Now recognized as one of today"s greatest theater directors and winner of two Tony Awards-and director of this season"s most acclaimed play, Democracy, by his frequent collaborator Michael Frayn-Michael Blakemore followed a unique path to success. In this book, he discusses his boyhood in Australia and his start in England as an actor-his life changed by a tour of Titus Andronicus with Laurence Olivier at the height of his powers-and continuing up to his first success as a director with A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. In recounting his early life, Blakemore provides "a pitch-perfect account of dreaming youth, driven, frustrated, and eventually deepened by a realistic love of the theatre" (David Hare).