Amy Stebbins
Amy Stebbins is a writer and director working across opera, theatre, and new media. Her work ranges from mainstage productions to site-specific installations to hybrid forms such as virtual reality and film/orchestra collaborations. Her breakthrough came with Mauerschau (Bavarian State Opera, 2016), which was awarded the Opera Festival Prize and later brought by conductor Oksana Lyniv to the LvivMozArt Festival in Ukraine. Since then, Amy has received commissions from several opera houses, including Augsburg State Theater, Neuköllner Oper, and Frankfurt Opera.
In the spring of 2025, Amy joined the “Immersive Opera” team at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. This UKRI-funded research project is committed to developing new formats for opera and opera-adjacent experiences in collaboration with several partner institutions across the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America. Much of Amy’s artistic work has been developed with the support of residencies and fellowships, including MacDowell, the Academy for Theater & Digitality, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, the German Chancellor Fellowship, Akademie Musiktheater heute, and the Fulbright Foundation.
for MAUERSCHAU, Munich: “The incontestable ornament of the Munich Opera Festival… The massively applauded premiere of this in no way conceptually simple work had a lot to offer for both eye and ear. It should encourage the Munich Opera to further follow this path of contemporary opera.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
for AMBLETO, Theater für Niedersachsen “Beautiful… imaginative… dramaturgically and technically superb. An evening you should probably see twice.” Opernwelt
for RIGOLETTO, Theater Gießen: “A perfect Rigoletto. A spectacular production! The audience was captivated. A standing ovation at the end. Bravi!” Hessischer Rundfunk
“seamless… gripping… without any directorial gimmicks.” der Opernfreund
“I’m doomed by you, you ass! You sleep, and my time turns to dust,“ grumbles the mind in Amy Stebbins’ libretto, which is cleverly laced with all kinds of everyday phrases and philosophical quotations. It is precisely this understated, beautiful weirdness that makes this rather short play so charming” Barbara Wiegand, RBB24
[„Ich gehe zugrunde an dir, du Arsch! Du schläfst, und meine Zeit zerfällt zu Staub“, moniert der Geist im klug mit allerlei Alltagsfloskeln die philosophischen-zitatengespinsten Libretto von Amy Stebbins und es ist diese unaufgeregte, schöne Schrägheit, die den Charme des recht kurzen Stücks ausmacht.”]
“Amy Stebbins, who as an apprentice spent many years spelling out the critical materialism of the Volksbühne and worked with René Pollesch, has written a libretto that reckons with all kinds of mind-body despotism… In the end, a very special, shrill and quirky liberation of sensuality…. Irritatingly well done!” Doris Meierhenrich, Berliner Zeitung
[“Amy Stebbins, die als Elevin über viele Jahre den kritischen Materialismus der Volksbühne durchbuchstabiert hat und eng mit René Pollesch zusammenarbeitete, hat ein Libretto verfasst, das eine Abrechnung mit aller Art Geist-Körper-Despotie durchexerziert… Am Ende eine sehr spezielle, schrill-sch¨rage Befreunde der Sinnlichkeit…. Irritierend gut gemacht!”]
Contact
Deborah Sanders
Founder and Director
deborah@arbourartists.com