I’ve always been fascinated with storytelling. I was lucky enough to have parents and grandparents who not just supported but encouraged my creativity and inquisitive mind. When I expressed an interest in classical music, I was given a series of record albums on the great composers. I’m told that I would lie under the end table in the living room by the speakers with paper dolls that I would move around to the music. I guess that’s where my love for theatre and music began.

Our society today is obsessed with having everything fast and immediately. I still believe there is a craft in slowly building a clear story one block at a time. Building a story with a solid foundation of details, backstory, subtext and environmental influences help create a three-dimensional world that crosses the footlights and resonates with an audience. Finding a way to connect to the audience today-either through updating the traditional cannon to examine issues and concerns we have now or by finding the works that will be the classics of tomorrow are ideas I am passionate about.

I feel that opera provides us with a medium that allows an audience to stop and have an analog experience wash over them. There is something special about sitting in a room with a couple hundred other people and witnessing a story that is beautifully told through music, staging, and the design disciplines. It is imperative that we as a society maintain this experience, for opera and theatre in general lifts us up and magnifies our humanity. The unamplified voice filling a theatre and tapping in on the emotions of hundreds of audience members connect us even while sitting in a darkened room. We can still have an experience as a community-a treasure that we need to guard very carefully.