Director Josh Shaw has a distinctive artistic vision, formed over a decade of work in opera and music theatre and the experiences from over 100 productions. He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Pacific Opera Project (POP), a Los Angeles-based company dedicated to producing affordable, accessible, and ENTERTAINING opera. During the 2014 season Mr. Shaw directed sold-out and critically acclaimed productions of Tosca: A moving production, La bohème AKA “The Hipsters”, Carmen, La Calisto and The Turn of the Screw for POP.
Mr. Shaw is the Resident Director for Chamber Opera Players of Los Angeles and has directed productions of Il segretto di Susanna, A Hand of Bridge, Gallantry, A Sunday Excursion, The Man on the Bearskin Rug, Three Sisters who are not Sisters, and The Last Silent Voice (World Premiere) for the up and coming company. He has also been on staff at Opera Neo in San Diego for the past two seasons as a stage director and Director of Community Events. He will return in 2015 to direct Carmen and The Impresario (for which he will write a new English libretto). Other recent directorial projects include Il barbiere di Siviglia, Le nozze di Figaro, The Mikado, Cosi fan tutte, Trouble in Tahiti, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and Don Giovanni with POP; Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Abduction from the Seraglio at the Southern Illinois Music Festival; The Medium for Redlands Opera Theatre; and Into the Woods and Annie at Burbank Community Theater. 2015 Projects include Ariadne auf Naxos, Falstaff, and Viva la Mamma! with POP; Cavalleria rusticana and I pagliacci with the Celestial Opera Company; and Madama Butterfly with Saltmarsh Opera. Several other revivals of Abduction are in the works all across the country as well.
In his former life as a tenor, Mr. Shaw sang leading roles with Opera Fairbanks, Capital Opera of Sacramento, High Desert Opera, Opera Las Vegas, Center Stage Opera, Lyric Opera of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Metropolitan Opera, Intimate Opera Company, The Celestial Opera Company, and Opera Pasadena. He has toured the United States with the Pasadena-based Gilbert & Sullivan troupe, Opera a la Carte for multiple seasons. He has also worked and recorded albums with LA Operetta Project, a foundation dedicated to recording lost early American operetta and music theatre. Mr. Shaw’s most celebrated roles include Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Rodolfo in La bohème, Alfredo in La traviata, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Don José in Carmen, and the title role in Faust. In conjunction with the Los Angeles Ring Festival in 2010, he sang the lead role of Arindal in Lyric Opera of Los Angeles’ U.S. staged premiere of Richard Wagner’s first opera, Die Feen, of which the LA Times said, “tenor Josh Shaw revealed a grasp of the heroic potential and temporary madness of Arindal.”
Mr. Shaw is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University and Southern Illinois University, with a master’s degree in Opera/Music Theater. More information can be found at www.joshshaw.org or www.pacificoperaproject.com.