Emma Griffin is a theater and opera director; she is also the Managing Artistic Director of Mannes Opera, a program at the College of Performing Arts at The New School. 

Griffin has a diverse background in theater, musical theater and opera. Her productions have been seen in performance venues all over the country. She is a frequent collaborator on new music/theater pieces; projects include the Ricky Ian Gordon/Frank Bidart operatic poem Ellen West (with Beth Morrison Projects & Prototype), Phil Kline’s Out Cold & Zippo Songs at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Corey Dargel’s Removable Parts; and Susan Bernfield and Rachel Peters’ Stretch, a fantasia. Opera highlights include Sweeney Todd at Wolf Trap Opera, La Fanciulla del West at Opera Colorado, the world premiere of Charpentier's La Feste de Ruel with Catacoustic Consort; La Boheme at Crested Butte Music Festival, Three Decembers at Atlanta Opera; Don Giovanni at Boston Lyric Opera; The Cunning Little Vixen and Don Giovanni at Juilliard Opera; Wozzeck at Opera Philadelphia/Curtis Opera Theater. She was the Artistic Director of the OBIE-award winning Salt Theater, based in NYC; highlights with Salt include Stage Door (FringeNYC Excellence Award as Best Director), The Cherry Orchard, Scenes from a Marriage and Conquest of the Universe. She has theater credits at many regional theaters including Perseverance Theater, Geva Theater Center, Syracuse Stage, Southern Rep, Actor’s Express, Virginia Stage, and Williamstown Theater Festival. 

Her career as an educator is as central to her artistry as her directing career. She spent many years as adjunct faculty at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts (working with students in Undergraduate Drama, Graduate Acting, and Graduate Design). She was on the faculty at SUNY Stonybrook, and she has worked extensively at both The Curtis Institute of Music and at Juilliard. Prior to her appointment to Mannes Opera, she spent four years as the Professor of Opera Stage Direction at the University of Cincinnati’s CCM. 

At Mannes Opera, she has directed Grace McLean’s In the Green, Cavali’s La Calisto, and Die Zauberflöte. She has produced workshops of Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners, Christopher Cerrone’s In a Grove, Huang Ro’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, Greg Carpenter & Tracy K. Smith’s The Righteous (in partnership with Santa Fe Opera) and David T. Little’s Agamemnon (in partnership with Theatre for a New Audience), and Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Hildegard (with Beth Morrison Projects). 

Upcoming work includes Candide as part of the Curtis Institutes Centenary Celebration, and La Vida Breve at The Chautauqua Institute. Works in development include The Lives and Dreams of Nikola Tesla as summoned by the Honorable Spirits of the Grand Gotham Hotel, the Phil Kline/Jim Jarmusch opera/film/performance piece; and other projects in various stages with the artists Daniela Candillari, Ricky Ian Gordon, Fourth Wall Ensemble, David T. Little, and Raven Chacon.