Catherine Tatge is a producer and director of film and television, and a partner with her husband Dominique Lasseur in Tatge/Lasseur Productions. For over 25 years, her work has encompassed many genres, from public affairs, performance, and dance, to biographies and the world of ideas. In 2007 she was the producer of a feature documentary entitled One on world religions featuring interviews with the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu among many others. She produced and directed a documentary on Walter Cronkite for American Masters.
In 1988, she changed American television as producer and director of Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, for which she received an Emmy Award. Her talent for translating intellectual material to the screen includes numerous works about spirit and the human condition – including her newest series, The Question of God, premiering on PBS in September 2004.
Her documentary films about creative genius include biographical portraits of Stella Adler, Martha Graham, Nadine Gordimer, Barbara Hendricks, Robert Motherwell, Dawn Upshaw, Derek Walcott, Tennessee Williams, and William Wyler. And her dance productions include notable collaborations with Alvin Ailey, American Indian Dance Theater, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine, the Central Ballet of China, Katherine Dunham, Bill T. Jones, Natalia Makarova, Pilobolus, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. Ms. Tatge brought her vast dance-film experience to the world of feature films and produced the New York City Ballet version of The Nutcracker, released by Warner Brothers.
Her arts documentaries include Art of the 21st Century, a PBS series about contemporary artists; Rings of Passion: Five Emotions in World Art, produced and directed with J. Carter Brown; and the IBM-funded series, The Creative Spirit.
Ms. Tatge’s close working relationship with Bill Moyers led to many projects: the ten-hour Genesis: A Living Conversation; the two-hour special Fooling with Words and the series Sounds of Poetry, both documenting the largest poetry event in the United States; the special What Can We Do About Violence?; three programs on the nature of hate—Beyond Hate, Facing Hate with Elie Wiesel, and Hate on Trial; and numerous interviews on Moyers: A World of Ideas.
In non-Moyers programming with related themes, she directed the television adaptation of Elizabeth Swados’ musical theater work The Hating Pot—about the perpetuation of racial and religious intolerance—and Breaking the Silence, about domestic violence.
Ms. Tatge was commissioned by the Congress of the United States to direct and produce an historical overview of the U.S. Congress, shown where party leaders and more than 300 U.S. representatives gathered to explore ways of restoring civility to the halls of Congress.
Among the series producers and networks with whom she has produced are PBS’ American Masters, Great Performances, and Alive TV series; Amaya Distribution; ARTE; BBC; Bravo; Caméras Continentales; France 3, and Ovation. Ms. Tatge has been honored with numerous awards including an Emmy Award, The DuPont Columbia Award, The ACE Award, The Humanitas Prize, The Chicago International Film Festival Gold Hugo Award, and The San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Award, among many others.