The real estate business is not unlike a complex stage production, with every player’s role intertwined with the next – a fact few know better than Daphna Fields.

Fields, herself a trained stage actor, director and teacher, was recently named the regional vice president for the Boston metro region for Coldwell Banker, overseeing 16 offices. She reflected on a career ranging from the Boston Conservatory to a Jamaica Plain neighborhood realty office.

Daphna Fields

Title: Regional Vice President for the Boston Area at Coldwell Banker

Age: 46

Experience: 11 years

Let’s start with a little bit about your background. Were you born in a broker’s chair?

[Laughs] No, not at all. My background is in theater. I have a master’s degree in theater, both undergrad and graduate school was for theater, and right before I started in real estate I was on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory, teaching acting for five years. Not your typical move into business. But I was exposed to real estate just through family – helping people move, finding rental properties. I loved the whole process, and learned a lot about it, and I found that some of the Realtors I worked with actually thought I was representing my family as a Realtor, just because I really threw myself into it. So it was always in the back of my mind as something maybe someday I would like to do. And then after being on the faculty for five years, I had young kids… a few months old and a two year old. I was commuting back and forth, and after five years I thought it was maybe time, as much as I love theater, to take a temporary break from it –so much for [temporary]! I assumed like many others going into real estate sales that it would be easy, flexible. And it wasn’t easy or flexible. But it was fascinating. I really enjoyed it, threw myself into it, and I did well. I loved the process of getting all the puzzle pieces together for someone, getting the right kind of home for them, or getting the right kind of buyer, if they were a seller. And in many ways it was a lot like theater…though I had trained as an actress, I had worked a lot as a director. And as a director – very much like what I do in management, now – my job was really to oversee the different pieces of the puzzle, the different elements. So I had all the different designers, the actors in the production – or all the different players in the transaction, in real estate – and together we all shared the same goal.

Recently, you’ve moved from managing a single branch in Jamaica Plain to overseeing 16 offices across metro Boston. Tell me a little bit more about your new role.

I’ve always been a very big-picture person. As much as I love working with the agents in Jamaica Plain and being very hands on with them, now I get to do that on a larger scale. Despite it all being in the Boston region, there’s so many different, diverse types of housing stock, and each office has its own culture, its own approach, each manager that I will work with. I just went on a grand tour with the general manager last week, and over two days we visited all my region’s offices. And it was just amazing to start to get a glimpse of the different challenges in each marketplace and their different strengths.

Do you see different needs out there in terms of the agents, in order to bring them where you want them to be?

Every office is a reflection of their marketplace, and their different culture, and their different clientele. Some offices maybe have a higher number of newer agents to this business in general, or newer to be dealing with this kind of a market, so I’ll be focusing on more education opportunities for them, and maybe some coaching with their manager, which we do a lot of.

Do you see any connection today between your previous career and you current, more behind-the-scenes job? I presume as an actor, you think the most interesting role is the one you’re doing in the play.

Yes, you kind of do. Because I studied acting and sort of fell into directing…a lot of my acting friends used to say to me, ‘Why are you directing now? Isn’t it all about the actors and all about being on stage? You don’t get the applause!’ And I’d say, ‘You get the applause and then some. You get the applause for everybody!’ It was really through doing that that I found a love for teaching and coaching others, and that’s what I still do in my role [today].

Top Five Stage Productions Fields Has Appeared In Or Directed:

• The Crackwalker That’ll have to be number one, because that’s where I met my husband.
• Richard III I played King Richard’s mother; I loved complex, meaty roles.
• Spike Heels That was a lighthearted, funny comedy I directed. I’ll never forget sitting at the back of the theater and seeing the audience crack up.
• A Rosen By Any Other Name It stands out because the main character is a young boy who’s learning about his Jewish identity.
• The Last Daredevil One of the only productions I’ve both acted in and directed…it was about a daredevil who was aging and no longer in his glory. Raunchy and fun.