Opera and theatre director Polly Graham is Artistic Director of Longborough Festival Opera and Founder and Artistic Director of Loud Crowd. A recipient of the Independent Opera Director Fellowship 2016, Graham’s productions have won Best Opera Production in the Wales Theatre Awards in both 2017 and 2018; she was nominated in the Newcomer category of the 2017 International Opera Awards and for the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2017.
Graham directed the world première of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando for the Vienna State Opera, Pierangelo Valtinoni’s Il Piccolo Principe at La Scala and staged Frank Martin’s Le Vin Herbé for Welsh National Opera and Theater St Gallen and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria for Longborough Festival Opera.
Recent seasons have seen her directing diverse repertoire such as Dido & Aeneas for Blackheath Halls Community Opera, Die Zauberflöte for the Royal College of Music as well as Bloom Brittania, a new community opera by Orlando Gough and Stephen Plaice.
Polly Graham read English at Trinity College, Dublin and completed an M.A. in Text and Performance at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Whilst a student she gained experience with the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival, Streetwise Opera, Teatr Pieśń Kosła and Le Théâtre du Soleil.