Emma Griffin

Current Position

Biography

(She/Her) Emma Griffin is a theater and opera director based in New York City; she is also the Managing Artist Director of The Mannes Opera. Hailed by the New York Times for her "deeply resonant", "intelligent", and "darkly enchanting" staging, Griffin's productions have been seen in performance venues all over the country. She is a frequent collaborator on new music/theater pieces with composers such as Phil Kline, Corey Dargel, Rachel Peters and Ricky Ian Gordon.
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Experience

The New School

Present - Present
New York, NY

Managing Artistic Director, Mannes Opera

Present - Present
Emma Griffin is the Managing Artistic Director of The Mannes Opera, a program at the College of Performing Arts at The New School.

Professor of Music, Opera Stage Director

2018

Biography

Emma Griffin

Emma Griffin is a theater and opera director; she is also the Managing Artistic Director of The Mannes Opera, a program at the College of Performing Arts at The New School. Griffin has a diverse background in theater, musical theater and opera. Her productions have been seen in performance venues all over the country. She is a frequent collaborator on new music/theater pieces; her most recent project was a second production of the Ricky Ian Gordon/Frank Bidart operatic poem Ellen West (with Beth Morrison Productions & Prototype, January 2020). Additional projects include Phil Kline’s Out Cold & Zippo Songs at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Corey Dargel’s Removable Parts; and Susan Bernfield and Rachel Peters’ Stretch, a fantasia. Opera highlights include La Fanciulla del West at Opera Colorado, the world premiere of Charpentier's La Feste de Ruel with Catacoustic Consort; La Boheme at Crested Butte Music Festival, Three Decembers at Atlanta Opera; Don Giovanni at Boston Lyric Opera; The Cunning Little Vixen and Don Giovanni at Juilliard Opera; Wozzeck at Opera Philadelphia/Curtis Opera Theater. She was the Artistic Director of the OBIE-award winning Salt Theater, based in NYC; highlights with Salt include Stage Door (FringeNYC Excellence Award as Best Director), The Cherry Orchard, Scenes from a Marriage and Conquest of the Universe. She has theater credits at many regional theaters including Perseverance Theater, Geva Theater Center, Syracuse Stage, Southern Rep, Actor’s Express, Virginia Stage, and Williamstown Theater Festival. Her career as an educator is as central to her artistry as her directing career. She spent many years as adjunct faculty at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts (working with students in Undergraduate Drama, Graduate Acting, and Graduate Design).