James Lapine (b. 1949) is an American stage director and librettist. Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated from Franklin and Marshall College. He went to do graduate study in both photography and graphic design at the California Institute of the Arts. He was a photographer, graphic designer, and architectural preservationist before being introduced to theatre when he was hired as a scenic designer at Yale University. Lapine has won both the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical three times. He also is recipent of an Obie Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Lapine is married to screenwriter/director Sarah Kernochan. The couple's daughter is food writer Phoebe Lapine.
