.png){kind=logo}
Stage director Michael Shell is known for his visionary storytelling across the country and internationally, and his mentorship as an educator.
He’s also known for pairing Rossini with chickens.
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is known for world-class productions and, in particular, its championing of new works.
La Bohéme is typically not that (unless you put it on the moon). So, how to make it fit?
Michael has a distinct style that spans a 20-year career—6 of those years as Resident Stage Director and Associate Professor of Music in Voice at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. We got curious about the throughlines that make his style resonate so well in a variety of unique circumstances, so we asked.
Michael was in the “beginning of the thick” of preparation for Sweeney Todd at IU when we first talked. For this Sweeney in particular, Michael described the intense “collaboration between the dramaturg, maestro, fight scene choreographers, and a plethora of other folks” as particularly satisfying (if not a bit insane) to see coming together at the student level.
Add spring break during production, and you're inches away from overt chaos.
Michael’s role is to manage that chaotic process to a professional result, and he emphasized the necessity of collaboration above all else. “I do have a strong idea about things, but I feel like the thing that I do especially well is create an environment where people can be their best and bring that to the table.”
“I like having freedom, and I like giving freedom.” Sign me up.
From Bloomington, Michael went to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis to mount the new La bohème in May and June. There's a key to hitting the ground running when time is an expensive, precious commodity for turning a new environment, cast, crew, and creative team into an audience-worthy production: "the people in the room always take priority in the process."
Anh Le, Director of Marketing & PR at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, shared that "Michael brought a wonderful sense of authenticity and warmth, along with his own life story, to the rehearsal process for Bohéme. All of us—artists, staff, everyone—really responded well to it."
Background work and preparation are crucial. But once in the rehearsal room, an approach that over-intellectualizes the production turns Michael’s attention away from the creatives with whom he’s working, leaving behind a dehumanized show.
Instead, he is an “actor’s director.” He wants access to the raw motivations and experiences of his cast and their characters to allow him to stage something strikingly adjacent to reality for the audience. He considers this the core of his job. This also seems to be his superpower (our words, not his).
He did this in St. Louis when tasked with making our familiar Bohemians sympathetic and believable as they neglect their rent and fall in insta-love. His approach to success for this fantastical frame was to find the truth.
Where, in this wild story of far-fetched events, was the truth? What would the result be if he remained true to the story, true to himself, allowed the actors freedom, and conveyed universal, shared truths to the audience?
The result was a very successful new Bohème.
Alongside a stellar leading cast, Michael aligned instantly with conductor José Luis Gomez. “His take on Bohème matched my aspirations onstage. It was electric, dynamic, and fresh — not stodgy or self-indulgent. It flew off the page and filled the production with electricity.”
Katerina Burton and Moises Salazar took on Rodolfo and Mimi and delivered the instant, necessary romantic chemistry. But he was more interested in how naturally the pair read as youthful and flirtatious rather than melodramatic and somber.
The result was “this lovely kind of flirtatious joking, teasing happening in that scene, which we don't always get in a way that makes you giggle. Alongside what was a very romantic, of course, very powerful magnetic connection, it just made them seem so real. Moises and Katerina were so willing to play the fullness of who these people are, rather than only being passionate and dramatic. This felt like watching two kids, which was so authentic to their passion.”
He added, “I say ‘kids’ because I'm 50. What are you?”
Perhaps this excitement to find the truth in the creatives in the room — in this production, that they were kids in love — is exactly what allowed this cast and crew to serve up an age-agnostic love story that felt as electric onstage as it did off.
"From day one, Michael wanted to maintain that genuine feeling, moving away from the fabled, iconic portrayal to focus on the pure essence of first love and the world opening up," Anh noted.
"For a young cast, many of whom were singing these roles for the first time, this approach allowed them to bring their own youthful experiences to the production. Michael's ability to demonstrate vulnerability and create a space where the artists could be themselves was deeply appreciated. I think this was a key reason why the artists enjoyed working with him so much."
In Michael and OTSL’s production, a new reality for the lovers in the early 1950s in Paris was devised: as the story progresses, the vibrancy and color are slowly removed. The heightened theatricality that carried the characters becomes more pedestrian. The characters’ lives now experience pain and tragedy.
And audiences got it.
Broadway World used the term “utter genius.”
HEC Media noted, “Shell’s brilliant direction brings out the stark contrast between what happens before and after the single intermission in his staging of Puccini’s masterpiece." Clearly, the experience was shared and felt across the theater.
The vibrancy of 1950s Paris followed by the sucker punch of a very real Act II created impactful contrast, and I asked Michael what helped shape an onstage world where vibrancy and tragedy played so successfully together, despite the rinse-and-repeat-dread that can come with a canon work like Bohème.
He returned quickly to the artists who turned these familiar roles from caricatures into audience friends.
“Brittany Renee crafted a really funny but deeply nuanced version of Musetta.” We’re generally familiar with Musetta’s struggle. There’s a lifestyle she wants to have, a comfort she wants to seek, yet she can’t deny the magnetic connection she has with Marcello.
“We talked about the challenge of portraying this in a non-superficial way, focusing on the practical sense. She doesn't want to worry that if she’s dying, she won’t have medicine or won’t be able to see a doctor because Marcello isn’t successful in that way. She’s confronted with this directly with Mimi literally at death’s door, and Brittany brought a bold, contrasting empathy to the finale of the show.
“That’s what I really loved about her: she brought all this humor, flair, and spiciness to the role, but at the same time, she had real strength and heart.”
Opposite Brittany, Tommy Glass matched her nuance with excellent facility of character. Michael also touted Tommy’s ability to go beyond a bombastic and superficial Marcello, and to avoid the oversimplification trap of vascillating between joking around and surface level sadness.
“Marcello is really tough to play, and audiences have a lot of expectations for him. What Tommy brings is so much dimension to those extreme traits. We ended up with a Marcello with this bull-in-a-china-shop kind of energy that ended up reading as so dynamic, authentic and wonderful. I would prompt him with ideas about how to get into what he was doing and the reasons behind it, but he just jumped in and had no problem not only doing it, but bringing a depth that took the work to the next level from day one.”
Michael seems to be paying legacy forward in the sense that he's perpetuating a well-known artist-first environment at OTSL in which he both trained and made some of his most significant debuts.
"I grew up there as a director. Jim Robinson's belief in me as a director was huge, not only boosting my confidence as an artist but also opening doors for me. To have the opportunity to not only come back, but to have [General Director] Andrew Jorgensen bought in and supportive of my ideas and process was incredibly meaningful artistically and personally.
"Coming back to OTSL was like coming home. It’s such a wonderful, positive, and professional environment. For any artist, it tends to be a place you want to return to because when you're in it, you feel how the supportive environment creates these gorgeous, successful productions season after season."
With one such Bohème headlining his summer, I ask Michael about his most significant sources of inspiration for production concepts that land so effectively. He relentlessly pursues the truth within the absurdity of opera plots (when aren't they absurd) and productions and emphasizes finding newness each time.
He also notes that doing "a lot of absurd, zany” things has been quite useful when appropriate, too. His hilarious, well-received adaptation of The Barber of Seville (yes, the one with the chickens) is a perfect example of this—audiences at four different companies have enjoyed his avian-themed production.
He credits much of his philosophy to mentor and director Dorothy Danner, who he worked with as Assistant Director early in his career. She taught him “why people behave the way they do; every person has some desire or purpose” for being there.
His inspirations and mentors are heavy hitters in the world of theater. David McVicar, for his very real, “poignant storytelling,” and David Alden, because he knows all of his operas so thoroughly – something that Michael takes seriously in his own work. Jim Robinson, a directing colleague of Michael’s from OTSL, is brilliant at finding the “importance of the big idea” in a show or specific moment, and for the energy he brings to the room: “this is a place where we’re going to enjoy ourselves [and the process].”
With this strength for drawing empathy from creatives, Michael is especially passionate about storytelling that focuses on underrepresented groups whose stories haven’t been given consideration or resource in the past.
Earlier this year, Michael presented the first installment of the New Works Series at IU on Swimming in the Dark, a new opera based on the book written by Polish author Tomasz Jedrowski. It is about two gay men and will be the first time IU has highlighted a story from the LGBTQ+ community. Even more importantly, “it’s not a story that ends in someone dying of AIDS.”
Having grown up during the AIDS crisis, “everything that I saw sort of had that as the end of [the story.]” Swimming is a refreshing, coming-of-age love story on how “politics can rip people apart,” and is happening in our country constantly.” A bit on the nose, no?
For Michael, championing this story was important as an intentional step away from stereotypes and into contemporary, real stories about these diverse groups. “It’s really important to continue to tell new stories of the people who haven’t had stories told about them.” Less Dorian Gray, more Tom Daley both diving and knitting for the Olympics. Or something.
As our conversation wrapped up, Michael couldn’t help but refocus again on his favorite element of his job: the people. In talking with him, you can feel that creating a space where each individual is welcome in who they are and what they bring to it is deeply important to him.
His rehearsal rooms feel good—“they don’t feel like drudgery, they don’t feel like pain.” This is where the love lies for the art and the process alike. It also makes the work better.
Looking ahead: Michael returns for 24/25 season mainstage productions at IU, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and more.
To learn more about Michael and his upcoming season, connect with him on Stagetime.
Comments