Alan is the Chair of the Theatre Arts Department, the Director of the Division of Performing Arts and professor. He is also immediate past President of the National Association of Schools of Theatre. During the summer he is Artistic Director of the Acting Ensemble, an Equity company-in-residence at the Bread Loaf School in Vermont. He has served as Associate Director of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence Rhode Island, and for 10 years was Director of the Program in Theatre and Dance at Princeton University. He has directed major productions for the Cleveland Playhouse, Trinity Repertory Company, North Light Theatre in Chicago, TheatreWorks in California, the McCarter Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre at the Folger, the Theatre of the Riverside Church in New York, and other companies. He is also a playwright whose works have been performed in New York, California, and elsewhere.

Alan is a recipient of the Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, and is a Collegiate Fellow in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.