Greetings!

I’m Roxie, a Boston-based theater director with a passion for non-realistic performance styles. I specialize in puppetry, opera, and theatrical performance in non-traditional spaces.

I believe that the performing arts are creative laboratories for discovering new ways to live our lives.

Whenever we bravely pretend that a fictional world or a fabricated character is real, we exercise our extraordinary ability to make the impossible possible.

Biography

Roxanna Myhrum is an award-winning director of opera, theater, and puppetry. From 2010 - 2021 she was the Artistic Director of Puppet Showplace Theater where she curated multiple year-round performance series, oversaw all-ages educational programs, and cultivated new work by local artists. A sought-after puppetry coach and director, she has credits at the Huntington Theatre Company, SpeakEasy Stage (Eliott Norton Award, Hand to God), Company One, the Lyric Stage Company of Boston (IRNE Award, Avenue Q), Wheelock Family Theater, New Repertory Theatre, and Gloucester Stage Company. Her work has been supported by the Boston Foundation’s Live Arts Boston Grant and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Creative City Grant.

Roxanna is also an experienced opera director, and has staged over 20 full-length operas in 7 different languages in theaters and non-traditional spaces. In 2023, she directed the world premiere of the opera MONKEY: A Kung Fu Puppet Parable for White Snake Projects, and was a recipient of Opera America’s grant for women stage directors and conductors. As a pioneering member of Boston’s vibrant fringe opera scene, she has worked with companies including Boston Opera Collaborative, Juventas New Music Ensemble, OperaHub, the Diva Day Foundation, Opera Brittenica, Commonwealth Lyric Theater, and Harvard’s Lowell House Opera, where she was resident stage director for 7 years. Roxanna was also the first opera directing apprentice at the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado. Most recently she has created innovative stagings of choral works, including Menotti’s The Unicorn, The Gorgon, and the Manticore with Metropolitan Chorale.

Roxanna has guest-taught directing, devising, and puppetry performance at Harvard, Brown, Emerson College, Boston University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Suffolk University, Boston College, Babson, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and in numerous K-12 camp and school settings. She has also led teacher trainings for school systems in Boston, Newton, Brookline, Cambridge, and Framingham.

Roxanna is originally from Springfield, MA where she studied acting and directing at The Drama Studio. Growing up, she performed professionally at regional theaters around the Pioneer Valley, including at the Majestic Theatre, City Stage (formerly StageWest), and Summer Theatre at Mt. Holyoke College. She was also a resident company member and Flock Theatre associate at the Eugene O’Neill National Puppetry Conference. Roxanna is an honors graduate of Harvard University (Social Studies, 2005) and has extensive professional experience as an academic researcher. She has served on staff at Company One Theatre, the Boston Foundation, and numerous Boston-area documentary film companies. She is currently the Director of Programs and Events at Boston Lyric Opera.