Biography

Henry Akona is a freelance director, composer and arranger based in New York City as well as the associate artistic director of Untitled Theater Company No. 61. His work is known for intensely physical staging and incorporating live, usually original, music.

Recent productions includes the world premiere of The Lathe of Heaven (composer), adapted from the novel by Ursula K. Le Guin; the English-language premiere The Pig or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig (director/arranger), performed in the Ice Factory 2011 festival at 3LD Art + Technology Center; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (composer) at 3LD Art + Technology Center; Rudolf II (director/arranger) at Bohemian National Hall; The Velvet Oratorio (composer/director) which had its world-premiere at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, Lincoln Center as part of the Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe Festival presented by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center; Scenes From a Misunderstanding (director); Cat’s Cradle: a calypso musical (composer); Hiroshima: crucible of light (director/composer), the English-language premiere of Václav Havel’s A Butterfly on the Antenna (director/composer) in the Havel Festival.

Prior to moving to New York, he was an assistant director at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.