As Adolf Hitler’s shadow spreads over 1930s Germany, a gifted Jewish tap dancer is recruited to perform a one-night engagement in Director Shira Piven’s drama, The Performance.
Based on a short story by Arthur Miller, Piven’s film tells the tale of Harold May, an American Jew passing as a gentile, who alongside his troupe, must give their best show when they are recruited to give a one-night-only performance before a very “special guest” in a storied Berlin theater.
On December 28, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Piven discussed the making of The Performance during a Q&A moderated by Director Jade Jenise Dixon (Dog Park).
During the conversation, Piven shared how she works with her cast and crew.
“What I’ve discovered with doing film is that relationship between Actor and Director where I feel like I don’t want to get in the way of their impulses. Part of my training is improvisational. I feel like the minute I’m going to get in the way of their natural instincts I’m going to lose something. I feel that way also about department heads. I of course have a — I don’t love the word vision but there’s not a better word — I do have a vision of where we’re going but I like to really elicit from every department head what they’re good at, what they bring to the table — Editors, Production Designers, Costumers. Of course, it’s a balance because if what they’re bringing to the table is out of left field, I will communicate this specific [vision]. And the more they give the more I get inspired and the more specific I get with my notes to them.”
Piven’s other directorial credits include the feature films Fully Loaded and Welcome to Me; the mini-series The Kellyanne Conway Story; and episodes of One Mississippi, Transparent, Claws, Sweetbitter, Divorce and Room 104.
Piven has been a DGA member since 2013.