Jen Pitt
(she/her) is a Brazilian-American theatre and opera director.
Born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, Jen now lives and works in New York, where she creates devised performance and directs classical and contemporary works through a highly collaborative, movement-based process.
Jen strives to create environments that are boldly daring and deeply equitable. She makes inquisitive, visually arresting, and viscerally engaging work, often blending “low” and “high” cultural references to question hierarchies of perception. Her work explores themes of generational female trauma, suicide and addiction, ritual, and desire. She has directed classical texts, new plays, operas, and her own devised and generative works, approaching each project through a collaborative physical practice.
Her work develops a strong symbolic and visual language through juxtaposition. She is drawn to work that explores how abstraction can meaningfully engage memory and identity, using gesture, metaphor, repetition, and scale to create theatrical worlds that are both visceral and evocative.
Jen earned her MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University in and trained as a performer at Jacques Lecoq in Paris. From 2012–2015, she was a member of The Living Theatre, working under the leadership of Judith Malina. Alongside her work in theatre and opera, Jen has worked as a writer covering women’s culture and health. Her writing has been featured in BUST Magazine, Vocativ, VICE, Gawker, and The New York Times. This experience continues to inform her interest in the intersection of personal experience and cultural narratives. Jen served as the Directing Fellow in Juilliard’s Vocal Arts department, where she continues to work as a director and teacher. She has also served as part-time faculty at Mannes School of Music at The New School.
Most recently, Jen was a recipient of Opera America’s New Works Discovery Grant as librettist, alongside composer Catherine Brookman and collaborator and flautist Emily Duncan, as well as a Brooklyn Arts Council grant, supporting their upcoming work EASY BABY, inspired by the writings of Shirley Jackson.
Recent Projects: Here Be Sirens by Kate Soper at Mannes Opera (2024) | mad scramble for crumbs, a devised opera by inti figgis-vizueta, at Opera Saratoga (2024) I Due Figaro at Juilliard Undergraduate (2025) | Savior by Amy Beth Kirsten at City Lyric Opera, New York (2025) | The Merry Widow at Northwestern University (2025) | | I Due Timidi by Nino Rota at Chautauqua Conservatory Amphitheater (2024) | La Finta Giardiniera at Mannes Opera (2026)
Upcoming: EASY BABY, as librettist and director, in collaboration with composer Catherine Brookman and flautist Emily Duncan.
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