Richard Gammon

Richard Gammon (he/him), a Filipino American stage director, directed the double bill of Gluck’s L’île de Merlin and Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis with Wolf Trap Opera; the double bill of Gianni Schicchi and Michael Ching’s Buoso’s Ghost at Detroit Opera (formerly known as Michigan Opera Theatre); Madama Butterfly and Jack Perla’s An American Dream with Virginia Opera; Albert Herring and Derrick Wang’s Scalia/Ginsburg with the Princeton Festival; An American Dream with Opera Santa Barbara; La Cenerentola with Opera Columbus; the American premiere of Scarlatti's Erminia at the Kennedy Center with Opera Lafayette; Garreth Williams’ Rocking Horse Winner, Laura Kaminsky’s As One, and Philip Glass’ The Fall of the House of Usher with the Opera Maine Studio; Susannah with Charlottesville Opera; and Andy Monroe's The Life and Times of Joe Jefferson Benjamin Blow at NYC's Theatre 315 with the National Asian Artists Project. At the Kentucky Shakespeare festival he directed Much Ado About Nothing after having previously directed a touring production of The Tempest; and for Cleveland Play House's film The CARE Monologue Project Richard directed monologues written by Rajiv Joseph, Lloyd Suh, Karen Zacarias, Tanya Saracho, and Matthew Lopez. He directed the world premiere of Jorge Sosa’s electronic opera The Lake at ArtSounds in Kansas City; Trouble in Tahiti with Paul Watkins at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival; the workshop of J Ashley Miller’s pop opera Echosis with Atemporchestra; and was Associate Director for The Grapes of Wrath at Detroit Opera and Porgy and Bess with Greensboro Opera.

Richard recently collaborated (as producer and stage director) with composer Jorge Sosa and librettist Melisa Tien on The Beehive, a comic opera he commissioned for the University of Northern Iowa which premiered in the spring of 2023 that tells the story of the hair salon industry’s slow death in the Midwest.

Richard is the director of the Opera Maine Studio Artist Program. Productions he directed there include Jack Perla's An American Dream; Mohammed Fairouz’s Sumeida’s Song; Jake Heggie's Three Decembers; Trouble in Tahiti; The Medium; and a site-specific production of Gianni Schicchi at SPACE Gallery. He is also the co-founder and director of Art with Arias, an annual collaborative recital series partnering artists from the Opera Maine Studio Artist Program with the Portland Museum of Art which have included artists such as Raehann Bryce-Davis, Zaray Rodriguez, Gloria Kim, Timothy Steele, and Andrew Pardini.

Richard works extensively with Young Artist Programs around the country. For Opera Theatre of Saint Louis' 2016, 2017, and 2018 seasons Richard co-directed Center Stage: a concert of opera scenes featuring the Gerdine Young Artists and Richard Gaddes Festival Artists with the St. Louis Symphony. Spending four years as the Stage Director for the Charlottesville Opera Young Artist Program he directed new productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia, Susannah, La bohème, and Gianni Schicchi. He was a Directing Fellow at Wolf Trap Opera directing the Wolf Trap Opera Studio in An Evening of One Act Operas: Hindemith’s Hin und züruck; Moore’s Gallantry; Barber’s A Hand of Bridge; Pasatieri’s La Divina; and Heggie’s Again. He also directed a warehouse production of La bohème at Work | Release with the Virginia Opera's Herndon Emerging Artist Program. He has been a Young Artist Director at Opera North, a Stage Director for Bay View Music Festival, and a Stage Director/Acting Coach in Greve in Chianti, Italy for Bel Canto in Tuscany.

Richard also enjoys working with young artists at leading conservatories and universities. He has recently accepted the position as Director of Opera at the University of Northern Iowa and has directed Dido and Aeneas, Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda as well as creating and directing an annual collaborative recital program between UNI Opera and the UNI Gallery of Art entitled In The Studio. Other conservatory/university productions include Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna and Rorem’s Three Sisters who are Not Sisters at the Manhattan School of Music; the world premiere of Jorge Sosa’s liturgical drama Tonantzin at the University of Missouri- Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance; Silent Night, La traviata, Sweeney Todd, La bohème, Così fan tutte, and Ward’s The Crucible (cancelled midway through the process due to COVID-19) with the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre; Sankaram’s Looking At You, Ward's Roman Fever, and Hilliard & Boresi's The Filthy Habit at Carnegie Mellon University; and he recently directed a workshop of Ziyan Yang and Briana Whyte Harris’ Song of the Earth with the Actor’s Lab at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Other creative positions include Creative Associate for the world premiere of Dream’d in a dream with Seán Curran Company at BAM Next Wave Festival, an Artist Resident at Hewnoaks Artist Colony (2018) and the Institute for American Art (2017), Resident Assistant Director at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (2016-2018), and an Assistant Director at LA Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Wolf Trap Opera, Detroit Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Virginia Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Charlottesville Opera, Opera North, and Opera Maine working on productions that include the world premieres of Jack Perla’s Shalimar, the Clown; Terence Blanchard’s Champion; Ricky Ian Gordon’s 27 and Rappahannock County; Jorge Martin’s Before Night Falls; and the American premieres of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland; and Jacques Ibert’s Persée et Andromède.

Upcoming productions include two new productions of An American Dream with Hawai’i Opera Theatre and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.