Bio

Claudia Weill is a film, television, and theatre director.

Most recently she directed Episode 6 of HBO’s GIRLS aka “Boys”; she is known for multiple episodes of thirty something (Emmy, Humanitas Awards), "My So-Called Life," "Chicago Hope" (Reynolds Award), "Once and Again," TV/Cable movies such as Face of a Stranger by Marsha Norman (Emmy for Gena Rowlands) and 20 short films for "Sesame Street" in 1969, still on the air!

Ms Weill produced and directed her first feature, Girlfriends in 1979 (w/Christopher Guest, Bob Balaban and Eli Wallach) which she sold to Warner Bros. after winning multiple awards at Cannes, Filmex and Sundance. Next she directed It's My Turn for Columbia Pictures (with Jill Clayburgh, Michael Douglas and Charles Grodin), winning the Donatello or European Oscar for Best New Director. Before that she shot, directed and edited The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir with Shirley MacLaine, a documentary feature about the first American womens’ delegation to China, 1975 (Academy Award Nomination).

As a theatre director, she has worked at Williamstown, The O’Neill, Sundance, ACT, Empty Space, MTC, Circle Rep, EST and the Public Theatre, where she was nominated for the Drama Desk Best Director Award for the premiere of Donald Margulies’ Found a Peanut. During the past year, she directed A Sunrise in Times Square (Sharr White) for EST Marathon and the Award winning premiere of The Belle of Belfast (Edelman) at EST LA. A few past favorites were Memory House (Tolan) with Kathy Baker, End Days (Laufer) with Amy Aquino, Tape (Belber) with Michael Urie and Adam Baum and the Jew Movie (Goldfarb) with Tony Shaloub at The Vineyard Playhouse, Huck and Holden (Rajiv Joseph) at the Black Dahlia, Twelfth Night at Antaeus and the W. Coast Premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner, Doubt with Linda Hunt at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Ms. Weill has been on the faculty at USC for many years where she created the Advanced Directing Class in the Graduate School of Cinema. She has guest taught Directing for Film, Television and Theatre as well as Directing for Writers at Harvard, NYU and Cal Arts among others. Last year she was a Juror with Elvis Mitchell for the Nashville Film Festival and directed several of the “Game Changers” films for the DGA 75th Anniversary. She regularly mentors young writers and directors from around the country, serves on the Directors Executive Committee for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (of which she was the 3rd woman admitted in 1980) and is preparing a documentary about the art and craft of directing.