Award-winning Stage Director Scott Skiba has led 80+ new productions earning recognition for his imaginative stage direction and dynamic physical approach to storytelling that is “masterful…ingenious…first-rate…vivid and emotionally charged” with companies including Indianapolis Opera, Mobile Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, Pensacola Opera, Opera Tampa, and Toledo Opera. Scott serves as Executive Artistic Director, Cleveland Opera Theater; Production Director, Opera Western Reserve; and Acting and Movement Instructor, Music Across the Pond. Scott is a pioneer in producing interdisciplinary collaborations in alternative and site-specific venues, and a proponent of new opera. Scott launched {NOW} Fest, Cleveland Opera Theater’s annual festival to create, develop, and produce new opera, serves on the Chamber Opera Composition Committee for the National Opera Association (NOA), and collaborates to develop and premiere 18 new operas and counting. An advocate of arts education, Scott serves as Director of Opera Studies for Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, where under his direction the program has been the recipient of The American Prize for Opera Performance, and The Charles Nelson Reilly Prize in Stage Direction, and 1st Place in the NOA Collegiate Opera Production Competition. Additional university directing credits include University of Tennessee Opera Theater, University of Texas at Rio Grand Valley, Oberlin Opera Theater, Martina Arroyo’s Role Preparation Program at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and Interlochen Opera Theater. Previous appointments include Executive Director of the Oberlin in Italy opera training program, Instructor of Voice and Opera Theater, Interlochen Arts Academy; and Associate Instructor of Voice, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Scott devised and directed multiple projects to continue artistic collaboration throughout the pandemic including Opera ON DEMAND for the Curtis Institute of Music, A Taste of Traviata, a cinematic adaptation of La Traviata and Romeo + Juliet, a reimagined telling of Shakespeare’s play and Gounod’s opera for Opera Western Reserve; and Operas in Place, nine new short operas by World-renowned composers and librettists in collaboration with Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, Cleveland Opera Theater, and On Site Opera in NYC. Scott is represented by Marvel Arts Management. More info: www.ScottSkiba.com
