Kimberly Senior's directing career has taken her from Chicago and the suburbs to Broadway

Standing in a library at age 7, the ever-inquisitive Kimberly Senior realized for the first time she'd never be able to read all the books that had been written. When her mother pointed out that writers would continue to publish, the earnest youngster responded "they have to stop."

"That's my nature," Senior explained. "It's driven by my curiosity."

Curiosity - coupled with her energy - has served the sought-after theater director well. Her career has taken her from suburban theaters and Chicago storefronts to Broadway. Her latest production, Dan Rather's solo show "Dan Rather: Stories of a Lifetime," premiered off-Broadway in February shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation.

Over the last 25 years, Senior has taught, raised a family and directed 200 plays in 20-plus cities, including Chicago - which the former Evanston resident considers her artistic home.

"I always try to explain that magic," said Senior, who returned to her native New Jersey several years ago after two decades here. "If I could have my way, I'd still live here."

Senior's introduction to Chicago and its incomparable theater scene came after college during a summer internship at Steppenwolf Theatre in the 1990s.

Impressed by the ensemble-based aesthetic, Midwestern work ethic and the do-it-yourself grit that defines the storefront theater scene, Senior remained for 20 years, directing for small and large theaters in the city and suburbs.

Senior arrived knowing little about the local scene except for Steppenwolf, where she did odd jobs for minimum wage - mostly anonymously it would seem, if an early exchange with Martha Lavey was any indication. Senior recalls encountering Steppenwolf's longtime artistic director, who asked "do you work here?" Eventually, Lavey became Senior's mentor, championing her work for 21 years until Lavey's death in 2017.

When not working at Steppenwolf, Senior spent her time seeing shows and seeking jobs. In 1997, she and some fellow theater artists founded Collaboraction Theatre Company, where she remains an emeritus member. Four years later, Senior directed her first hit, Greg Owens' "The Life and Times of a Tulsa Love Child: A Road Trip."

Her career was sparked by a favor for a friend who was scheduled to direct a one-act play for a festival but had to drop out. Senior, then an undergraduate theater major at Connecticut College, stepped in at the last minute and earned praise for her efforts.

"I guess I direct plays now," recalls Senior, who to this day is more comfortable sitting on the floor with theater colleagues than standing in front of them.

"I like to help people be good at what they do," said Senior, who 20 years ago taught briefly at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights.

Senior not only knows her subject, but also she does her homework, said Northlight Theatre artistic director BJ Jones, who met Senior more than 15 years ago when she was one of the Skokie theater's teaching artists.

"She was as she is now, a fireball," Jones said of Senior, who directed Northlight's "Discord," "4000 Miles" and "The Whipping Man."

Playwrights love her, said Jones, referring to Senior's reputation for shepherding new plays and for collaborating with her fellow artists.

"She invites actors into the creative process and she's very collaborative with her design team," said Jones, adding "everybody gets a chance to talk."

In addition to Northlight, her Chicago-area directing credits range from storefront theaters Strawdog and redtwist to Writers and TimeLine theaters to Goodman (where she is an artistic associate). On Broadway, she directed Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Disgraced" in 2014. She also helmed the 2011 premiere of that play at American Theater Company in Chicago and went on to direct the play seven times in five years.

For Senior, every production is special.

"It's just as thrilling to be at an opening night above a Mexican restaurant as it is to be on 44th Street" in New York City, Senior said.

"I'm the luckiest person in the American theater," she added. "Almost everything I've done I've got to do more than once."

Theater is a living thing, she said. And while the play doesn't change, people do.

"As a person, I change. As an artist, I change. So my relationship to the material changes," she said. "A play exists in the moment it was written and in the moment we're hearing it as well."