Scott Edmiston

Scott Edmiston is an educator, theater director, dramaturg, author, and arts advocate. 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 artistic body of work and 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, Opera Boston, and Huntington Theatre Company, where he was an artistic associate. Eight of his productions have been honored with Boston's Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production, including Constellations (2018), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2017), My Fair Lady (2016), A Marvelous Party (2008), Miss Witherspoon (2007), and Five by Tenn (2006).

Prior to joining the Berklee faculty, he was dean of theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and chair of the Department of Theatre at Northeastern University, where he received the Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Faculty Award. He has taught at Boston University, Brown University, and Brandeis University, where he was the inaugural director of the Office of the Arts, overseeing the visual and performing arts. His areas of expertise include directing, acting modern drama, queer theater, musical theater/film history, the films of Fred Astaire, and the plays of 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 best known for his bold reimagining of classic American plays and musicals. These include the first U.S. revival of the opera Nixon in China, hailed as “musically deft and deeply touching” by the New York Times; Five by Tenn, the premiere of five newly rediscovered Tennessee Williams plays; and an original adaption of Eugene O’Neill’s 1924 Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Christie. He has directed over 25 New England premieres.