Jay Scheib. Born in Shenandoah, Iowa in 1969. Studied theater and comparative literature as well as fine arts / video and performance, later receiving his MFA in Directing at Columbia University, School of the Arts in New York. With a New York-based ensemble, Jay Scheib & Co., Scheib began the development of an approach to contemporary performance which would draw together an improvisation-rich approach to physical performance with a live cinema, technology-forward stage aesthetic.
Scheib’s most recent works including a new staging of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal for the Bayreuther Festspiele, in Germany and the world of premiere of Paola Prestini’s opera at the intersection of AI and disability, Sensorium Ex. Thomas Adès’ Powder her Face with New York City Opera, The Medea after Euripides, Müller, Passolini, Beethoven’s Fidelio, the Montiverdi opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, as well and many of his own original adaptations including Platonov, or the Disinherited after Chekhov, the Simulated Cities / Simulated Systems trilogy, and two live cinema Bergman adaptations – the Keeril Makan composed opera Persona, and a theatrical staging of The Silence.
Other opera projects include Sei Siegfried, a Virtual Reality experience for the Bayreuther Festspiele; two Giorgos Kouroupou operas Pylades and Jocasta, both for the Athens Epidarus Festival; a new staging of the Tod Machover composed, Artificial Intelligence-infused, Valis, based on the Philip K Dick novel; and Na'ama Zisser’s Mamzer/Bastard with the Royal Opera House London and Guild Hall at the Hackney Empire Theater, London.
Both with his ensemble and as an independent artist, Scheib has made guest appearances at theaters and festivals around the world, including in Germany, at the Berliner Staatsbank, and the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, Theater Augsburg, Opera Wuppertal, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Festival D'Automne Paris, Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival, English National Opera, London Coliseum, Royal Opera House London / Hackney Empire, LA Opera / Redcat, Maison des Arts Creteil Paris, Spoleto Festival, The Kitchen in New York City, Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston, Saarlandisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken, New York City Opera, Hong Kong Dance Company, National Theater Budapest, Walker Art Center, Transformer, Manchester Opera House, Athens Epidaurus Festival, Norwegian National Theater Academy Oslo, Festival d'Opéra de Québec in Canada, Luminato Festival, Toronto, and others.
Winner of the Evening Standard award for Best Musical in 2018, Scheib’s West End staging of Jim Steinman’s Bat Out of Hell, continues to tour internationally and has played in over 45 cities. In 2009 he was named best New York theater director by Time Out New York, and American Theater Magazine counted him among the 25 theater artists who are likely to shape American theater for the next 25 years. He is the winner of the OBIE Award for Best Director for his Fassbinder adaptation Word of Wires and was given the renowned Guggenheim Fellowship for his stage adaptation of Samuel Delany's epoch-making novel Dhalgren, under the title Bellona, Destroyer of Cities. Scheib is professor for Music and Theater Arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he Heads the Music and Theater Arts programs.