SDCF panels are curated on specific areas of theatre craft and led by seasoned professionals with relevant expertise. Our panels are typically 1- 2 hours long and offer best practices, education and networking.
SDCF Panel: Directing Theatre & Opera with Simon Godwin, Ethan Heard, & Francesca Zambello
Join SDCF for an in person panel focused on directing theatre and opera, including both a high level and more detailed conversation about the differences and similarities between art forms, their approaches to the craft, and advice for those interested in directing in both areas. Drew Lichtenberg, Artistic Producer at Shakespeare Theatre Company will be moderating. A short Q & A will follow.
General admission tickets are $10. Tickets for SDC Members and Associate Members are $5.
This event will not be livestreamed.
Register here!
This event will take place at:
6925 Willow St NW, 3rd Floor
Washington, DC 20012
Bios:
Simon Godwin joined Shakespeare Theatre Company as Artistic Director in September 2019. His directing credits at STC include Comedy of Errors, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Timon of Athens, and the 2024 production of Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, which also played in Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London. He is an Associate Director of the National Theatre of London, and has served as Associate Director of the Royal Court Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic, and the Royal and Derngate Theatres in Northampton.
He made his debut at the National Theatre with Strange Interlude, followed by Man and Superman, The Beaux’ Stratagem, Twelfth Night, and a celebrated production of Antony and Cleopatra with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo. In 2020, Simon returned to the National Theatre to direct Romeo & Juliet, an original film for television (Sky Arts in U.K./PBS in U.S.) starring Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley.
He has directed at the Royal Shakespeare Company, including productions of Timon of Athens with Kathryn Hunter in the titular role, which was reimagined in early 2020 for Theatre for a New Audience in New York City and Shakespeare Theatre Company; an acclaimed Hamlet, which toured to the Kennedy Center, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
In 2019, Simon directed a Japanese cast in Hamlet for Theatre Cocoon in Tokyo. In 2023, he made his opera debut at the Washington National Opera directing Roméo et Juliette by Gounod. In 2012, Simon was awarded the inaugural Evening Standard/Burberry Award for an Emerging Director. In 2023, Simon became the annual Harman/Eisner Residence Artist at the Aspen Institute.
Ethan Heard is a director, producer, and teacher who makes theater to build community and foster love. He is Associate Artistic Director of Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, where he has directed Soft Power, Pacific Overtures, The Bridges of Madison County, and Which Way to the Stage. He is the Co-Founder and former Artistic Director of the Heartbeat Opera.
With Heartbeat Opera, Ethan directed Fidelio (NYTimes Critic’s Pick), Breathing Free: a visual album (Drama League Award nominee), Lady M: an online fantasia of Verdi’s Macbeth, La Susanna (a co-production with Opera Lafayette), Butterfly, Dido & Aeneas, Kafka-Fragments, The Seven Deadly Sins, and seven original drag-opera-extravaganzas Messy Messiah, Hot Mama: Singing Gays Saving Gaia, Dragus Maximus: a homersexual opera odyssey, All the World’s a Drag! Shakespeare in love…with opera, Queens of the Night: Mozart in Space, Miss Handel, and The Fairy Queen. Other opera productions include Madame Butterfly (Opera Philadelphia), the world premieres of Rene Orth and Mark Campbell’s Empty the House (Curtis Institute of Music) and Jason Cady, Aaron Siegel and Matthew Welch’s Sisyphus (Experiments in Opera), Erismena and L’Orfeo (Yale Baroque Opera Project), L’incoronazione di Poppea (Princeton University), and Pierrot Lunaire (Yale Cabaret).
Recent musical theater projects include: Mel Marvin and Jonathan Levi’s Truth & Reconciliation, Marisa Michelson’s Desire|Divinity Project, Little Shop of Horrors (nominated for five Berkshire Theatre Awards including Outstanding Direction), Bells Are Ringing starring Kate Baldwin and Graham Rowat, A Little Night Music starring Kate Baldwin, Gregg Edelman, and Phillipa Soo (Berkshire Theatre Group), the world premiere of Mark Campbell and Marisa Michelson’s The Other Room starring Phoebe Strole (Inner Voices), Sunday in the Park with George (Yale School of Drama), Merrily We Roll Along (Yale Dramat), A Little Night Music (Carnegie Mellon), Next to Normal, Into the Woods, The Producers, and The Luckiest Girl (Princeton). Ethan remounted The Secret (Jay Chou’s jukebox musical) for John Rando and Broadway Asia in Shanghai.
Plays include: Will Eno’s Middletown (The New School), Megan Loughran and Alex Trow’s F Theory (NJ Rep), Dorothy Fortenberry’s Partners (American Academy of Dramatic Arts), Amelia Roper’s Lottie in the Late Afternoon, MJ Kaufman’s Eligible Receivers, and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (YSD), John Willard’s The Cat and the Canary (BTG), The Gay Ivy (Dixon Place), Ellen McLaughlin’s Iphigenia and Other Daughters and Proof (Santa Fe Theater Festival), Young Jean Lee’s Pullman WA, and Lauren Yee’s in a word (Williamstown Workshop).
While earning his MFA at Yale School of Drama, Ethan served as Artistic Director of Yale Cabaret, where he co-created Basement Hades (with original music by Daniel Schlosberg) and Trannequin! (a musical about a transgender mannequin); he also launched the tradition of Yale School of Drag, which continues today. He received his BA in Theater Studies from Yale College and won the Sledge Prize for Performing Arts.
Ethan is hapa, Chinese-American, queer, proficient in Mandarin, and a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. He serves on the board of Heartbeat Opera and as Chair of Signature Theatre’s Anti-Racism and Equity Working Group.
Francesca Zambello is the General Director Emerita of the Glimmerglass Festival and currently the Artistic Director of the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. She is also an internationally recognized director of opera and theater, Zambello’s work has been seen at the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Bolshoi, Covent Garden, the Munich Staatsoper, Paris Opera, New York City Opera, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and English National Opera. She has staged plays and musicals on Broadway, at the Royal National Theatre, BAM, the Guthrie Theater, Vienna’s Raimund Theater, the Bregenz Festival, Sydney Festival, Disneyland, Berlin’s Theater des Westens and at the Kennedy Center. In May 2011, Zambello was appointed Artistic Advisor to Washington National Opera, and became Washington National Opera’s Artistic Director January 1, 2013. She received the San Francisco Opera Medal for Artistic Excellence for her more than 30 years of artistic contributions to the company, including serving as Artistic Advisor from 2006-2011. In 2020, she received the Knighthood of the Order of the Star of Italy for her contribution to the promotion of Italian culture and heritage.
She has been awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for her contribution to French culture, and the Russian Federation’s medal for Service to Culture. Her theatrical honors include three Olivier Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, two French Grand Prix des Critiques, Helpmann Award, Green Room Award, Palme d’Or in Germany and the Golden Mask in Russia. She began her career as the Artistic Director of the Skylight Opera Theatre and as an assistant director to the late Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. An American who grew up in Europe, she speaks French, Italian, German and Russian. She is a graduate of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York where she has also received an Honorary Doctorate. She is married to Faith E. Gay, founding partner of Selendy & Gay and they have a son, Jackson, and two labs named Rome and Rex. They make their residences in NYC, Cooperstown, NY and Washington, DC.
Francesca’s headshot photo credit: Magdalena Papaioannou
Ethan’s headshot photo credit: Stanley Bahorek
SDCF’s programming is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; Stage Directors and Choreographers Society; and many other generous individuals. Additionally, SDCF’s professional development and public programming is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
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