Sam Brown is a stage director based in London. He read Classics at Oxford and completed the MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck College, London. He was assistant director at West Yorkshire Playhouse and staff director for Opera North. In partnership with designer Annemarie Woods he was honored with two prestigious international opera awards in 2011: the European Opera Directing Prize and the Ring Award in Graz - where they won all available prizes.

Sam Brown made his opera directing debut at the Bavarian State Opera with Sigurd the Dragonslayer by Andy Pape. His further credits include: Jakob Lenz by Wolfgang Rihm (ENO London), I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Como), Der Zigeunerbaron (Klagenfurt), Handel’s The Triumph of Time and Truth/The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit (Karlsruhe), La Cenerentola (Lucerne), Donizetti’s La Favorite (Graz), Alcina (Cottbus), Hair (Darmstadt), My Fair Lady (Karlsruhe) and The Barber of Seville (Welsh National Opera and Geneva). He directed Bernstein’s Candide and the world premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest by Gerald Barry in Nancy, Britten’s A Midsummer Nights Dream in Trier, Die Fledermaus and Carmen in Karlstad, and Phyllis Tate’s BBC-commissioned opera The Lodger in Bremerhaven.

As a theatre director his credits include: Magpie Park by Oliver Emanuel (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Over Gardens Out by Peter Gill (Riverside Studios, London), and Lungs (Atmen) by Duncan Macmillan (Graz). He co-wrote the libretto and directed The Water Palace by Stephen Shulman (Tête à Tête Opera), Victory Conditions at Munich’s Residenztheater and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, edited by Nick Dears, in Regensburg.

Sam Brown had his Viennese debut at Theater an der Wien with Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito in 2019, followed by Franz Hummel’s musical Ludwig II. in Regensburg, and a semi-staged Fidelio, premiered in Sweden’s Örebro and subsequently performed in Stockholm, Paris, Brussels and Essen.

He is about to stage Massenet’s Werther in Bremerhaven.