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Em Sparkes - Director
Crafting Stories Through Performance
Em Sparkes is a London-based director and producer with an MA in Directing from Mountview and a BA in English from the University of Cambridge. They bring a strong textual background, a collaborative rehearsal-room practice, and a deep belief in theatre as a space for empathy, visibility, challenge and change.
They are particularly interested in how music, movement and text intersect to create work that is both entertaining and politically resonant, and have been developing a unique approach to combine direction and choreography to create seamless performances with a consistent artistic voice which stretches through both scenes and choreography. Most recently, Em was able to develop this approach in the rehearsal room for Lady (Macbeth), combining heightened verse text with stylised movement and choreography, and in the Young Artists Gala for the Waterperry Opera Festival, where in collaboration with musical director Ashley Beauchamp, Em streamlined and unified development of character, song, movement and text in various opera scenes.
With her experience as a director and choreographer, Em has a particular passion for working in musical theatre, and new musical theatre especially. She has worked as director and/or choreographer on many new musicals, and is extremely excited to be in development for a new musical, Bubbly, coming to the Camden People's Theatre in October, 2026, and to be assisting Will Jackson on Sea Change, a new musical coming to the Birmingham Hippodrome this summer, for BYMT. Alongside this, Em's career is currently expanding into the world of opera through the Waterperry Opera Festival, where she is the Assistant Director on the Elixir of Love, and co-directing their Young Artists Gala.
With a background in technical theatre and having been a choral scholar and trained mezzo soprano with performance experience crossing leading roles on stage, recording albums of choral music, and touring both Canada and New Zealand, Em is keenly aware of the importance of cohesion and integration across all elements of a show throughout the rehearsal process.
Em is also the Sitz manager for the London Musical Theatre Orchestra and a producer. She is in the process of refining her MA thesis on identity-conscious casting for publication.
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