Richard Kagey, Director/Designer, has directed and/or designed over 150 productions of operas, musicals, and plays for Professional Regional Companies, National Tours, and Universities. He worked in the Broadway Theatre for 6 years on productions that included: Evita, Sweeney Todd, The Gin Game, and Merrily We Roll Along. He has had a strong relationship with American contemporary opera including; directing/designing the premiere of The Hotel Casablanca in a co- production between the University of Kentucky and The San Francisco Opera Merola Program. Other contemporary works include: Carlyle Floyds Of Mice and Men for the Fort Worth Opera, and The Atlanta Opera production of Phillip Glasses’ Akhnaten ( only one of 7 performances of the work), and Marc Adamo’s Little Women and Lysistrada. He has also directed or designed several workshop productions of new works for composers including; Ricky Ian Gordon’s Morning Star, Thomas Pasatieri’s John Marcher, Joseph Illick’s Bliss, He is equally at home with classical opera repertoire including: Pagliacci for Opera of North Carolina,The Magic Flute for the Seagle Music Colony, Lucia de Lammamour for Kentucky . Upcoming productions include Amahl and The Night Visitors in Sante Fe in January, in March he will be directing Die Fledermaus for Kentucky, and Don Giovanni for the Fort Worth Opera in May. He will return to The Atlanta Opera this year to direct his fourth children’s opera for their school outreach. Richard also has recently directed Bernstein’s Candide, Sondheim’s Company, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd. Next summer he will be directing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. His recent design work includes productions of the Mikado, Crazy for you , Guys and Dolls, La Boheme, Marriage of Figgaro and Carmen. He was the production coordinator for Windwood Productions on 8 musicals produced for national tours. No stranger to working with Symphony orchestras he has staged concerts for the Evansville, Indiana Phillharmonic, Owensboro, Kentucky Symphony and the Glens Falls, NY Symphony. Kagey continues his over 30 year run as director of productions for the Seagle Music Colony a summer program for opera singers. He has been a professor at Skidmore College, North Carolina Wesleyan College, Castleton State College- Vermont and Frostburg State University – Maryland where he was Chair of the Division of Performing Arts for 14 years. A full time freelancer he currently makes his home in Atlanta.