Paula Suozzi is the Executive Stage Director of the Metropolitan Opera Association where she has directed revivals of LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK, DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRENBERG, DER ROSENKAVALIER, LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, TURANDOT, MEFISTOFELE and assisted on over 20 productions. She collaborates with directors around the world to help bring productions successfully to the Met stage - directors such as Ivo Van Hove, Phelim McDermott and William Kentridge - traveling to Festival Aix en Provence and the Sydney Opera House among others. In the pandemic year, Paula, along with a trusted colleague, developed and implemented the Stage Director and Stage Manager Fellowship training program to help diversify the people who have access to the jobs behind the scenes in the operatic industry. Now in the application process for year four, Bank of America is supporting this fully paid training program. In the summer of 2022 Ms. Suozzi was the stage director for the first opera production in the Benedict Music tent at Aspen Music Festival and School. Paula's first staging of FALSTAFF under the baton of Patrick Summers and starring Bryn Terfel and a host of talented members of the next generation of opera singers and "guaranteed that everyone had eye-catching and ear-catching moments to contribute", according to the Opera News review. Ms. Suozzi served as Artistic Director of Milwaukee Shakespeare and Associate Artistic Director of Skylight Music Theatre. As a freelance director of theater and opera, Paula has staged everything from TWELFTH NIGHT to THE FOOD CHAIN to GUYS AND DOLLS. She has staged work at companies such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Florentine Opera Company and Bialystock & Bloom Theatre Company. As a coach and teacher, she has contributed her talents to the CoOperative Program at Westminster Choir College, the Metropolitan National Council semi-finalists, and the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.