe in New York City called Project 400 Theatre Group. With Project 400, Paulus and Weiner specialized in creating avant-garde musical productions which married classic theater and modern music. Paulus's first production with the group was a rock version of The Tempest. Other productions included an R&B Phaedra and a hip-hop Lohengrin. In collaboration with Weiner, Paulus co-created The Donkey Show, a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream which ran off-Broadway from 1999 to 2005. Critics cited the production as an example of a trend in which edgy avant-garde theater had become fashionably mainstream.
In May 2008, Paulus was named the artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, which is affiliated with Harvard University. The American Repertory Theater chose Paulus after Anna D. Shapiro, the August: Osage County director, decided not to take the job to replace Robert Woodruff. Paulus's first production was a revival of The Donkey Show, written by Paulus and her husband Randy Weiner. Paulus previously taught courses at Columbia University and Yale University.
In 2010, Paulus was selected by the magazine American Theatre as one of the 25 theater artists who were asked to share their vision of coming developments in the next 25 years in the theater world. In her comments she talks about her goal to "revolutionize" the theatre experience by making it more interactive, letting the audience participate and making theatre content more "open source". She has also argued that theater has the power to make people more compassionate and cooperative citizens.
Also in 2010, Paulus directed Il mondo della luna (The World on the Moon), an opera by Joseph Haydn, in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. A Gotham Chamber Opera, in partnership with the Museum and in association with American Repertory Theater, Paulus's production fused live opera and stargazing using the 180-degree dome with projections courtesy of NASA.