Award-winning choreographer and director Doug Varone works in dance, theater, opera, film, and fashion. His New York City-based Doug Varone and Dancers has been commissioned and presented to critical acclaim by leading international venues for over three decades.

In the concert dance world, Varone has created a body of works globally. Commissions include Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, The Limón Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Rambert Dance Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Batsheva Dance Company, and Bern Ballet, among others. In addition, his dances have been staged on more than 100 college and university programs around the country. Varone first came to ADF as a faculty member in 1987 with the company performing numerous times over the course of the next four decades. He has been commissioned by the festival five times: Augury (1989), Two Mozart Dances (1990), Boats Leaving (2006), The Fabulist (2014), and REcomposed (2015).

In opera, Doug Varone is in demand as both a director and choreographer. Among his productions at The Metropolitan Opera are Richard Strauss’ Salome, the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, designed by David Hockney, and Hector Berloiz’s Les Troyens. He has staged multiple premieres and new productions for Minnesota Opera, Opera Colorado, Washington Opera, New York City Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera, among others. His numerous theater credits include choreography for Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theaters across the country. Recent projects include directing and choreographing MasterVoices' production of Dido and Aeneas at NY’s City Center starring Tony Award winners Kelli O’Hara and Victoria Clark, staging Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio, Anthracite Fields, for the Westminster Choir and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and choreographing the revival of Kurt Weill’s musical Lady in the Dark at City Center.

Varone received his BFA from Purchase College where he was awarded the President’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Numerous honors and awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, two individual "Bessie" awards, an Obie Award, a Doris Duke Artist Award, the Jerome Robbins Fellowship at the Bogliasco Institute in Italy, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Dance Guild. He currently teaches choreography at Purchase College and is an Artist in Residence at USC’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance.