Trading a Stage for the Small Screen : SOME STAGE DIRECTORS ARE FINDING STEADY WORK IN TV

Steve Zuckerman was a successful free-lance theater director working on Broadway (Tom Topor’s “Nuts”) and off-Broadway (Christopher Durang’s “Better Dead Than Sorry”).

But five years ago Zuckerman left his life in the theater and entered the world of television sitcoms. He just completed his third season as director of NBC’s popular comedy series “Empty Nest.”

Zuckerman is just one of many theater directors, including Barnet Kellman (“Murphy Brown”), Tom Moore (“thirtysomething,” “L.A. Law”), Matthew Diamond (“Drexel’s Class”) and John Pasquin (“Home Improvement”), who have branched out into television.

He said he left New York because he found it increasingly difficult to make a living in the theater.

“The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers has 1,000 members in it,” Zuckerman said. “In 1989, there were 15 members of the union who made over $50,000 a year; eight of them were British and three of them were deceased. That is really scary.”

Zuckerman saw the handwriting on the wall in 1985. That year, he was in the running for the position of artistic director of the Hartman Theater Company in Stamford, Conn. “I wanted that more than anything in my life,” he said.

But he didn’t get the job, and the theater closed its doors within a year.

Fate stepped in when he got a call from the executive producer of NBC’s “Another World,” asking him to direct episodes of the daytime soap. Zuckerman decided to take the offer. In 1987, he came to Los Angeles and began directing such sitcoms as “My Sister Sam,” “Duet” and “The Golden Girls.” He joined “Empty Nest” as its sole director during its second season.

Tony-nominated Tom Moore (“ ‘night Mother,” “Grease”), who has directed episodes of “thirtysomething,” “L.A. Law,” “The Wonder Years” and “Cheers,” said TV producers are increasingly hiring stage directors because they “have an inherent sense of drama, which is very useful in terms of shaping the script because that is what you are trained to do.”

“They are realizing they don’t need someone (just) to push cameras around,” Zuckerman said.

Gary David Goldberg, the creator and executive producer of such acclaimed series as “Family Ties” and CBS’ “Brooklyn Bridge,” has given several local directors their big break, including “Brooklyn Bridge” producer and director Sam Weisman, who directed several award-winning productions at The Matrix, Pasadena Playhouse and South Coast Repertory.

One of the reasons Goldberg prefers stage directors is because he tends to use actors with theatrical backgrounds.

In the case of “Family Ties,” Goldberg said, “there was a certain need that they had to have scenes explained and broken down. (Theater directors) work that way. We worked as if we were a small rep, a small theater troupe. Basically our method of working involved rewriting, rehearsing, rewriting, rehearsing, with a great amount of collaboration between writers, actors and directors. We needed someone who could speak the language. Sam Weisman is a guy who loves actors. He was an actor and he understands them.”

Weisman, who directed nearly 70 episodes of “Family Ties” and spent a year on “Moonlighting,” said he prefers not to move around because then he wouldn’t be able to “influence” a series.

“I had a lot of influence on (“Family Ties”) when I would be there,” he said. “I was just involved in all of it. Later, on ‘American Dreamer’ with Gary, I produced and directed all the episodes. They hire a director to make the show work and, in my experience, they are looking to me to get performances and to shape characters.”

On the other hand, Moore said he wants to continue working as a free-lance TV director. “You get to meet so many different people and experiment with so many different visual techniques because they are all shot differently,” he explained. “I think I might get restless if I am on one show all the time.”

Moore is one of the few stage directors who is still able to make a living in the theater. “I had the incredible fortune to have a couple of very successful Broadway shows early on in my career,” Moore said. “But when I give speeches to young directors, I tell them (to do television ) because I don’t think you can make a career just in theater any more.”

Weisman has no plans to direct theater again. “I just got sick of it,” he said. “I find the theater in L.A. is always a second-class citizen. I have kind of lost interest.”

But Zuckerman hasn’t. “I will do plays,” he said. “I have done plays since I have been out here. I did ‘Once in a Lifetime’ at La Jolla Playhouse. The past few years I have been very busy doing TV and loving it.”

Despite the exodus of directors from the theater to TV, Zuckerman said he believes the art form will never die. “Though everybody complains how expensive Broadway theater is, theater will never die because it is the cheapest of all forms. All you need is an actor, an audience and some words and you have theater. It will always be there.”

“Empty Nest” airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on NBC . “Brooklyn Bridge ‘s “ season finale airs Monday at 8:30 p.m. on CBS.