From 2003 to 2011, he served as associate artistic director at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and from 2012 to 2018 he was artistic director of Actors Theatre of Louisville.
In the last 10 years, his shows have ranked among the year's best in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, USA Today, Time Out New York and The Guardian. His productions in New York have been seen on Broadway and at Playwrights Horizons, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Signature Theatre, National Asian American Theatre Company, The Public Theatre, Second Stage, The Connelly Theatre, Clubbed Thumb and Soho Rep. Regional productions include. Steppenwolf Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Huntington Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, and American Repertory Theatre. He is both the subject and a co-author of The Theatre of Les Waters: More like the Weather, edited by Scott T Cummings, published by Routledge, 2022.