Bio 

James Blaszko (he/him) is a first-generation American director and creative producer whose work in opera, theatre, film, drag, and concert exemplify his passion for civic engagement through daring and wit. His artistic practice of innovation and inclusion stems from an eclectic Polish-Pakistani upbringing. 

Prior to the pandemic, Blaszko staged Puccini’s Il Trittico for the Daegu International Opera Festival (South Korea) and devised/co-wrote We Count for the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Zimbabwe).

He returned to live performance by devising Puccini and Verdi Play Ball with Tulsa Opera on their city’s baseball stadium in 2021, reviving Yuval Sharon’s reverse-order La bohème at Boston Lyric Opera in 2022, and staging Handel’s Xerxes at Detroit Opera under the baton of Dame Jane Glover in 2023.  

After staging and translating Sapphira Cristál’s maxi challenge-winning performance of “O mio babbino caro'' for RuPaul’s Drag Race on MTV, as well as directing her popular music video of the same aria, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts commissioned Blaszko to direct, co-write, and co-produce the opening of their 2024 Summer for the City: SOUNDCAKE starring Cristál, Monét X Change, and Thorgy Thor. In 2025, the Boston Lyric Opera commissioned Blaszko to write and direct another concert pastiche, RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES!, for opera stars Christine Goerke and Morris Robinson, narrated by David Hyde Pierce.

Swann, a Catapult digital opera short directed by Blaszko and composed by Tamar-kali, was a finalist for Opera America’s 2024 Digital Excellence in Opera Award in Artistic Creation and has continued its development towards a full-length opera at Harlem Stage and REACH Residency (Kennedy Center). The team previously collaborated on Freedom is a Constant Struggle (Lincoln Center), an Independence Day concert program highlighting the African-American struggle to reap the benefits of liberty and justice as part of the American citizenry. 

He worked as a creative producer for ArtsEmerson, Boston’s leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, and is a graduate of the BMP Producer’s Academy. In 2023 he produced the first stop of Liza Jessie Peterson’s solo play The Peculiar Patriot since its notorious shutdown at Louisiana State Penitentiary in 2020 and subsequent Oscar-shortlisted documentary Angola Do You Hear Us?, now streaming on Paramount Plus. Alongside Executive Producer Lena Waithe, he has continued touring the show to Baltimore Center Stage and New York Theatre Workshop in their 2025/2026 seasons.

James was the Resident Assistant Director of the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for several years and has served on countless staging staffs, including Opera Philadelphia, Portland Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, and Spoleto Festival USA. He was the 2019 Kurt Weill Foundation Directing Fellow, assisting Tony-winning director John Doyle on a new production of Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock.

He is a graduate of the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and Emerson College, and has lived in Central Harlem for the past 13 years.