Hot on the heels of his successful in your face Broadway staging of "Cabaret" (1998), innovative and iconoclastic British stage director Sam Mendes made the leap to features with his 1999 debut "American Beauty". In 1990, at only 25 years old, Mendes began directing for the Royal Shakespeare Company, his credits including "Troilus and Cressida" with Ralph Fiennes and "The Alchemist" (both 1991). The prolific director additionally took on Sean O'Casey's "The Plough and the Stars" at the Old Vic Theatre and "The Sea" for the National Theatre Company that same year. He next directed "The Rise and