An American film and theatre director and writer, Shira Piven co-wrote and directed called The Performance, based on a short story by Arthur Miller. She also co-wrote and directed her first feature film, Fully Loaded, an adaptation of the stage play she directed, about two single mothers on a wild and fraught night out in Los Angeles. Her second feature, Welcome to Me, stars Kristen Wiig in a turn the New Yorker called “one of the best performances of the century so far.” Welcome to Me was also named a top 10 indie of 2015 by The National Board of Review and was a New York Times critic’s pick. Piven has also directed television episodes Transparent and One Mississippi, HBO’s Divorce and Room 104, as well as episodes of television shows Claws, and Sweetbitter.
Piven has also directed more than 20 plays in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and D.C., often creating her own adaptations for the stage. She directed Ionesco’s Victims of Duty at a Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago, starring actor Michael Shannon (99 Homes, Take Shelter), a revival of her 1995 production starring Shannon and Amy Landecker (Transparent). In 1999, she founded Water Theater Company in New York, and led the groundbreaking physical improv theater group Burn Manhattan. She also spent of 10 years teaching with the Actor’s Gang theatre’s Prison Project teaching ensemble theatre and spontaneous writing to men and women in prison in California.
Miami Film Festival
