master class; With "The Odd Couple"'s arrival on Broadway, director Joe Mantello proves he's one of a kind.(Interview)

Coming off three incredible seasons and two Tony awards, Joe Mantello, at 42, has emerged as the most protean, accomplished theater director of his generation, heir to a line descended from Elia Kazan and Mike Nichols. During his fifteen-year career, he has staged works by a Mount Rushmore of contemporary dramatists, traversing far-flung genres from comic monologues (The Santaland Diaries) and bruising two-handers (Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune) to mordant chamber musicals (Assassins) and big-budget song-and-dance confections (Wicked).

Throughout, Mantello has shown a particular gift for capturing the Darwinian group dynamics of men thrown together by choice or by chance, most recently in his crackling revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. This month, the director continues to navigate male bonding's rocky shoals as he takes the helm of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick's eagerly awaited reunion, in the new Broadway revival of Neil Simon's classic 1965 comedy The Odd Couple.

On a late-summer afternoon, Mantello, slight and boyish-looking, lounges on a couch in the airy Sag Harbor house he used to share with the playwright Jon Robin Baitz (they split up in 2002 but remain close) and discusses his professional affinity for the company of men. "There's something about being in a room with a bunch of guys that-all joking aside-I'm comfortable with," he says. "They size each other up and establish the pecking order within the first few minutes, and everyone knows where they stand. It's real clear, and it ain't complicated."

As it happens, Mantello made his name as a director leading an all-male cast, in 1995's Love! Valour! Compassion!, Terrence McNally's elegiac comedy about romance, friendship, and mortality among eight gay men sharing a summerhouse. Though Mantello had staged only a handful of off-Broadway plays before then, his production showed the sure touch of a natural. It also marked the beginning of a long collaboration with McNally, who had insisted on the young director despite his producers' misgivings. "I was always impressed with the simplicity and leanness-the austerity, almost-of Joe's work," McNally recalls. "He has a strong sense of how a play should feel, and a painterly eye for composition-not to mention a genius for casting."

Meticulously chosen casts and seamless ensemble acting have become hallmarks of Mantello's productions. Whether it is a gay center fielder's freaked-out teammates in Take Me Out, a (mostly) men's club of all-American killers in Assassins, or a venal pack of real estate peddlers in Glengarry Glen Ross, one feels the presence of human beings inextricably bound together. Take Me Out's author Richard Greenberg appreciates Mantello's ability to elicit honest, tightly knit performances. "At times I wasn't even sure a rehearsal was going on," he says. "Joe would be off talking to his assistant, and the guys would just be hanging around, playing catch. But, of course, an atmosphere was being created, and the actors were learning how to function as a team."

It should come as no surprise that Mantello used to be an actor himself: he earned a 1993 Tony nomination for his bravely unsentimental swan song as a feckless lover in Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Among those lucky enough to have worked under Mantello since he changed careers, he is known for his instinctual grasp of process, his ability to draw out award-winning ...