FIU professor named stage director for Miami Lyric Opera

FIU Theatre associate professor Phillip Church has been asked to direct the stage for Miami Lyric Opera’s premiere of I Puritani, Vincenzo Bellini’s three-act opera.

Church is a recognized professional actor and director in the Miami community. Trained in the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, he worked for several years alternating between stage and television experience production work in Johannesburg with the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal Classical Company Ballet.

Church, who joined FIU in 1980, is co-director of the Shakespeare in Stratford Study Abroad Program. He has directed more than 40 productions at FIU, his latest being Spring’s Awakening. He received an Excellence in Directing award for his work on that production at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Recently, Church directed singer/songwriter Carly Simon’s one-act opera Romulus Hunt at the Gusman Arts Center.