AMY STEBBINS

WRITER/DIRECTOR

ABOUT

I am a writer-director of art created at the intersection of theater, opera, film and new media. My work has been presented at institutions such as the Bavarian State Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Currently I am writing a virtual reality chamber opera for the Augsburg State Theater together with composer Hauke Berheide supported by the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and the Liz Mohn Foundation.


My path into this career was somewhat indirect. After completing a B.A. in History & Literature at Harvard, I received a Fulbright to train at the Volksbühne in Berlin where I worked as an apprentice-director. From 2010-2018, I wrote and directed my own productions while pursuing a joint-doctorate in Cinema & Media Studies and Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago. These unlikely stopovers cultivated the artistic values at the core of my work today:


1. Technical precision. (I don't like trash.)

2. Poetic intuition. (I don't like realism.)

3. Critical rigor. (Art is not a means of self-expression, but an alternative means of expressing ideas.)


My commitment to new work occasionally takes the form of institutional intervention. From 2015-2017, I convened Transatlantic exchanges for artists and arts administrators in Chicago and Munich on the topic of new work development. In 2018, I co-founded New Opera Dialogues, an artist-led platform to promote international dialogue about aesthetics and best institutional practices for contemporary opera. I also write about issues in opera, performance theory, and Transatlantic exchange for academic journals, trade magazines, and newspapers.

PRODUCTIONS

PRODUCTIONS

THEORY

INITIATIVES

NEW OPERA DIALOGUES is an international platform for opera creators and producers to discuss, debate, and dialogue about contemporary opera aesthetics as well as best practices for new work development.

THE CHICAGO-MUNICH THEATER EXCHANGE was a series of Transatlantic exchange between theaters in Chicago and Munich on the topic of new play development. Participating institutions included: The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater, Goethe-Institut Chicago, and the Bavarian State Theater.