Artist Portrait No. 11: Jim Osman (theater director, sci-fi enthusiast)

Jim Osman is a 25-year-old theater and opera director based in the UK who has already directed a range of interesting projects across mediums and genres – like a sci-fi opera and a fantasy-puppet-satire short movie. He also produced and directed a monthly surreal comedy and puppetry night at Cairo, Brixton, made a video essay about cyberpunk opera for the Cyberpunk Research Network, and had a 1-1 12-week intensive with Daniel Kramer, former artistic director of English National Opera, who supposedly called him one of the most interesting young director he’s worked with. He is currently earning a Masters in opera directing from Royal Welsh College of Music.

Jim and I talk about the commodification of spirituality and identity, sci-fi as the modern-day fairytale and as a device to better talk about divisive issues, Terry Pratchett as pan-paganism, the problematic union of capitalism and technology, and the future of theater, among other things.

Jim’s video essay on cyberpunk opera: http://cyberpunkculture.com/1st-cyrn-workshop-cyberpunk-music/%C2%A73-jim-osman/

Music:

Motherload (sci-fi opera produced at Tete a Tete theater), text by Susan Gray and soundscape by Liam Noonan, sopranos: Natasha Agarwal and Julieth Lozano: https://vimeo.com/608895790

💋👁👂🏼 Website: https://onthevergetrilogy.com/