Sarah Jane Pelzer is a stage director and performance maker based in Vancouver, BC.

Her first season at Pacific Opera Victoria was in 2014/15 where she served as director-in-residence supported by the early career development program. Since then she has directed, assisted and taught across Canada and the US in Vancouver, Edmonton, and at Manitoba Opera, Opera on the Avalon, Opera Kelowna, Wolf Trap and the New England Conservatory. Sarah is the co-founder of Lucky Penny Opera, a company dedicated to exploring alternative models for creating opera performances. You can find Sarah and her work at sarahjanepelzer.com and luckypennyopera.com. 

Prior to her transition to the opera world, Sarah was a performer and theatre-maker most known as artistic associate and co-founder of the experimental performance company SNAFU Dance Theatre. With SNAFU, she co-created and performed in several pieces that blurred the lines between dance, puppetry, clown and ceremony.

In spring of 2021, she completed a virtual Leighton Artist’s Residency at the Banff Center for the Performing Arts with soprano Teiya Kasahara to develop a methodology for collaborative opera creation.