STAGE DIRECTOR | Alexandra Dietrich

the stage director.

Alexandra Dietrich, originally from Freeport, Maine, is known in New England for her work as a mezzo-soprano, music educator, arts advocate, and as a stage director whose direction has been called "brilliant" and "moving". In the 2022-2023 season, Ms. Dietrich assistant directed on James Robinson's production of Tobias Picker's "Awakenings" with Odyssey Opera and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Ms. Dietrich also staged productions of "Mean Girls" with Melrose Drama, a new musical adaptation of "The Great Gatsby" with Marblehead Little Theatre, and willreturn to Broken Legs Productions to stage "Footloose" in the summer of 2023. Her 2023-2024 season will open with a company debut, directing Tom Cipullo's gripping opera, "Glory Denied", at Opera Company of Middlebury in Fall of 2023.

In 2019, Ms. Dietrich joined the voice faculty at the University of Southern Maine as an Artist Faculty. Ms. Dietrich served as the Artistic Director of NEMPAC Opera Project from 2018 to 2022. In her first season, she staged Rachel Portman's "The Little Prince" at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall. This marked the first time that the NEMPAC Opera Project had staged a work of a female composer. Ms. Dietrich's staging was chosen by OperaWire as one of the Top 5 Must See Operas in North America for its opening weekend. For her 2nd season, she and the NEMPAC Opera Project were hailed by the Boston Globe for their outdoor Pop-Up Opera performances of "The Barber of Seville" around the North End of Boston and Charlestown. This staging and choice was said to have "demonstrated an impressive level of ingenuity" at a time when traditional enclosed theatrical performances could not be safely done due to the global pandemic. Ms. Dietrich was selected as a Fellow in Directing with Chicago Summer Opera for their 2021 season, assistant directing Garnett Bruce on a production of "Don Giovanni".

Select productions include stage directing sold-out runs of "Jesus Christ Superstar" at Marblehead Little Theatre and "Into the Woods" with NEMPAC Opera Project. Ms. Dietrich joined Yo soy LOLA's creative team to stage direct their 2019 collaborative performance at Oberon in Harvard Square entitled "Resiliency: The Masks We Wear" in their mission to reclaim the narrative and portrayal of Latinas in the arts and media. An advocate for underrepresented composers, she staged Pauline Viardot-García's "Cendrillon" with the Cambridge Chamber Ensemble, where her staging was praised as “particularly convincing...perfectly expressive and deeply touching”.

A music educator and choral conductor, as well, Ms. Dietrich graduated from the University of Southern Maine with a Bachelor's in Musical Theatre Performance. She attended the Longy School of Music for her Graduate Performance degree in Opera. She has served on faculty with the North End and Music Performing Arts Center since 2011 as a music director for the music theatre troupe, a voice teacher, a Choral Teaching Artist at the St. John School for 6 years, and as a choral conductor whose choirs have performed with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Wilkins. Her choir, in 2018, performed as a Prelude Concert to a Landmarks performance at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade with Ms. Dietrich conducting. She is the Director and Co-Founder of the Boston Opera Outreach Troupe, frequently teaches for the Watertown Children's Theatre, and was a Master Teaching Artist for the Metropolitan Opera Guild.

Photo credit: Andrew Morstein

in the press.

"Alexandra Dietrich’s staging, including choreography and mime, was particularly convincing...But the Act II duet between Cendrillon and the Prince (“C’est moi! Ne craignez rien!” in the French score), as they dance alone on the stage, was perfectly expressive and deeply touching"

- Mark DeVoto, Boston Musical Intelligencer

"And then, there was the blocking, which was generally quite excellent. The blocking played with the height of the levels in Faneuil Hall to rather striking effect, particularly in the first act when it depicts the Prince’s journey from his little asteroid to Earth, and how it colors his interactions with the various characters he meets along the way...from the comedy of the baobab seedlings running around being chased by the Prince’s rake through the choreography of a hunter’s chorus in Act II all the way to the Prince’s not-quite death at the hands of the snake, as the snake dragged him through a row of children." - Arturo Fernandez, Schmopera

"Latinx artists kicked off Yo Soy LOLA’s 2019 LOLA Week with an intimate, multidimensional performance, “Las Que Sueñan,” at a sold-out American Repertory Theater in Cambridge...No one artist was confined by the stage; instead, the performance flowed into and around the crowd giving an inviting, interactive experience...really brilliant. Extremely moving." - Jacob R. Jimenez, The Harvard Crimson