Julie Hébert is an award-winning writer/director/producer of television, film and theater. Of Cajun descent, she grew up on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana.
Hébert has written and directed such hit shows as
American Crime (2015),
Boss (2011),
The West Wing (1999),
ER (1994), among other shows. She wrote the screenplays for
Ruby's Bucket of Blood (2001), starring
Angela Bassett, and
Female Perversions (1996), starring
Tilda Swinton, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work for film has been praised as "intriguingly complex" (Variety) and "pulsing with veracity" (LA Times), with "a raw power that is impossible to dismiss" (Roger Ebert). She has won accolades for her television work, including a George Foster Peabody Award, a Prism Award, an Environmental Media Award, as well as being nominated for the Emmy and WGA awards.
Hébert started her creative life as a theater director in San Francisco and was fortunate to work extensively with
Sam Shepard. She met him at the Eureka Theater while directing his play Cowboy Mouth, which he wrote with
Patti Smith. She oversaw the direction of Shepard's award-winning New York production of "Fool for Love", starring
Ed Harris and
Kathy Baker. She went on to direct the Steppenwolf production of Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind", and an award-winning production of "Fool for Love" with
Moses Gunn and
Pam Grier at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. She also took the play on tour throughout Japan.
Hébert has directed plays by David Mamet, Caryl Churchill, Dario Fo, José; Rivera, Lucinda Coxon, Heiner Muller, and others at some of the most daring theaters throughout the country.