Cynthia S Stokes

Biography

Cynthia Stokes, M.F.A. Biography updated 1.7. 2020

 As a life-long arts practitioner, scholar and mentor; I believe deeply in the vital power of the arts to transform all of us. Through participating and experiencing the arts we define and create community where one did not exist before; through participating and experiencing the arts we develop empathy; through participating and experiencing the arts we encounter places and ideas that before were unknown to us. The arts free us to imagine, to be our most human.

My professional and educational mission is to develop the next generation of extraordinary performers and provide audiences with provocative, thrilling experiences that will make them lifelong lovers and patrons of the performing arts.  When I arrived three years ago, I asked my colleagues to collaborate with me to create a mission statement for Opera Theater.  Opera Theater is best compared to a team sport with many individuals possessing highly-specialized skills, all working toward a larger goal. Opera theater has many diverse moving parts that come together, usually at the last moment. I imagine this process is strangely similar to what it might be like to dock a star ship at light speed or perform surgery while pedaling a bike that is on fire.  Depending upon the goals, UA opera productions and scene performances employ a set, a costume, a projection and a lighting designer; a team of highly skilled artisans and crafts people; a production team; a conductor, and a stage director.  Each of these professionals are invested in ensuring that our student singers, student orchestra, and student stage managers receive extraordinary experiences that will inspire and help define them for the rest of their lives. Our mission statement is the guiding principle for all the work we create.

 Mission Statement

The Opera Theater program at The University of Arizona promotes opera as a living and essential art form; opera provokes, thrills and transforms human lives through its unique combination of music and storytelling. The Opera Theater Program will raise the quality and awareness of opera in the local Tucson, surrounding borderland area and throughout the state of Arizona. We are committed to diverse programming including production of new and contemporary works; works in English and in Spanish; standard repertory; and the essential re-imagining of operatic works for the stage. The Opera Theater program encourages the development of young opera artists as well as cultivating opera enthusiasts of the future. We will build a community of passionate devoted experts who will ensure the success of our students, as they become opera practitioners, teachers and leaders of the future.

 Here are some examples of our efforts.

During the past three years, we produced the first Spanish language opera performed at UA, Daniel Catán’s La hija de Rappaccini and invited our first woman conductor to the podium, Kristin Roach. This fall we will produce the American premiere of English/Russian composer Elena Langer’s suffragette opera Rhondda Rips it Up! We have timed this production to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The performance weekend will include a variety of panels as well as a Get out the Vote campaign partnership with The Arizona League of Women Voters. Rhondda will be the first opera composed by a woman produced by UA Opera Theater. In the spring of 2020, in addition to our regularly scheduled week-end performances, we will offer two student matinees of Hansel and Gretel for school children. This is the first student matinee opportunity produced by opera Theater in recent memory.

 The Opera Theater program has been praised for our interdisciplinary approach on campus and for reaching out past the walls of The Fred Fox School of Music to create meaningful partnerships. Our work has been mentioned several times in the CFA newsletter, as well as in local, regional and international publications. Our work has been identified as a best practice for alignment with the new UA strategic plan. The best example was our site-specific opera production last fall which involved many stakeholders including: UA Global, The Southern Arizona Opera Guild, The Spanish language Department, The Tucson Botanical Gardens, The History Department, Biology Department, College of Science, UNAM, Biosphere 2, and others. It was titled Experimentacion Amor y Veneno Festival. This was a multi-faceted live public opera experience developed as the axis of a community conversation. The opera was performed with live music and student opera singers who flew through the six-story public space creating a world of Magical Realism.Audiences came together and experienced the thrill of live opera in one of the city’s most unique locations, the outside lobby of ENR2 located on the corner of Broadway and 6th Avenue, which borders the entrance to South Tucson. This Spanish language opera invited audiences to embark on a journey of impossible love and deadly secrets. During a variety of activities and panels throughout the festival, audiences were invited to engage in conversations surrounding the themes explored in the opera. We used these following two questions as the foundation for our conversations. 1) How can a work of art originating in the bordering country of Mexico and set in the evocative location of ENR2 become a springboard for a larger community conversation around the complexity of the human experience? 2) How does the opera and festival events particularly reflect on local issues in the borderland desert state of Arizona and expand into more global concerns?

The production was presented again in May 2019 at UNAM. Both productions explored such contemporary issues as women’s studies, the ethics of genetic engineering, border studies, Mexican history, and the intersection of architecture and art.

This experience led me to embrace the possibility of creating even more meaningful collaborations. Last year I proposed a cross-discipline course with The Visual Arts Department. The class was approved and will culminate in a variety of performances using live, and Virtual Reality 360-degree performances scheduled for December 2019. The co-convened class is currently cross-listed in Music and Visual Arts. The goal of the class is to encourage cross-discipline research, creative activity, production skills, structural analysis, and critique. These experiences are creative integration of art, theater,music, movement, and various technologies. Students engage in all aspects of production and problem solve creatively, technically, and structurally. This is a project-based course in which students from multiple disciplines, both graduate and under graduate, work together in small groups.

 UA students who participate in this class will receive an experience that will encourageleadership in new and disruptive industries. Our next step is the proposal of a Digital Immersive Arts Laboratory. The DIAL lab and supporting infrastructure isembedded in three of the UA strategic plan pillars. First, The Wildcat Journey: 1.1A1, 1.3B, 1.5B, 1.6A1 each of these pillars encourage an audacious, front facing narrative that will attract talented students to UA. Here they will reimagine the world. Second, Grand Challenges: 2.4B, 2.4E, the unique combination of faculty, and resources will provide UA students with the tools needed to reimagine the future of art and technology. Third, The Arizona Advantage 3.2A, 3.2C, 3.4A, 3.4B, these pillars challenge students to create thrilling and provocative work, in the future a UA education will be considered essential to the future of innovation. This will sharply increase UA’s visibility on the global stage.DIAL is a key resource needed to prepare UA students to become contributors and leaders in the emerging field of digital arts production. The DIAL laboratory matched with the added value of interdisciplinary faculty expertise will be a unique calling card to attract the best and brightest future students to UA and will ensure the UA advantage in the future. DIAL will also become the centerpiece of an envisioned Digital Design degree currently under consideration in the College of Fine Arts. I am also a member of the committee exploring this new degree.

 My teaching philosophy is one of Constructivism. The classroom must be a laboratory of exploration and investigation. This is my guiding principle. Generally, if an observer came into my class they would see active learning with activities and tasks centered on the student and their experience of learning. I am a facilitator of learning feedback, student created rubrics, encouraging students to take risks in safe spaces, and to practice putting concrete ideas into new contexts. I cull through best practices and tailor them to each of my students. My classroom is an on-going performance conversation with individually focused success goals for each student. I believe that modeling concepts, then coaching students is also a useful tool. The nature of creating, encountering and analyzing art insists that the student is not simply the recipient of an idea or construct but instead they are an activator of the art or artistic practice. Students must take on the responsibility of engaging in the arts in a meaningful way- through practice, and observation.

Regarding my work specifically with performers. My teaching objective is to encourage students to become extraordinary performers, collaborators and colleagues during the rehearsal process as well as in performance. I purse this goal by providing tools to help them develop onstage presence, focus and relaxation and the readiness to make fearless choices on stage. I strive to provide my students with clear, specific skills, which they can then use in every aspect of their professional lives. I accomplish this by challenging them to closely investigate clues that the composer and librettist have provided for them in the road map in the musical score.

 My teaching strategy combines three distinct skill sets, which create the foundation for all my work in rehearsals and the classroom. My first goal is to encourage students to engage in a meaningful investigation of the text and the text’s relationship to musical notation. Based upon this, I lead students to commit to making clear, playable objectives.

These objectives are the superstructure for their character and will inform all other physical and emotional choices. Regardless of the language used for communication, humans derive meaning from intention. Whether an aria is written in French, German, Italian or Russian the audience understands meaning through a clear communication of the characters wants and desires. The second goal is to activate the students’ imagination through a variety of authentic research and performance assignments. These assignments are geared to stir the imagination, body and spirit of the student. These assignments develop physical and emotional inspiration for a character vocabulary in the rehearsal process. My third goal addresses the intentional freeing of the body and mind. Once unnecessary tension and distractions are released, students are free to be wholly present and communicate with their voice, body and spirit.

 I have managed to remain busy professionally as well. In February I restaged my production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mendelssohn) with conductor Michael Francis for the Florida Orchestra. I also returned to the stage after a lengthy hiatus to perform as a guest artist for the production playing 10 characters during the performance. During the summer of 2018 I premiered my new libretto and staging for Thamos, King of Egypt (Mozart, Philipp) for San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival. Plans are underway to remount the production with the Florida Orchestra. I am also preparing a production of The King and I as well as  a remount of Dominick Argento’s The Andrée Expedition with international baritone, Michael Chioldi.

My 2017 directing highlights include: Silent Night for Piedmont Opera; Rigoletto for Opera Las Vegas, Coping Mechanisms for New York City’s Rhymes with Opera, and Cenerentola for San Antonio’s Alamo City Opera.

During my three years at UA I have seen the possibility of the arts becoming central to the future of this campus and the larger community, I have contributed to this vision with a variety of exceptional experience. I have raised awareness and funds through my efforts. In 2018 I received a grant to support La hija de Rappaccini from The Arizona Commission for the Arts, The College of Fine Arts office of the Dean, The College of Science and The Fred Fox School of Music. I was also able to secure a $30,000 grant from a private funder for the co-convened class this fall.

I have devoted my professional career to creating provocative and thrilling productions across America. My work has been praised for, “clear story-telling, theatrical sensibility and as having existential depths and evoking mythical resonance,” by the Philadelphia Inquirer; and, “funny and moving…The depiction of love and infidelity amid a troupe of traveling players was nimbly done, as was the fatal confluence of illusion and reality...” by the San Francisco Chronicle.

 This winter I restaged my production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mendelssohn) with conductor Michael Francis for the Florida Orchestra. I also was performing as a guest artist for the production. Recent directing credits include a site-specific production of La hija de Rappaccini that was staged in a public slot canyon lobby on the campus of the University of Arizona. The production moved to Mexico City in May of 2019 as part of a Science and Art Festival at UNAM.The production has been requested to be remounted by a number of North American companies. This past summer I premiered my new libretto and staging for Thamos, King of Egypt (Mozart, Philipp) for San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival, “Audience reaction to the playful Thamos, King of Egypt was, overwhelmingly positive. A delighted standing ovation lasted for four curtain calls.” Ron Bierman, Broadway World; she is also preparing a remount of The Andrée Expedition with international baritone, Michael Chioldi which premiered in Vermont. Jim Lowe from Vermont Today said,” truly imaginative direction by Cynthia Stokes… quite a sophisticated production that truly sets the scene and underscores the men’s passions.” The Andrée Expedition  is also being sought after by a number of North American opera companies for the 2021 season. I am currently preparing to direct The King and I for Piedmont Opera and Hansel and Gretel for The Univerisity of Arizona. Hansel and Gretel will also offer two student matinee performances as a community outreach initiative.

In addition to my regular teaching responsiblities, Ms. Stokes conceived and taught a new coconvened College of Fine Arts class this fall which has received three years of funding. The class mashes up live performance with 360 degree camera technology. Samples of student work from the class will be presented at SXSW in February 2020. She has also received grants to support her work from The Arizona Commission for the Arts Grant, College of Fine Arts Office of the Dean, College of Science Office of the Dean, as well as a Qualcomm Ideas Grant. 

I arranged to bring in American mezzo soprano Becca Jo Loeb to do a week of master classes and individual coachings with undergraduate and graduate students in the voice area. I participated as a member of the search committee for the UA Presents new Executive Director. I am  a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee. My  other community service includes; pre-show panel for RHONDDA RIPS IT UP! that focused on the suffrage movement for women in Arizona. Panelists included: Vivan Harte from The League of Women Voters, Alison Hughes from  The Arizona Comission for Women and Associate Dean Tannis Gibson. My  production of Hansel and Gretel  will include two student matinee performances to encourage young people in the community to experience an opera, learn about the exciting work presented at UA and The Fred Fox School of Music. This initiative is also geared as a recruiting tool for potential students. 

My regular teaching load at U of A includes: Advanced Scenes, Opera Workshop and overseeing my Graduate Teaching Assistant's course MUS 105. I participated as a member of Mark Hockenberry and Kaitlin Bertenshaw's graduate juries this year. I am also a member of the Digital Design exploration committee. I am in charge of the Amelia Rieman Opera Competition held each spring. I coordinate the gala and other fund raising efforts with the Southern Arizona Opera Guild which financially support our students for summer programs. I am also a presenter for the Southern Arizona Opera Guild previews.

 Other recent directing highlights include: The American premier of RHONDDA RIPS IT UP!, Silent Night for Piedmont Opera; The Rape of Lucretia for University of Arizona’s Opera Workshop; Rigoletto for Opera Las Vegas, Coping Mechanisms for New York City’s Rhymes with Opera, South Pacific, Madama Butterfly and The Crucible for Piedmont Opera; Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus & Euridice, Robert Xavier Rodriguez La Curandera for San Antonio’s Opera Piccola;The Italian Straw Hat for Amarillo Opera; Le nozze di Figaro for San Antonio Opera; Pagliacci for Opera San Jose. While at Glimmerglass Opera, she directed Le nozze di Figaro (cover cast) and staged members of The Young American Artists Program in Killer B’s, a cabaret-style celebration of American composers whose last names begin with the letter ‘B’; Roméo et Juliette for San Diego Opera; Madama Butterfly for Opera Company of Philadelphia; Homies and Popz (tour) for Los Angeles Opera; Margaret Garner for Cincinnati Opera and Opera Carolina. Ms. Stokes has also been a member of the directing staff for Dallas Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, The Florentine Opera, Opera Pacific and Glimmerglass Opera.

2018

The National Association of Teachers of Singing Regional Conference was held at FFSOM February 1-3. I served as point person for the conference from the School of Music. During the conference I focused on recruiting potential college students from the region by offering tours of the campus and master classes for young singers. I identified and worked with several of our graduate students to prepare vocal workshops for high school students and also presented a workshop for middle school singers.  I coordinated this conference with local and regional NATS administrators and organized a reception for teachers, adjudicators and UA faculty in The Voice and Musical Theater area.

I initiated a proposal for a collaborative confluence class, which will launch in 2019. I identified a faculty colleague in Visual Arts to develop the class. The inspiration for this came from a Lunch with the Dean event, which was hosted by Interim Dean,Tannis Gibson. We received the go ahead on the project in the spring. The College of Fine Arts has been able to identify a patron who is going to fund the project for the first three years as it launches.  Professor Joe Farbrook and I will be creating and teaching the class beginning in the fall of 2019.

I worked with CFA Administrator Sharon Young and other CFA colleagues on the UCAP: Arts and Creative Services, I attended initial meetings in March and then went on to create a rubric for staff responsibilities and qualifications as part of the Family and Function portion of the UCAP plan.

I was assigned a work group through The Office of Instructional Support to invite bids for video conferencing support contracts.  I attended several meetings about this and then participated in testing the various products available from the companies who bid on the conferencing contract.

I identified a location (ENR2) for a fall production of Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s first opera "La Hija de Rappaccini" November 10 – 11, 2018, The University of Arizona's Opera Theater program will produce a site-specific production of the late Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s (1949-2011) Spanish language opera "La Hija de Rappaccini", with a libretto by Juan Tovar, based on Octavio Paz's play which was inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1844 short story titled “Rappaccini’s Daughter.”  "La hija”, a Spanish language opera, was Catán’s first operatic success, establishing him as one of the world’s most promising composers of the late 20th century. The caretaker of Dr. Rappaccini’s sequestered garden is his beautiful daughter Beatriz who was raised on the same poisonous plants that she tends. When a young student falls in love with her, Beatriz discovers her touch is deadly and that she must make a terrible decision. “LA hija" will be performed at ENR2. This building designates the edge of campus and is located near the gateway to South Tucson. The differences between the campus side of Broadway and the community across the street, while only a dozen steps apart, represent two very different worlds, each with its own borders that may appear closed to outsiders. The festival used themes presented in" La hija de Rappaccini" as the inspiration for a series of humanities panels, events and exhibits to challenge attendees’ perceptions around the ethical, moral, political and social issues posed within this story. The festival will inspire attendees to see they share more bridges of connection than borders of separation.

 Working with FFSOM opera design team, technical and production staff, we were able to secure the space for a fall 2018 production. This process involved meetings with ENR2 staff, risk management as well as the grounds team to create a plan for installing the production. We also are also securing additional power, dressing room space for the singers, and storage for instruments including two grand pianos.

To ensure the extra costs involved with this production could be addressed, I leveraged our existing opera budget to create a match through The Arizona Commission for the Arts. We received full funding for a Festival grant from the Commission. I wrote a letter of Intent for Arizona Council on the Humanities grant, which received complete support from their panel with a rating of 3 out of 3 points for the grant and was invited to formally apply for An Arizona Humanities Grant for “La hija”. The College of Fine Arts Office of the Dean generously provided $10,000 toward the project. I also reached out to Daniel Catán’s widow who spearheads Friends of Daniel Catán;  as well as local, regional and international partners for the project.  Jose Lever Vice President for Global Initiatives at University of Arizona has become interested in the project and invited Jose Volpi,  and Juan Alaya  from UNAM to meet the design team and see the space with the hopes that the project can have a future life in Mexico City as part of a Science Festival in May of 2019. 

The opera was performed with a live chamber orchestra in November of 2018, conducted by guest conductor Kirstin Roach and performed by student opera singers. The production also included theatrical projections, aerialists, and puppets, which transformed the six-story public space into a world of Magical Realism.  The opera was the centerpiece of a series of community performances at Biosphere 2 and The Tucson Botanical Garden. The opera was also the inspiration for a festival of interconnected events that promoted interaction between students, local, regional and international communities. These included a series of science and humanities panels that challenged attendees’ perceptions around the ethical, moral, political and social issues posed within this story. The festival inspired attendees to see they share more bridges of connection than borders of separation. This project was funded through The College of Fine Arts Office of the Dean, The Arizona Commission for the Arts, and The Fred Fox School of Music. The production is scheduled to tour to Mexico City’s UNAM in May of 2019.

During the summer of 2018 my new libretto and dramatic text for Thamos, King of Egypt premiered at San Diego's Mainly Mozart.  This project reflects my ongoing work with Mainly Mozart’s Executive Director, Nancy Laturno Bojanic and Maestro Michael Francis, Music Director . We have created three years of exciting programming as part of the Mainly Mozart Festival including: Bastien and Bastien in 2016, using students from Juillard. Then in 2017 I staged Mendelsohn's A Midsummer Nights Dream.

During the summer of 2018 my new libretto and dramatic text for "Thamos, King of Egypt" premiered at San Diego's Mainly Mozart.  This project reflects my ongoing work with Mainly Mozarts Executive Director, Nancy  and Maestro Michael Francis (Title). We have created three years of exciting programming as part of the Mainly Mozart Festival including: Bastien and Bastienen in 2016, using students from Juilliard and I staged Mendelsohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2017.   “Audience reaction to the playful Thamos, King of Egypt was, overwhelmingly positive. A delighted standing ovation lasted for four curtain calls.” Ron Bierman, Broadway World. I left after the dress rehearsal to get to Taos, New Mexico. There  I directed Michael Ching’s Speed Dating for The Taos Opera Institute; then remounted my production for Amarillo Opera in the fall.  U of A vocal student Jordan Murillo made his professional debutin the fall production. I am also preparing a remount of The Andrée Expedition with international baritone, Michael Chioldi.  

In July I returned to UCSD to teach Summer Session 1 and 2. My classes included two sections of Acting and two sections of Public Speaking.

This year I worked with  my colleagues in the vocal arts area to create a mission statement for Opera Theater and Vocal Arts. I also collaborated with my area to implement an area action plan to positively position Voice and Opera Theater for student recruiting.  I have  been a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee for two years, and is part of the selection committee for the new Director of UA Presents. My artistic work in Tucson received feature articles in The Tucson Daily Star in the fall of 2017 Rape of Lucretia and in the fall of 2018 for La hija de Rappaccini. I  appeared with my students on Tucson's Morning Blend show to promote Orpheus in the Underworld   and was interviewed by Tucson's NPR station for La hija de Rappaccini. My production of La hija received mention in the CFA Dean's December newletter.

I have been able to bring in a variety of guest artists most importantly was international soprano Mary Jane Johnson who was in residence for a week of classes, coaching and collaboration with the Voice area faculty.

In February 2019 I will be restaging my 2017 production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mendelssohn) with conductor Michael Francis for the Florida Orchestra. I will also be performing as a guest artist for the production.

 I continue to work as the Artistic Director of San Diego CITY Opera, San Diego’s newest opera company dedicated to encourage San Diegans to see their community in new positive ways by presenting opera in site-specific locations throughout the city.  CITY Opera’s first production,Queen of Carthage,a contemporary retelling of Dido and Aeneas was part of La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Festival in October 2015.  Music critic Jim Chute said,” they got to the beating, beautiful, timeless heart of Purcell’s 1688 masterpiece. Their 45-minute reduction of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” was an inspiration.  Last spring she staged Dominic Argento’s song cycle The Andrée Expedition with three singersin an abandoned factory. Music critic Pam Kragen said, “ Stokes ends the engrossing piece with a surprising and moving theatrical flourish that features a soulful and stylish reunion of the dead and dying. Opera is at its best when it’s visceral, and City Opera’s imaginative conception of the tragic, true story of the Andrée Expedition has proven to be a natural.”

 I have collaborated with some of America’s most exciting composers and librettists including: Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison on Margaret Garnerfor Cincinnati Opera and Opera Carolina, For Los Angeles Opera I co-wrote and directed Murder at the Opera with composer Edward Barnes. Schirmer Music publishes the opera.  My background of collaborating with writers, composers and visual artists led to Music and Art of Fin-De-Siècle Vienna for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  

An accomplished theatre director my work has been seen at American Conservatory Theatre, The Old Globe, The Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theatre and North Coast Rep.

I have extensive experience as an arts education specialist working with a variety of students from special needs to gifted and talented students and have received special recognition for hmy  work in the New York City Schools in the publication "Critical Links".  I worked as The Associate Director of School and Community Programs for La Jolla Playhouse ( 2000-2005) and Associate Director of Education for San Diego Opera  (2005-2009). I continued to write education content for both organizations through 2015. While at both organizations I created and implemented arts education programs that received funding from The National Endowment for the Arts, California Council for the Arts, and The Irvine Foundation. Other grants for Ms. Stokes include: Arizona Commission for the Arts Festival Grant, University of Arizona’s College of Fine Arts Office of the Dean’s Grant for her site specific production of La hija de Rappaccini, a three–year start up grant for my  interdisciplinary College of Fine Arts collaborative class, a Qualcomm Ideas Grant for SDCITY Opera workshop of St. Francis de los Barrios, New York Foundation for the Arts Artist in Residence Grant, Opera America Travel Grant, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Lotta Crabtree Foundation Grant, Minnesota Opera’s New Music Theatre Ensemble Grant and A Quinn Martin Directing Grant.

Deeply committed to encouraging the next generation of artists and audiences, I started La Jolla Playhouse’s Summer Conservatory in 1995. The program continues and is now in it’s 24th year. I also created San Diego Opera’s Summer High School Opera Institute. I am currently on faculty at The Taos Opera Institute and served as an NEA panelist for opera. I  have also been a panelist for San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture. I hold a B.A. in Theater from Colorado State University and an M.FA., in Directing from the University of California at San Diego. I ami a member of The National Opera Association, AGMA, Opera America, and The California Teacher's Association.  My volunteer work includes: More Than Sex-Ed; a California not-for-profit that encourages conversations around gender and sexuality for people of all ages. 

Degrees

• M.F.A. Stage Direction
• University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States
• Alexander Ostrovsky’s The Diary of a Scoundrel
• B.A. Theater Arts
• Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States

Awards

• Travel Grant
• UCSD Department of Theater and Dance, Winter 1995
• UCSD Department of Theater and Dance, Summer 1993
• National Endowment for the Arts Artistic Residency
• UCSD and La Jolla Playhouse, Summer 1994
• Directing Fellowship
• Minnesota Opera New Music Ensemble, Summer 1993
• Artist in Residence
• NYSCA, Spring 1993
• Quinn Martin Directing Fellow
• University of California at San Diego, Fall 1992
• Research Leadership Institute
• University of Arizona Academic Leadership, Fall 2023
• Elected to Board of Directors
• National Opera Association, Spring 2023
• Research and Development Grant
• Arizona Commission on the Arts, Summer 2021
• Conference Grant
• Opera America, Spring 2006