Face. However, the avant-garde approach of Sellars and librettist Timothy Mayer clashed with the more traditional take of star Tommy Tune, who eventually took over as the director. As Sellars told The New York Times, it was a struggle "between the forces of Brecht and the forces of The Pajama Game." In 1984, Sellars he was named director and manager of the American National Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. at the age of 26 he held this post until 1986. During his time in Washington, Sellars staged a production of The Count of Monte Cristo, in a version by James O'Neill, featuring Richard Thomas, Patti LuPone, Zakes Mokae, and other noted performers. The production had a set design by George Tsypin, with costumes by Dunya Ramicova, and lighting by James F. Ingalls. He also directed productions of Idiot's Delight by Robert Sherwood, and Sophocles's Ajax, as adapted by Robert Auletta. Sellars was Artistic Director of the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles Festivals, presenting works of talented artists such as the late Iranian director Reza Abdoh, and playwright Frank Ambriz. Sellars produced the three operas by Mozart with libretti by da Ponte, Così fan tutte (set in a diner on Cape Cod), The Marriage of Figaro (set in a luxury apartment in New York City's Trump Tower), and Don Giovanni (set in New York City's Spanish Harlem, cast and costumed as a blaxploitation movie), in collaboration with Emmanuel Music and its Artistic Director, Craig Smith. The productions were met with great critical acclaim, recorded in Austria by ORF in 1989, subsequently televised by PBS, and later revived at MC93 Bobigny (Paris) and the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona). Sellars directed one feature film, The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez, a silent color film starring Joan Cusack, Peter Gallagher, Ron Vawter, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. He co-wrote and was featured in Jean-Luc Godard's film of the Shakespeare play King Lear. The Salzburg and Glyndebourne Festivals invited Sellars to produce operas, including Olivier Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise, Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, John Adams's and Alice Goodman's Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, and Kaija Saariaho's L'amour de loin. Sellars also staged Handel's opera Giulio Cesare and oratorio Theodora, and Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, in addition to I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I