The New York Times has praised Bartlett Sher as “one of the most original and exciting directors, not only in the American theater but also in the international world of opera.” Nominated for the Tony Award nine times, he took home the prize in 2008 for his powerful revival of South Pacific. He has worked over thirty-five years as a director in theaters and opera houses all over the world. He is a founding partner of SRO Productions with JT Rogers and Cambra Overend.
Born in San Francisco into a large family where he was fifth of seven children, Bart’s early career started there and in San Diego, where he developed his own company and assisted Robert Woodruff at the La Jolla Playhouse. After attending the University of Leeds in England for an MA, he then became Resident Director at the Guthrie Theater, where he worked under the extraordinary guidance of Garland Wright. Soon after he became Associate Artistic Director at the Hartford Stage, led by Mark Lamos, until arriving at the Intiman Theater in Seattle, where he served as the Artistic Director from 2000-2009.
During his time working in a regional theater, he directed over twenty plays by Shakespeare, and immersed himself in the classics — Moliere, Goldoni, Ibsen, Chekhov, Thorton Wilder, Shaw, Gogol, Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Brecht, and many others. In 2000 his production of Harley Granville-Barker’s Waste premiered at Theater for a New Audience in New York, and his Cymbeline premiered as the first American production of a Shakespeare play at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Bart’s first Broadway production was the 2005 world premiere of The Light in the Piazza, by Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas, which garnered him his first Tony nomination. Soon after he became the Resident Director of Lincoln Center Theater, a position he has held ever since. While at LCT, Bart has revived such dramas as Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing and Golden Boy, and August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s…, and staged thrilling productions of the musicals The King and I, Fiddler on the Roof, The Bridges of Madison County, My Fair Lady, and most recently a chamber opera of Intimate Apparel. His ongoing relationship with JT Rogers began with their work on Blood and Gifts and culminated in the 2017 Tony-winning Best Play, Oslo. In 2018 he directed Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway, which became the best-selling American play in Broadway history.
In the world of opera, Bart has directed both new work and classics, including Mourning Becomes Electra at Seattle and New York City Operas, Two Boys by Nico Muhly at ENO and the Met, and Barbiere di Siviglia, Il Les Contes d’Hoffmann, L’Elisir d’Amore, Le Comte Ory, and Otello at the Met. He also directed Roméo et Juliette for the Salzburg Festival, La Scala, Chicago and the Met, as well as Faust and Barbiere di Siviglia in Baden Baden and Rigoletto at the Berlin Staatsoper and the Met.
His film of Oslo premiered on HBO last year and was nominated for two Emmy Awards and won a Critics Choice Award. He recently staged the arrival of Little Amal into New York at JFK airport. His recent work includes a new play by Sharr White, Pictures from Home, and a revival of Lerner & Lowe’s Camelot at Lincoln Center, with a book by Aaron Sorkin. Upcoming work includes a play by J.T. Rogers, Corruption, premiering at Lincoln Center in 2024.