Opera and theatre director Polly Graham is Artistic Director of Longborough Festival Opera and Founder and Artistic Director of Loud Crowd. A recipient of the Independent Opera Director Fellowship 2016, Graham’s productions have won Best Opera Production in the Wales Theatre Awards in both 2017 & 2018; she was nominated in the Newcomer category of the 2017 International Opera Awards and for the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2017.

Graham made her Vienna State Opera début in 2019 directing the world première of Olga Neuwirth Orlando. She has staged Frank Martin Le vin herbé for Welsh National Opera and Theater St Gallen; Iain Bell A Christmas Carol in Trento, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria for Longborough Festival Opera, The Emperor of Atlantis with Loud Crowd at Bold Tendencies, London; the UK première of Karl Amadeus Hartmann Simplicius Simplicissimus for Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells and Die Zauberflöte for the Royal College of Music.

Recent seasons have seen her staging diverse repertoire such as Dido & Aeneas for Blackheath Halls Community Opera as well as Bloom Brittania, a new community opera by Orlando Gough and Stephen Plaice.

Graham’s recent and future projects include her La Scala début with the world première of Pierangelo Valtinoni’s Il piccolo principe, Così fan tutte for Irish National Opera, Purcell The Fairy Queen for Longborough Festival Opera and The Rake’s Progress for English Touring Opera.

Polly Graham read English at Trinity College, Dublin and completed an MA in Text and Performance at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Whilst a student she gained experience with the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival, Streetwise Opera, Teatr Pieśń Kosła and Le Théâtre du Soleil.