Published in 1997, A Director Calls asked the question: 'what is the role of the director in late twentieth-century theatre'? In recent decades, theatre seems to have gone the way of film, where a director's vision takes priority over the writer's work. Is this a fair assertion, or merely the grumblings of an old guard which doesn't understand the needs of younger practitioners and younger audiences? Stephen Daldry has a reputation as a brilliant showman whose bold vision has revitalised the Royal Court in London. His detractors argue that Daldry's reputation as a director is founded on a triumph of style over content, an approach that injects startling freshness into existing texts but plays havoc with new work which has not yet found its place. His admirers insist that Daldry's vision goes beyond the purely spectacular, and that what he brings to plays, old and new, is a much needed sense of theatre's vitality. Which portrait is closer to the truth? Wendy Lesser had unique access to Stephen Daldry, his co-workers and his friends, and A Director Calls is a study of Daldry and his work in the context of theatre in the 1990s.