Claire's focus as a director is on creating a strong sense of ensemble and interconnectedness between performers, using the body to deepen the audience's absorption of the music, and empowering performers to follow their instincts.

 

Claire's primary focus is on contemporary works, which began with their home organization, Thompson Street Opera Company. Claire feels equally at home in screwball comedies and experimental non-linear narratives, and particularly enjoys creating performances in intimate spaces where the audience is an arms length from the performers. In 2025, Claire made their professional musical theater directing debut with the Chicago premiere of Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix (pictured right) at Theo Ubique, leading an all-queer cast of exceptional talent in a kaleidoscopic rock musical inspired by the iconic film. ​

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Claire's most recent project was the Chicago premiere of The People vs. American Cheese, an absurd comedy centering queer artistic community, the significance of queer elders, and the importance of creating a new space for yourself in the present. Coming up in March of 2026 is the World Premiere of Off-nights at the Sometimes Café, a campy queer extravaganza featuring drag performers alongside opera singers for a night of seductive, playful fun.

 

In 2022, they joined the faculty of Northeastern Illinois University, directing a fall opera showcase and a full production each spring. Claire is now full-time faculty at NEIU, teaching voice in the studio and classroom as well as directing.

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Claire also views their job as a director and performance curator to be a political responsibility. When choosing repertoire, casting, and presiding over rehearsal spaces, Claire chooses, whenever possible, to create experiences that challenge the status quo and encourage evolution towards a more just and loving society. Within an educational environment, they strive to choose works that both benefit the students and respond to the current moment. In April, Claire will lead the NEIU spring production of Weill/Brecht's iconic Threepenny Opera in English translation by Michael Feingold, with support from the Kurt Weill Foundation. In 2023 as a guest at Roosevelt University, Claire created a double bill of Kurt Weill's The Tzar Gets His Photograph Taken and Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis, in which the Tzar from the first piece transforms into the Kaiser in the second piece (Roosevelt).