Shawna Lucey is an acclaimed American theater and opera director, whose work has been seen at The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, and other major houses around the world. Her legacy production of Tosca launched San Francisco Opera’s 99th season in 2021. It was followed in 2022 by her centennial celebration ground-breaking legacy production of La traviata, hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “A beautiful new Traviata meant to last for decades. Magnificent.”
Lucey made her directorial debut with Opera San José in 2018 with La traviata, brilliantly staged with skill and imagination, offering a compelling contemporary viewpoint. In 2023 she will launch OSJ’s season with a new production of Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet. Her directorial work has been seen across the US, from The Met to Dallas Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Santa Fe Opera, and many others. She also boasts an international reputation, staging works in Spain, Russia, and Germany, at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Bolshoi Theater, and Schauspiel Hannover, among many others, and has assisted esteemed directors, including Stephen Lawless, Lee Blakeley, John Caird, Peter Schumann, and Francesca Zambello.
In addition to opera, Lucey steps outside the canon into theatre and musicals, staging works such as Gilbert & Sullivan’s rollicking The Pirates of Penzance, which Broadway World lauded for its “contemporary flair, dousing the classic with a touch of modern Monty Python alongside Carol Burnett Show moments. A true contemporary comic delight faithful to the original Gilbert and Sullivan intent.”
Lucey holds BAs in Theater and Italian from the University of Texas at Austin and received her MFA in Directing & Movement from the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute of the Vakhtangov Theater in Moscow and will receive her Master of Science in Non-Profit Management from Columbia University in 2023. She has also served as an adjunct professor in Speech and Theater at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, encouraging the next generation of artists while teaching courses on acting, design, stage management, and directing. She serves on the Board of Directors of Team San José as well as the Board of the Theatre Preservation Fund in San José. Her second passion, nail art, can be viewed on her Instagram page @29flames
For more information visit: www.shawnalucey.com
