Steven Williford is a veteran stage and television director who made his theatrical feature debut in 2011 with THE GREEN, starring Jason Butler Harner, Illeana Douglas, Cheyenne Jackson, and Julia Ormond. The film garnered several Best Direction and Best Film festival awards, and received its television premiere on Showtime in 2012.  Steven has directed more than seventy stage productions Off-Broadway, in major regional theaters, and in academic institutions throughout the country. He has also served on the directing teams of five network soaps, currently on the CBS daytime drama, The Young and the Restless.  Among the awards for his work, Steven received the 2018 Daytime Emmy Award for Directing on NBC’s Days of our Lives.  Other broadcast work includes the pilot episodes of The Edge of Allegiance (Funny or Die), a political satire created and written by Eric Rudnick, that follows the antics of the Mt. Rushmore presidents as contemporary cable news network pundits.

Steven’s stage work has been seen Off-Broadway and at a host of regional theaters stretching from Connecticut’s Long Wharf Theater to the Tacoma Actors’ Guild. His New York productions include the premieres of Walking Down Broadway by Dawn Powell, Halfway Home by Diane Bank, and Pera Palas by Sinan Ünel.  On the regional circuit, he has directed more than forty productions including modern classics, plays by established contemporary authors, and work by new playwrights.

Steven’s regional theater work commenced with six seasons as the artistic director of the New Harmony Theatre, a then-nascent regional theater company being developed by the University of Southern Indiana. The appointment was instrumental in Steven’s growth as a director and producer.  His first charge was to build the new company’s reputation for high-caliber, professional theater.  He tackled that challenge by pulling together a community of seasoned theatre artists from around the nation and in doing so, he was able to set and maintain high standards of excellence in every aspect of production. His work tested and proved the axiomatic challenge, “If you build it, they will come…” – even to the hinterlands of the Midwest.

After his first season with NHT, Steven was engaged to create and implement a similar rigorous plan of growth for the University’s theater-training program. He joined the faculty as head of the division and for the subsequent five years, shepherded the expansion of the curriculum, the faculty and staff – and supervised the renovation of the classrooms, shops and production facilities.  Along with his administrative work at USI, Steven discovered a true passion for teaching. He continues to seize every occasion offered to get back in the classroom with acting, directing and production design students.

Having met the goals of his five-year plans for both the theatre company and the university program in Indiana, Steven returned to New York and free-lance directing. The move also allowed him to recommit to his long-standing interests in working on new plays.

Steven’s work in the field of new plays/new playwrights includes five years as the resident director of the Lark Play Development Center in New York.  At the Lark, he mentored new and mid-career playwrights and directed numerous workshop productions and readings.  He also worked on new projects for Manhattan Theatre Club, Primary Stages, Cherry Lane, Rattlestick, Naked Angels, Wooly Mammoth, Hudson Stage, Stamford Theater Festival, Provincetown Theater Company and enjoyed two seasons with the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

Over the last several years, Steven has integrated his theatre work with directing network television daytime drama. That work includes ABC’s All My Children, the landmark CBS soaps As the World Turns and Guiding Light, and NBC’s Days of our Lives — for which he was honored with the 2018 Daytime Emmy Directing Team Award.  He is currently a staff director for The Young and the Restless, on CBS.

Steven expanded the scope of his work to include filmmaking in 2011 with his first narrative feature, The Green.  Based on his original story idea, with a screenplay by Paul Marcarelli, the film was produced by Table Ten Films and distributed by Cinetic/Film Buff.  The Green debuted on the festival circuit in July of 2011 and garnered a number of awards including three citations for Best Direction.  It premiered on Showtime in February 2012, and is available on all major streaming platforms and in DVD release through a wide variety of retailers.

Steven is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.  He holds a BFA in Acting & Directing from East Carolina University, and an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington in Seattle.