American theater director Sheldon Epps shares his experience as a black man in the industry in his new book.

Sheldon Epps has become a leader in American theater, directing major productions on Broadway and earning Tony Award nominations. But his journey in theater started at just 8 years old.

It started with a production of the play “The Member of the Wedding” at Pasadena Playhouse, where Epps would later serve as artistic director.

“(That) is the day I really fell in love with going to the theater and having the experience of being in the same room with the play, the excitement of seeing live theater,” Epps said. “That began my theater-going, which eventually led to my life in theater.”

Epps considers himself “lucky” to have had early exposure to the arts. His father, a Presbyterian minister, took Epps to see a jazz or dance concert every Saturday morning.

But Epps did not always want to pursue a career in theater. His early career aspirations were to be a trial lawyer — which Epps describes as having its own sense of theatricality — but throughout high school, he started acting in school productions.

Once Epps was a senior in high school, he decided he wanted to make a career out of theater, which his parents supported “after a few moments of silence.” They only had one condition: he had to go to college.

So Epps graduated from Carnegie Mellon as an acting major and started a professional career, but he eventually realized that acting wasn’t his true calling.

“I was making a living and doing okay, but it wasn’t really satisfying me all that much,” Epps said. “I felt that as an actor, you have little control over your own destiny. You have to wait for that opportunity to audition and then wait for somebody to hire you. As a director, you can create projects, you can propose projects, you can at least put them forward to producers and theaters and say ‘This is something I want to do.’”

In 1980, Epps made his debut as a director with the off-Broadway production that he created, “Blues in the Night,” a musical review of jazz and blues musicians. Epps describes his idea to create this production as a “light bulb moment.”

“You get these ideas and you get passionate about it, then you just go after trying to … create that world stage,” Epps said. “And in this case, it was creating an environment where these great blues and jazz songs could be sung not just by singers, but by actors portraying characters so that the songs become stories of their lives.”

Since then, Epps has directed and conceived musicals both on and off Broadway, including the Broadway production of the Duke Ellington musical “Play On!” which earned three Tony Award nominations.

Epps describes what has been most rewarding about his career as a director.

“I love that collaborative process,” Epps said. “And I love being taught by my fellow collaborators and discovering with them what a play is all about. And then once you get to previews and performances, to see your work come alive and be changed by reactions from an audience … that for me is always a great experience to know that a play is really connecting with an audience.”

In 1997, Epps returned to the roots of his theater career and became the artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse. He describes how he had two “missions” when he came to the playhouse.

“One was to attempt to make it a great theater,” Epps said. “Not just a good theater or not just a theater that was producing, but to try and make it a great theater because I have seen great theaters in this country and in Europe. So I knew it was possible. I really wanted to focus on artistic excellence.”

His second goal concerned diversity.

“It was a very white theater, both on-stage and off,” Epps said. “And I thought that was fundamentally wrong … It was very important to me to work with and by artists of color, and then to attract more people of color into the audience.”

Epps, as one of the first black leaders of American theater, is familiar with the struggles the industry has with a lack of diversity.

“The challenge was that the theater world wanted to put you in the box as a person of color,” Epps said. “There were certain things I was told I could do, but lots of things I was told I couldn’t or shouldn’t do, limitations that were set on me at that time that many, many black artists have dealt with because the outside world wants to define who and what you are.”

These limitations included being expected to do only plays by black writers, a phenomenon that Epps refers to as the “black box.” He explains how when he started as artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse, it was extremely rare for a black man to lead a non-ethnic theater company.

Epps’ new book, “My Own Directions: A Black Man’s Journey in the American Theatre,” explores the difficulties racial minorities face in the industry and how aspiring artists can combat them.

“It’s specifically a book about what it’s meant to have a career as a black man in the American theater with those challenges and with the desire to overcome these challenges and move beyond people’s expectations,” Epps said. “I hope that the story is inspiring, especially to young artists, and particularly young artists of color who are still facing some of those same challenges as a way of saying ‘If I can do it, you can do it, and I hope that you will.’”

The book, which came out in September of this year, is available for purchase on Amazon. Epps hopes that the book can help all people, not just artists in theater.

“I hope that people will read the book, no matter what they’re doing … and realize that they should find their own directions and follow their own directions and not be defined by what other people expect you to do or tell you to do or tell you that you can’t do,” Epps said. “But realize that you can do whatever you want if you put your mind and passion to it.”