Alan Poul has had a distinguished career as both a director of television and a producer of features and television. Over the past twenty years, he has received an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Producers Guild Awards, four GLAAD Awards and three Peabody Awards. He served as Executive Producer of HBO’s Six Feet Under for the show's entire five-season run. Last year he Executive Produced and directed four episodes of CBS’ provocative 1970's-era drama Swingtown. In 2003, Poul was nominated for both a directing Emmy and a Directors Guild Award for the Six Feet Under episode, “Nobody Sleeps.” Poul has also directed multiple episodes of HBO’s historical epic Rome and polygamous family drama Big Love. In features, Poul produced the Fox Searchlight film Woman on Top (2000), directed by Fina Torres and starring Penelope Cruz. Other features he has produced include Skip Woods’ debut film Thursday (1998), Scott Winant’s Til There was You (1995), Monique Gardenberg’s The Interview (Jenipapo) (1996), and the Clive Barker/Bernard Rose horror classic Candyman (1992). He is making his feature directing debut with the romantic comedy The Back-Up Plan, starring Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin, which opens in January, 2010.

Prominent in Poul’s other TV work has been his close collaboration with author Armistead Maupin, resulting in three TV miniseries based on Maupin’s Tales of the City books (Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City), each of which was nominated for an Emmy award. He also produced the beloved series My So-Called Life for ABC, the Peabody Award-winning Rock the Vote Special (1992), and the Emmy-winning PBS documentary series The Pacific Century (1990). Poul currently serves on the Board of Directors of Film Independent. He has previously served on the boards of The Producers Guild of America, GLAAD, and Outfest. His writings have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Variety, Film Comment, and Egg Magazine.

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