Chinese expatriate stage director Mo Zhou is an innovative force in opera and theater, celebrated for boundary-pushing productions that recontextualize the classical canon and early music for modern social relevance. Her international work spans major global stages, including the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Elbphilharmonie, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, alongside prominent North American companies such as Houston Grand Opera, Vancouver Opera, Minnesota Opera, Arizona Opera, and Opera Colorado.

In the 2026–27 season, Ms. Zhou's engagements include directing Handel's Ariodante at Minnesota Opera, staging Earth to Kenzie with Lyric Unlimited at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and continuing to serve as Acting Coach for the Sarah and Ernest Butler Houston Grand Opera Studio. The season also features the fourth revival of her children's opera The Big Swim at Houston Grand Opera and a revival of her acclaimed staging of Madama Butterfly at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Further extending her reach into international training and advocacy, she directs for the Opera for Peace Academy in Lugano, Switzerland, and was selected as a member of the OPERA America Leadership Intensive 2026 cohort. Her summer 2026 engagements include directing the Schwabacher Summer Concert for the Merola Opera Program and Grétry's Zémire et Azor at the Berkshire Opera Festival.

During the 2025–26 season, Ms. Zhou served as Guest Artistic Director for Opera Grand Rapids, where she directed Byron Au Yong's Stuck Elevator and Madama Butterfly, and programmed an entire season dedicated to AAPI Brilliance. She also made her company debut at Opera Colorado with Madama Butterfly. Her celebrated production — reimagined within the framework of post-WWII Allied-occupied Japan — has enjoyed a successful run across Calgary Opera, Arizona Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, Florentine Opera, Virginia Opera, Kentucky Opera, and Vancouver Opera, dubbed by Opera Canada as a "hyper-relevant must-see."

Other recent directorial highlights include Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride with Boston Baroque, her 1980s Wall Street–reimagined production of Handel's Rinaldo at Minnesota Opera, Così fan tutte at The Juilliard School and Virginia Opera, La bohème at Arizona Opera, Don Giovanni at the Music Academy of the West, and La Calisto at the Glimmerglass Festival.

As an advocate for young artists, Ms. Zhou has served on the dramatic faculty and guest directed for the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Butler Studio at Houston Grand Opera, the Aspen Music Festival, the Music Academy of the West, and the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.

Ms. Zhou is a recipient of OPERA America's Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors and its Robert Tobin Director-Designer Prize. She received foundational opera directing training through the Merola Opera Program, Glimmerglass Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, and The Juilliard School.

She holds an MFA in Stage Directing from Columbia University, where she studied under Anne Bogart, and a BA in English and Theater from Bowdoin College.