Jennifer Williams
Stage Director
Acclaimed by The San Francisco Chronicle as an “imaginative” director of “particular ingenuity,” Jennifer Williams’ recent engagements include the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Komische Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, San Francisco Opera Center, The Glimmerglass Festival, and Houston Grand Opera, where she was a staff director and Drama Coach for the Houston Grand Opera Studio. She recently directed acclaimed new productions of Mohammed Fairouz’s Sumeida’s Song and Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek’s 27 (Pittsburgh Opera); “consistently imaginative” and “extraordinarily beautiful” new productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Les contes d’Hoffmann and La bohème (Miami Music Festival); Ariadne auf Naxos (Austin Opera); and Backwards from Winter, a monodrama for soprano, electric cello and computer (world premiere, Center for Contemporary Opera). 2018/19 highlights include making her Kennedy Center debut as Francesca Zambello’s Associate Director (La traviata) and directing new productions of Amahl and the Night Visitors for Michigan Opera Theatre, Ainadamar and Dark Sisters for Miami Music Festival, The Crucible for Berlin Opera Academy, an immersive double bill of Holst’s Sāvitri and John Blow and Anne Finch’s 1682 Venus and Adonis (New Camerata Opera), and the world premieres of Crude Capital and Mary Motorhead for Beth Morrison Projects at National Sawdust.
Ms. Williams was the Apprentice Stage Director for the San Francisco Opera Merola Opera Program, directing a critically acclaimed Merola Grand Finale at the War Memorial Opera House. Other recent directing engagements include immersive, site-specific installations of The Turn of the Screw (featuring an aerialist-soprano performing the role of Miss Jessel from a trapeze and interactive video projections), Don Giovanni (The Mayflower Hotel, set in present-day Washington), Così fan tutte (a Warhol-inspired production in DC’s waterfront art gallery, The Torpedo Factory), La bohème (DC’s historic 19th-century market, Eastern Market Hall), and Schubert’s Goethe-Lieder (staged in the round in the Austrian Embassy); new productions of Three Decembers, Le nozze di Figaro, La clemenza di Tito, Rigoletto, La Cenerentola, a fully staged Saint Matthew Passion, L’île de Tulipatan, Slow Dusk, and The Offshore Pirate (world premiere); a gala concert featuring Carl Tanner, Marianne Cornetti and Angela Meade led by maestro Antony Walker; and bel canto scenes at Glimmerglass’s Alice Busch Opera Theater led by maestro Joseph Colaneri.
A Fulbright Scholar, Ms. Williams holds an Artist Diploma in Opera Stage Directing from CCM, a Ph.D. in Theatre History and Criticism from Cornell University and an A.B. with honors in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities from the University of Chicago.
Represented by Quarterline Artist Management. www.jenniferwilliamsdirector.com