Dianna Cortez (she/her) is a Theatre, Film, and Multi/Interdisciplinary Artist: Director, Actor (Equity Eligible), Opera-Singer (mezzo soprano), Audiobook Narrator, and Acting, Voice & Dialect Coach based in NYC. As the Co-Artistic Director of Lucada Mélange, she has created several award winning devised interdisciplinary artworks combing opera, acting, Butoh, puppetry, composition, and site-specific visual art installations shared both live and in art films. She also served as the Artistic Director of City Attic Theatre which produced new works and previously produced plays. On Broadway stages, she was the Associate Director for Dancing at Lughnasa alongside the late director Alan Langdon for Circle in the Square Theatre School grad rep projects, and recently served as the Associate Director alongside Director Mark Nelson for Dot in the Box’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed at Circle in the Square Theatre. She is developing “Les Berceaux & The Lighthouse: No. 2 Forest Junctions,” the 2nd movement in a 5-movement experimental opera she is devising with Lucada Melange.

Her acting credits include both Regional and Off-off Broadway in the East Village—most notably: Therese Raquin “Therese Raquin”, The Most Beautiful Lullaby You’ve Ever Heard “Narrator”, Crave by Sarah Kane “M,” Hamlet “Gertrude,” and Much Ado About Nothing “Beatrice,” and as an Audiobook Narrator, she has two books in production The Diamond Curse by Sylvia Draven-Montanez and Lunar Legacy by Jeff P. Brett. Her singing is showcased throughout her interdisciplinary works and have included arias and art songs from composers Poulenc, Bizet’s Carmen, Fauré, and Edith Piaf, as well as, Celtic music, Jazz & Musical Theatre, and experimental voice & movement compositions.

As a coach, Broadway credits include: The New Group Theatre—Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Marisa Tomei, and Vincent D’Onofrio; Schoenfiel Thatre—Sam Rockwell; and Kim Cattrall in Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Janet Suzman, in Liverpool. She teaches at LIU Brooklyn/The New Group, Circle in the Square Theatre School, Molloy/Cap 21, The Lee Strasberg Institute/NYU, The Linklater Center, and in her private studio. She has a B.A. from C.M.U. in Opera and Acting , M.F.A in Acting from S.M.U., 10+ years of Opera lessons in NYC, 15+ years of movement training (Merry Conway), 5+ years of Butoh (Yokko), trained in Audiobook Narration, is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and certified Louis Colaianni Speechwork & Phonetic Pillows practitioner.