Design Paragons
OPERA America has awarded four teams of directors and designers the 2023 Robert L.B. Director-Designer Prize. Each team will receive $2,000 to develop their unique takes on three works: Fellow Travels, Salome, and Sweeney Todd.
Since 2009, the Director-Designer Prize has identified and rewarded the field’s most promising directors and designers. Every two years, applicant teams are invited to create production concepts for works chosen from a list of contemporary and inherited repertoire. An independent panel of experts then selects the four winning teams, awarding them funds to further develop their concepts.
Each of this year’s winning teams will present their concepts to potential producers at OPERA America’s annual Opera Conference in Pittsburgh this May. The teams’ concepts will also be featured in rotating exhibitions at OA’s National Opera Center. (Winners of the previous Director-Designer Prize, from 2021, currently have their work on view at the Opera Center.)
The Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase is supported by the Tobin Theatre Arts Fund.
2023 Director-Designer Prize Winners

Fellow Travelers (Spears/Pierce)
Ian Silverman, director; James Rotondo, set designer; Marcella Barbeau, lighting designer; Travis Chinick, costume designer; Nora Winsler, choreographer
This team seeks to highlight “the audacity of queer love” in their take on Gregory Spears’ and Greg Pierce’s 2016 love story, set during the Lavender Scare in 1950s Washington, D.C. They draw parallels between the opera’s socially oppressive environment and the tribulations faced by queer Americans today, such as legislature like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Salome (Strauss/Lachmann)
Alison Pogorelc, director; Ember Streshinsky, set designer; Morgan Williams, choreographer; Zhang Yu, costume designer; Avi Sheehan, lighting designer; Camilla Tassi, projection/video designer
This team reworks Salome into a triumphant figure who overcomes the objectification of her body and transforms herself into a divine prophetess. The production prominently features shadow play, with performers and scenic elements casting shadows on translucent screens.

Salome (Strauss/Lachmann)
Claire Choquette, director; Josafath Reynoso, set designer; Scott Hynes, lighting designer; Hsiao-Wei Chen, costume designer; Danielle Georgiou, choreographer
This reimagining of Salome transposes the work from biblical times to a modern-day cult led by Herod, whose followers explore their spirituality through psychedelic drugs and free love. Herod goes mad and moves his followers to a dilapidated factory, where the action of the opera then unfolds.

Sweeney Todd (Sondheim/Wheeler/Quentin)
Kimille Howard, director; John D. Alexander, lighting designer; Kimberly V. Powers, set designer; Danielle Preston, costume designer
This production places Sweeney Todd in London’s notorious Bedlam Asylum. The hospital’s inmates perform the musical for a voyeuristic audience — paralleling current society’s voracious consumption of the macabre and the trauma of others.
This article was published in the Winter 2023 issue of Opera America Magazine.