ABOUT
I make complicated things feel possible.
Production Stage Manager and production leader working across opera, new work, and live performance.
FROM THE ROOM TO THE STAGE
A career built in the room.
Opera found me while I was studying stage management at Colorado State University. I was assigned to call a production of Patience, discovered the particular combination of music, storytelling, people, and technical craft that makes opera work, and never really left.
What has kept me in stage management is the particular place it occupies in the room. It asks you to understand the artistic intention, the technical demands, and the needs of the people making the work, and to hold all three at once. I love the combination of detail and big-picture thinking. I enjoy anticipating what comes next, building the systems that allow people to do their best work, and helping a complicated process move forward with clarity and care.
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Since then, I’ve built a career across stage management and production leadership, working with companies including Washington National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, San Diego Opera, Central City Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Portland Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, and others. The scale of the job may change, but the part I value most remains remarkably consistent. I bring people, information, and ideas together so that ambitious work can make its way to the stage.
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I have a particular love for new work. I’ve been fortunate to help build world premieres and developing pieces with artists and companies across the field. There is something extraordinary about working on a piece before all of the answers exist. I enjoy helping establish the vocabulary, systems, and documentation that allow a new work to become repeatable while leaving room for it to keep changing. Bringing new voices and new stories into the operatic canon remains both exciting to me and a privilege.
Teaching and mentorship have also been part of my practice since the beginning. I first had the opportunity to assist with beginning stage management while I was still at Colorado State, and I’ve continued to mentor emerging stage managers throughout my career, including teaching stage management masterclasses. I care deeply about passing along not only the mechanics of the job, but the curiosity, judgment, generosity, and sense of responsibility that make someone a good stage manager.
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Increasingly, my work has expanded beyond the calling desk into production and organizational leadership. I’ve served as a Director of Production, led staging teams, worked across departments and disciplines, and participated in industry and union leadership through AGMA. I still think of all of that as part of the same practice. Stage management taught me to anticipate, to listen, to understand how one decision moves through an entire room, and to keep the art and the people making it in view at the same time. Those lessons continue to shape the way I lead.
JOY IN THE CRAFT
There is always room for joy.
Early in my career, I was fortunate to work alongside a friend and colleague who taught me something I’ve carried into every room since. There is always room for joy.
The tiny table became a small reminder of that idea. In work that can feel enormous and all-consuming, the small things matter. A bad pun. A generous moment between colleagues. A piece of craft beautifully executed. Those small things matter, too.Â
The tiny table has stayed with me as a shared tradition and as a reminder to leave room for those things.
