Based in London and in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country, Australian writer, director, and performer Emma Muir-Smith is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist whose work encompasses theatre, opera, and classical music.

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Emma’s work as a dramatist includes: Carnival of the Animals (Director, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra 2022), Die Freunde Von Salamanka (Director, Victorian Opera 2021), Peter and the Wolf staged with puppetry (director/adapter, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra 2021) Listen to my Story (librettist, Co-Opera South Australia 2021), Remembering (playwright, RADA Festival 2020/2021), The Selfish Giant (librettist, Victorian Opera 2019), Alice Through the Opera Glass (librettist, Victorian Opera 2019), Missing (assistant/tour director, National Youth Orchestra GB 2019), Top of the Hill (writer/director, RADA 2019), Cool Air (director, Old Red Lion theatre London 2019), Terra Nullius (writer/director/performer, RADA 2018). She received a 2020 Green Room Award for her opera The Selfish Giant with composer Simon Bruckard. In 2021, she wrote and directed Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Performance of a Lifetime COVID-19 vaccination campaign, working with artists including Tim Minchin, Virginia Gay, Rhonda Burchmore, Meow Meow, Deborah Cheetham and more. The campaign went viral on social media and trended at #2 on YouTube.

Emma is particularly interested in exploring the relationship between music and theatre across different performance disciplines. She holds an MA in Text and Performance (writing/directing) from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and an MMus in Opera Performance from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. She is an active member of the Australian Writers’ Guild, The Young Vic Directors’ Program, Stage Directors UK, and the Royal Opera House’s Engender Network. In addition to her work as an artist, she is also a freelance arts writer and critic for The Australian Book Review and Melbourne daily newspaper The Age, and a 2021-2024 external assessor for the City of Melbourne Arts Grants program.