DIANE PAULUS Director of Theater and OperaHome Productions Photo Gallery Video Press Biography Contact
DIANE PAULUS is a director of opera and theater. She is the creator and director of THE DONKEY SHOW, a disco adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” which ran for six years Off-Broadway, and toured internationally to London, Edinburgh, Madrid, and Evian, France. Recent theater work includes HAIR at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park for the Public Theater; LOST HIGHWAY, based on the David Lynch film, an English National Opera co-production with the Young Vic; KISS ME KATE at Glimmerglass Opera; ANOTHER COUNTRY by James Baldwin at Riverside Church; TURANDOT: RUMBLE FOR THE RING at the Bay Street Theatre; THE GOLDEN MICKEYS for Disney Creative Entertainment; BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, a gospel/R&B adaptation of “A Winter’s Tale” produced by Music-Theatre Group and The Women’s Project; and THE KARAOKE SHOW, an adaptation of “Comedy of Errors” set in a karaoke bar, produced by Jordan Roth Productions. Also for Music-Theatre Group, she directed the Obie award-winning and Pulitzer Prize finalist RUNNING MAN by jazz composer Diedre Murray and poet Cornelius Eady; and SWIMMING WITH WATERMELONS, created in association with Project 400, the theater company she co-founded with her husband Randy Weiner. Other work Off-Broadway: BRUTAL IMAGINATION, and the Obie-award winning ELI’S COMIN, featuring the music and lyrics of Laura Nyro.As an opera director, her productions include DON GIOVANNI, LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, TURN OF THE SCREW, COSI FAN TUTTE, and all three Monteverdi operas, IL RITORNO D’ULISSE IN PATRIA, L’INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA, and ORFEO at Chicago Opera Theater. She is a frequent collaborator with British conductor Jane Glover. In 2002, their critically acclaimed production of ORFEO was presented as part of The Monteverdi Cycle at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City.
Upcoming projects: the Broadway transfer of HAIR opening at the Hirschfeld Theater on March 5, 2009; and the premiere of DEATH AND THE POWERS, a new opera by composer Tod Machover, librettist Robert Pinsky, with story by Randy Weiner, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo in September 2009.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University with a B.A. in Social Studies, and has a M.F.A. in Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. She is the recipient of the Peters Ivers Visiting Artist Fellowship at Harvard University, and a Directing Fellowship from The Drama League. She has taught at Barnard College/Columbia University, New York University, and the Yale School of Drama.
Diane Paulus was recently appointed the Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The first ART season under her direction will be 2009-2010. http://www.amrep.org
Download pdf of Diane Paulus's Biography
