Scott Edmiston

Scott Edmiston is an educator, theater director, and dramaturg. Hailed as “one of Boston’s finest directors” by the Boston Globe, he is the recipient of the Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence for his cultural contributions to New England. Since relocating to Boston in 1997, he has directed more than 60 productions at theaters, such as the American Repertory Theater, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Lyric Stage Company, Central Square Theater, and Huntington Theatre Company, where he was an artistic associate. Many of his productions have been honored with awards for outstanding production, including Constellations, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, My Fair Lady, A Marvelous Party, The Light in the Piazza, The History Boys, Miss Witherspoon, Five by Tenn, and Betrayal.

Prior to joining the Berklee faculty, Edmiston was dean of theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and chair of the Department of Theatre at Northeastern University. He has taught at Boston University, Brown University/Trinity Rep, University of Michigan, and Brandeis University, where he was the inaugural director of the Office of the Arts. His areas of expertise include acting, directing, modern drama, queer theater, musical theater history, Fred Astaire, Eugene O’Neill, and Tennessee Williams. Among his publications, he is the author of “Acting Misbegotten: The Creative Journey to Eugene O’Neill” in the book Critical Insights: Eugene O’Neill (Salem Press, 2012).

Edmiston is well-known for his bold reimagining of American classics. These include Five by Tenn, the premiere of five rediscovered Tennessee Williams plays; the first US revival of the opera Nixon in China, hailed as “musically deft and deeply touching” by the New York Times; and his original adaption of Eugene O’Neill’s 1924 Pulitzer Prize-winner Anna Christie. He has directed more than 25 New England premieres.