The director’s cut
Late last year, as the student performers at the A.R.T. Institute readied for their newest production, a reworked version of the brothers Grimm tale “Hansel and Gretel,” they turned to their leader for some last-minute direction. The show’s youthful director, Allegra Libonati, ran through the scenes with a watchful eye, tweaking movements and adjusting lines here and there. The 12-hour days in the run-up to the production are the norm for the resident director who has her hands in myriad theatrical projects — and couldn’t be happier about it. “I feel like the luckiest person alive,” Libonati said during a break from rehearsals. Libonati has theater in her DNA. Her mother was in the original Broadway production of “Grease” and appeared in the soap opera “One Life to Live.” Her father directed TV commercials and music videos, and occasionally cast his young daughter in bit parts, such as a street urchin in a...