Sharon Ott

Director of the School of Theatre & Dance

Sharon Ott came to UH from Virginia Commonwealth University where she served as the Chair/Artistic Director of the department. Before VCU, she was a Professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Prior to entering the world of academia, Ms. Ott was the Artistic Director of two major regional theatres, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre. At Berkeley Rep, she produced a broad range of work from classics by Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw to new works from a diverse slate of authors. Favorite productions at Berkeley Rep include several plays by Phillip Kan Gotanda (Yankee Dawg You Die (which transferred to Playwrights Horizons in NYC), The Ballad of Yachiyo (which was later produced at The Public Theatre in NYC and the Seattle Repertory Theatre) and The Wash ( which went on to productions at The Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and The Manhattan Theatre Club in New York ), the national tour of Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles (which performed in Houston, New Haven, Boston, and at Ford’s Theatre in DC), and Deborah Rogin’s adaptation of Maxine Hong Kingston’s iconic coming of age story, The Woman Warrior (which was later presented at the Doolittle Theatre in Los Angeles). She accepted the Tony Award for Excellence for Berkeley Rep in 1997. In Seattle, she continued her work with Phillip Kan Gotanda and SRT proudly co-produced two world premieres by August Wilson- King Hedley II with Pittsburgh Public Theatre and Wilson’s solo performance piece, How I Learned What I Learned. She has worked as a director at theatres across the country and internationally in Japan and the Czech Republic, and has directed operas for Seattle Opera, San Diego Opera, and Opera Colorado. She has received many awards for her work as a director and producer, including several from the Bay Area Critics’ Circle and Hollywood Dramalogue Magazine as well as the Paine Knickerbocker Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award for her artistic direction of Berkeley Rep. She is a proud member of SDC (Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers) and was a member of the SDC Executive Board for 13 years, receiving the President’s Award for Extraordinary Service in 2018. She currently serves as the Treasurer of SDCF ( Stage Directors and Choreographer’s Foundation).