From: Los Angeles, California. LA Opera: The Death of Orpheus (2020, debut); livestream director of Il Trovatore (2021); intimacy director for several productions including the 2023/24 season's Don Giovanni, Highway 1, USA, La Traviata and Turandot.
Sara is the intimacy director and consent consultant for LA Opera. In addition to her work with LA Opera, her engagements for the 2023/24 season include stage/intimacy direction for the world premiere of Carla Lucero’s t o u c h with Opera Birmingham and stage/intimacy direction for Cabildo/Proving Up with Eklund Opera at UC Boulder. Previous intimacy direction: La Bohème (Washington National Opera); Semele (Opera Santa Barbara); After Glow (film by Ryan McKinny). Previous stage direction: La Bohème (CSUN), Semele (Opera Santa Barbara), Carmen (Opera Orlando), La Tragédie de Carmen (Opera Santa Barbara, Charleston Opera Theatre), The Flying Dutchman (Hawaii Opera Theatre, Virginia Opera), The Music Man (Royal Opera House of Muscat), Madame White Snake (Hong Kong Arts Festival), JUANA (Opera UCLA).
She was the first resident acting and performance coach for Music Academy where she also taught classes in intimacy direction and consent-based practices. Sara has trained with Theatrical Intimacy Educators and Intimacy Directors Coordinators, Inc., with whom she is certified. She has a MM in opera direction from Florida State University, an artist diploma in Shakespeare from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and BA in theater from Connecticut College. She makes her home in Los Angeles. (SaraEWidzer.com)
Widzer directed the world premiere of Woman of Salt, a new chamber opera by Anice Thigpen for the Wildish Theatre in Eugene Oregon, and served as director of the National Opera Association’s new productions of Joseph Turin’s The Scarecrow, Tom Cipullo’s After Life, and Jeremy Gill’s Letters to Quebec from Providence in the Rain in Santa Barbara, California. She assisted director Robert Longbottom on The Daughter of the Regiment at Washington National Opera in 2017, serving as acting coach to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She also assisted on the first incarnation of Jon Robin Baitz’s new play Vicuña at the Ojai Playwrights Festival. She returned to the Kennedy Center in 2017 as assistant director to Francesca Zambello’s new production of Aida at Washington National Opera, in addition to co-writing and directing the production’s education performances. She debuted in 2018 as assistant director to Peter Kazaras on a new production of Korngold’s Der Ring des Polykrates for her debut at the Dallas Opera.
Other engagements feature multiple company debuts including Pasadena Opera for a new production of Floyd’s Susannah, about which the Huffington Post praised her “brisk and lively stage direction;” Following her successful debut during the 2014/15 season with Hawaii Opera Theatre mounting Francesca Zambello’s acclaimed production of The Flying Dutchman, Widzer remounted the same production in 2016 for her mainstage debut with Virginia Opera. She led Virginia Opera’s touring company earlier in the season directing the world premiere of Deep River, a tribute to the life and career of Marian Anderson. Additional engagements that season included guest director for the opera scenes program at Cal State Long Beach, guest director for a devised opera piece at UCLA, and a new production with the Ojai Playwrights Conference in the summer of 2016.
Additional operatic engagements include with the Royal Opera House, Muscat for The Music Man; the Glimmerglass Festival for A Celebration of Benjamin Britten; Opera in the Ozarks for Don Giovanni, Tosca, Pagliacci and Hansel and Gretel; Celestial Opera for Faust and Giulio Cesare; and the Florida State Opera for Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame and an original adaptation of L’elisir d’amore. Widzer has served as Assistant Director with Portland Opera for Showboat; the Glimmerglass Festival for The Flying Dutchman, The Music Man, and King for a Day; and UCLA Opera for L'enfant et les sortilèges and Il segreto de Susanna.
An active theater director, Ms. Widzer is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio-Playright and Director’s unit. She has recently served as director for Reasons to be Pretty at the Lee Strasberg Creative Center, Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale at Art Works in Cherry Valley New York, and In Their Own Words: Verdi, Wilson, & Weill, an original piece that debuted at the Glimmerglass Festival. Other credits include Bury the Dead, Zoo Story, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Shakespeare’s As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Lee Strasberg Creative Center; Dinner and a Funeral and Bootleggers with The Actors’ Studio, Los Angeles; Spring Awakening with Connecticut College; The Case of the Golden Rose/Shakespeare is Dead at The Actors Gang; and Based on True Events at The Complex Theatre.
As an educator, Ms. Widzer is currently on faculty as acting coach and stage director at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Los Angeles, CA where she has been on staff for over 15 years. (SaraEWidzer.com)
