Can’t fence in Kenny Leon

The artistic director of Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company had been checking in with his New York agent when he paid for his meal, finding out that producers for ABC’s “Private Practice” loved his director’s cut of the episode that aired Thursday.

Oh, but everyone loves Kenny these days, and seems to want on his increasingly complicated schedule. You think you’re busy? Try his calendar on for size.

He got back from Los Angeles, where he did his final edit on “Private Practice,” on Jan. 23, prepared for a True Colors board meeting, and then went right into rehearsals for his multi-culti take on Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” But before it begins previews today at Southwest Arts Center, there was other business to conduct.

He was supposed to fly to New York last Tuesday to complete casting for his biggest Broadway splash ever, a production of August Wilson’s “Fences” starring Denzel Washington. Yep, that Denzel Washington.

There was a train trip to Boston, to manage the transfer from Washington D.C.’s Arena Stage to the Huntington Theatre Company of his production of the family comedy “Stick Fly.”

Then, in a little over a week’s time, he went from Atlanta (tech rehearsals), then back to Boston (first preview, returned to Atlanta (more tech rehearsals), then went back to Boston (opening night).

He will return to Atlanta for “Our Town’s” opening on Thursday. On Friday, he’s New York-bound for three days of work on a musical, “Ivory Joe Cole,” by True Colors associate artistic director Todd Kreidler.

After all that frequent flying for work, Leon and girlfriend Jennifer Thompson are supposed to “disappear” for eight days starting next Sunday to some sunny spot, probably Jamaica. Leon’s requirements for the getaway: “It’s got to be hot, there’s got to be golf, it’s got to be quiet.”

But while he plans to give his BlackBerry a rest, too — only “Fences” star Washington and producer Scott Rudin have permission to call — he’s not just going to be sunning and working on his 10 handicap. “I’m just going to get spiritual and pray and go inward and visualize the first week of ‘Fences,’ ” Leon says of his agenda.

Even Washington, known to be a high achiever, was awed by Leon’s recent playbill. The star told him, “Man, you’re the hardest-working man in America.”

Leon’s response: “I’m the hardest-working man who makes the least!”

But don’t cry for him, Alpharetta.

Leon’s stock has done nothing but soar since he ended his celebrated 11-year run as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre Company in 2001. The Drama League certified as much earlier this month when it informed Leon that he was the unanimous choice for its 2010 Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing, essentially a lifetime achievement award for a 53-year-old who by most estimations has yet to hit his creative peak.

Almost on cue, The New York Times reported that same day that Leon is in negotiations to direct a fall Broadway staging of “The Mountaintop,” which imagines events in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life the night before his assassination. It would be his fifth time directing on the Great White Way since 2004. That’s, remarkably, just one year after he launched True Colors, which quickly established itself as one of Atlanta’s top troupes.

But wait, first there’s “Fences.” Leon taking it to Broadway brings a very prolific period full circle. True Colors opened in 2003 with a production of the drama with playwright Wilson in attendance. That was quick work for a director who told the AJC at the time he announced his resignation from the Alliance in 2000 that he had “no idea what” he’d do. And then he added jokingly: “I’m going to need a job, man! Maybe McDonald’s has some openings.”

Leon was just McRibbing. In the same story, he acknowledged that the administrative part of running Atlanta’s largest theater was “a big drain” that took him away from “the art” that he loves. He said he hoped to spend 60 percent of his time directing and 40 percent either acting or producing new work or getting into independent films.

Which is not that far off from what Leon has done for the last decade, if you replace “getting into independent films” with his helming of a 2008 ABC film of “A Raisin in the Sun” (an adaptation of his 2004 Broadway revival), and episodes last summer of TV’s “Ghost Whisperer” and “Private Practice.”

No one was surprised when he started a multi-racial theater company while directing all over the country. While running the Alliance, he’d acted and directed regularly at leading regional companies. But what awes even longtime Leon watchers is just how intensely he has juggled and carved new opportunities in recent years.

“It’s the body of work — the sum of the parts is greater than the whole,” asserts Susan Weaving, Leon’s agent at the William Morris Agency in New York. “He has rock-solid relationships. When you work with Kenny Leon, you want to work with him again. And that’s the challenge, because he never has enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the year.”

Tom Key has watched his comrade’s career with respect and wonder since acting in the first play Leon directed at the Alliance Theatre, “T-Bone and Weasel,” in 1988.

“The most important thing to understand about Kenny is that he is an artist. He’s devoted his life to art not as a profession but as a calling. It’s his way of building bridges and leaving the world a better place,” the Theatrical Outfit artistic director says.

As is his way, Leon is excited by the unfolding opportunities and not self-impressed, confident in his ability to succeed without seeming cocky in the least.

“I’m a director,” he says. “I live to do this. To get to do this all the time is a blessing. So what, you catch a plane.”

Plus, he’s got help. Girlfriend Thompson “takes care of me,” Leon says, in addition to running his KL Productions, which pursues small documentary film projects. He has two trusted associates atop True Colors: managing director Wendy Riggs and Kreidler. And he has executive assistant Lico Whitfield, who describes his role thusly: “If Kenny was a band, I’d be the tour manager.”

What that means is that he keeps Leon abreast of his schedule while traveling, has a brain like Orbitz when flights get canceled, serves as a human GPS when his boss takes a wrong turn in L.A., and handles a lot of logistical conversations for the director when he’s in rehearsals and doesn’t need to be interrupted.

Make that can’t be interrupted. Leon’s BlackBerry is always off when he’s working, and if the pocket of a cast or crew member begins ringing, the director fines the guilty party $10 and makes everyone in the room do 10 push-ups.

For anyone who may wonder if Leon is going to show deference to Denzel, know this: Washington will do push-ups.

“If Phylicia Rashad can do push-ups,” the director says of his “Raisin” star, who won a Tony Award under his direction, “anyone can do push-ups.”

Leon has been talking every day for weeks to Washington, who will shoulder the heavy “Fences” role of Negro-League-baseball-star-turned-garbage-collector Troy Maxson. The idea is to get “on the same page” before they both get to New York.

“I’ve worked with famous actors and non-famous actors,” Leon says. “When you have that block of eight hours of a rehearsal day, your focus is those words on that page, and you can’t give one actor more time than another actor. You might have to do that outside of rehearsals.

“Denzel is looking for me to provide leadership. Every famous actor I’ve ever known has something in common: They want to be better. And I go from that approach. I’m going to help you deliver something that you’ve never delivered.”

Washington will be treated to a variety of “Leon-isms” — trademark sayings that help the director coax better performances.

A favorite one reveals the roots of this self-described “country boy” who was born in Tallahassee: “Put some mayo on it.”

Translation: Make that scene richer, deeper.

Or as he told the “Our Town” actors recently: “That was like a sandwich without the meat.”

Translation: The audience is getting the skeleton, but not the heart, of the scene.

The heart of the scene, rest assured, is where Kenny Leon earns his bread and, er, mayo.

Theater preview

"Our Town." Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company . Previews Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Opens Thursday, through March 21, at Southwest Arts Center, 915 New Hope Road, Atlanta. $20-$35. 1-877-725-8849, www.truecolorstheatre.org .