WITH YUVAL SHARON

Over the course of six years associate directing for MacArthur Genius fellow and opera luminary Yuval Sharon, I helped develop paradigm-shifting, multi-million dollar productions at premiere opera houses in the US.

Called "the greatest director of spectacle in America" by the LA Times, each project required vastly complex and elaborate production models while navigating pandemic safety issues and support structures pushed to new levels of flexibility.

For the world premiere of Lyric Opera’s Proximity, I provided dramaturgical support on the history of Black gangs in Chicago for a libretto by legendary theater icon Anna Deavere Smith based on the theme of gun violence in Chicago.

In the fall of 2020 we debuted Twilight: Gods, an adaptation of Wagner's Götterdämerung staged as various scenarios in a multi-level parking garage in Detroit. This work was nationally celebrated as a bold new model of possibility while most institutions remained in pandemic hibernation.

In 2018 we collaborated on the Los Angeles Philharmonic production of John Cage’s Europeras 1 & 2, a mammoth logistical undertaking involving 19 singers performing 140 randomly selected opera arias in 114 random costumes on a soundstage at Sony Studios in Culver City, CA.

I often refer to working with Sharon as ‘my grad school in opera directing.’ Watching him in action as artistic director, reading his latest book recommends and having conversations with him on the state of opera in the US have had a foundational impact on my artistic journey.