The Director

MICHAEL RAU is a New York based director and adapter, specializing in new plays, re-imagined classics, and opera. His work has been presented at PS 122, HERE Arts Center, Ars Nova and Dixon Place and his productions have toured to Germany, Greece, and Ecuador. He recently made his German language directing premiere at Theater Bielefeld, with Thomas Bradshaw’s Was Ubrig Bleibt.

His New York credits include: Evanston: A Rare Comedy, (PS 122 and HERE Arts Center), The Ted Haggard Monologues (a New York Magazine Critic’s Pick) at the Collective: Unconscious, Righteous Money (Ars Nova, and toured to the Voices of Change festival in Berlin), The Italian Songbook, a chamber opera with the NYU Steinhardt School of Music, and an adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, (developed in Papingo, Greece and presented at the Bushwick Starr). His show, the games we used to play, which he co-created with Max Goldblatt, took first place at Les Fêtes théâtrales du Suroît in 2005, and his production of Four Saints in Three Acts was selected as a noteworthy production of the 2008 Opera America Director/Designer Showcase. His production of The Great God Brown was selected for the 2011 Prague Quadrennial.  He has directed readings of new plays for New York Theater Workshop, Primary Stages and the Dramatists Guild.

Michael Rau is a recipient of the Willard Fellowship, a 2006 Kennedy Center Directing Fellowship, a 2007 New Play Network Directing Fellowship and a 2008 TCG National Conference Grant. He has served as an assistant for John Turturro at Classic Stage Company, Les Waters at A.R.T., Anne Bogart at Glimmerglass Opera, and Robert Woodruff at San Francisco Opera. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 2005, with honors in American Studies and Theater and has recently completed his MFA in theater directing at Columbia University. He is currently an Artist in Residence at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center and is on the faculty of the Steinhardt School of Music at NYU.