Stage director, playwright, screenwriter and librettist James Lapine has signed with WME in all areas.
A Broadway veteran, Lapine is best known for his theater collaborations with Stephen Sondheim, including Passion and Sondheim on Sondheim. Their original 1984 Sunday in the Park with George partnership has seen many revivals, including with Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford taking on the roles of artist and muse originated by Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.
Their 1987 musical Into the Woods — for which Lapine wrote the book and Sondheim the music and lyrics — was adapted into a Disney movie that starred Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt and was directed by Rob Marshall. Lapine directed on Broadway David Henry Hwang’s Golden Child, The Diary of Anne Frank, Michel Legrand’s Amour, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the 2012 revival of Annie and his stage adaptation of the famous Moss Hart autobiography Act One.
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With Frank Rich, he co-produced and also directed the HBO documentary Six by Sondheim for which he received an Emmy nomination and a Peabody award. Lapine wrote the screenplay and directed the film Custody.
His book Putting it Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I created Sunday in the Park with George was released in August 2021, and he is completing the documentary In the Company of Rose, about the life and times of Rose Styron, the poet and widow of author William Styron.
And Lapine’s collaboration with composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Michael Korie, Flying Over Sunset, will premiere Dec. 13 on Broadway. He has been nominated for 12 Tony Awards, winning on three occasions and has received five Drama Desk Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.
In 2011, Lapine was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and is a member of the Dramatist Guild Council and a mentor for TDF’s Wendy Wasserstein Project, which supports underserved students from New York City public high schools.
