Jan Eliasberg


Jan Pringle Eliasberg is an American film, theatre, and television director and writer.

Life and career

Eliasberg is from New York City. She is the daughter of Ann Pringle Harris, an English teacher at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Jay Eliasberg, a retired vice president for research at the Columbia Broadcast Group.
She graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University and earned a Master's degree at Yale School of Drama.
In 1973, she co-founded Second Stage at Wesleyan, an organization of students dedicated to producing theater and other performances, which may be the country's first solely student-run volunteer theater organization.
Eliasberg began her television directing career in 1986 directing an episode of Cagney & Lacey. Later that year, she was hand-picked by Michael Mann to direct an episode of Miami Vice, becoming the first of only three female directors of that series. She directed two more Miami Vice episodes in 1987, including "Contempt of Court" starring Stanley Tucci.
She was also the first woman to direct Michael Mann's Crime Story, as well as Wiseguy. Her other television directing credits include multiple episodes of Nashville, The Magicians, Blue Bloods, NCIS;Los Angeles, Parenthood, Criminal Minds, 21 Jump Street, Dawson's Creek, Sisters, Early Edition, Party of Five, among many other notable series.
She was fired from directing How I Got into College only five days into filming.
She has directed such plays as Spring Awakening, Peer Gynt, Hedda Gabler, The Threepenny Opera, the American premiere of Howard Brenton's Sore Throats and The Importance of Being Earnest''.

Personal life

In 1991, Eliasberg married Neil Alan Friedman, a studio executive at Columbia Pictures. They divorced in 2008. They have a daughter, Sariel Hana Friedman.

Directorial work

Television