Daniel Pelzig

Danny Pelzig joined the Conservatory in 2018 and is an educator, director, and choreographer for opera, theater, and ballet. His Broadway credits include Tony-nominated productions of 33 Variations, starring Jane Fonda, and A Year with Frog and Toad, as well as the Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival production of Sweeney Todd, starring Brian Stokes Mitchell and Christine Baranski. His off-Broadway credits include Privates on Parade at the Roundabout Theatre, Newyorkers at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Moon at City Center Encores!, and Valhalla at New York Theatre Workshop.

At the Huntington Theatre in Boston, he has choreographed The Band’s Visit, Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music, Company, Candide, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Romeo and Juliet, Tartuffe, Iolanthe, The Mikado, HMS Pinafore, and A Christmas Carol.

He has choreographed Lucia di Lammermoor, La Sonnambula, and Iphigénie en Tauride at the Metropolitan Opera; Lucia di Lammermoor at Teatro alla Scala; Regina, The Cunning Little Vixen, and The Merry Widow at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Aida and Samson et Dalilah at Los Angeles Opera; and Kiss Me, Kate, Oklahoma!, and West Side Story at Central City Opera. His directing credits include Countess Maritza at Santa Fe Opera, Rigoletto at Opera Philadelphia, Die Fledermaus for Houston Grand Opera, Akhnaten for Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, France, Iphigenie en Tauride for Palau des Artes in Valencia, Spain, Turandot and Tosca for Fort Worth Opera, Carmen for Central City Opera, The Mikado and Roméo et Juliette at Kentucky Opera, Le Medécin Malgre Lui for Odyssey Opera, La Clemenza di Tito and Don Giovanni at Boston University Opera Institute, The Bartered Bride for Opera Boston, and Semele  and The Messiah for the Handel and Haydn Society. He served as associate director for La Cenerentola, Rigoletto, Le Comte Ory, and The Barber of Seville at Seattle Opera, where he also choreographed Salome and Florencia en el Amazonas. In three seasons as resident choreographer for the Santa Fe Opera, he choreographed Ariadne auf Naxos, Capriccio, Salome, Kurt Weill’s The Protagonist, and David Lang’s Modern Painters.

His regional theater credits include directing Holiday Inn, The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins, and My Fair Lady at Musical Theatre West, and Guys and Dolls at Maltz Jupiter Theatre. His regional choreography credits include South Pacific and The Winter’s Tale at the Guthrie Theatre; The Marriage of Figaro and Don Juan at the McCarter; Pericles and Candide at the Goodman Theatre; The Dog in the Manger, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, and Measure for Measure at the Shakespeare Theatre; Guys and Dolls at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Into the Woods, Avenue X,  and Ghost Brothers of Darkland County at the Alliance Theatre; Here’s Love and The Chocolate Soldier at Goodspeed Musicals; A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Don Juan at Seattle Rep; and Showboat and Carousel at the Hollywood Bowl.

He served for five years as resident choreographer at Boston Ballet, creating over a dozen ballets, including Nine Lives: Songs of Lyle Lovett, The Princess and the Pea, Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker, and Resurrection, played at its world premiere by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He also served as resident choreographer for the Joffrey II Dancers and ABT Studio Company.

His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, and two Lucille Lortel nominations for his off-Broadway work. 

He earned his degree in cellular biology from Columbia University and has taught at the Juilliard School, University at Buffalo, and Ryan Opera Center in Chicago