Roald Simonson's first play he directed, in fact wrote, was, he later understood, a historical farce when he was in third grade: "Nathan Hale:  Autograph Hound".  His two brothers, costumed in bathrobes, represented Hale and King George III.  The play enjoyed a run of one afternoon.  In college he directed other plays, including "Macbeth" and an original adaptation of Johann Goethe's writings, "Conversations with Eckerman".  After college he formed a theater company in Seattle, Alazais Azema Theater, which performed original and classic works, including a site-specific production of "Romeo and Juliet", an adaptation of "The Book of Ruth" from the Bible, numerous Samuel Beckett plays, and the Monteverdi opera "Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda", all of which he designed and directed.  Around this time he was invited by the opera director Peter Sellars to assist in a number of operas which were staged in New York and later travelled to Europe, including all three of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas "Cosi fan Tutte", "Don Giovanni", and "Le Nozze di Figaro"; "Giulio Cesare" and "Saul" by Handel; and the modern opera "Nixon in China" with music by John Adams, libretto by Alice Goodman, and choreography by Mark Morris.  In 1990 he won a National Endowment for the Arts Directing Fellowship.  During the fellowship's tenure he worked with the opera and theater director Robert Wilson on several productions, including "The Forest" with music by David Byrne in Berlin at the Frei Volksbuhne Theater; and on the original workshop productions of Tony Kuschner's "Angels in America" at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco.   He has also, especially of late, written and directed original short and medium-length films which have played in festivals in the US and Europe.  His most recent, "Kneading a Metric Ton of Dough" was part of an art exhibition in Paris in November 2006 and will again be mounted in Cologne in March 2007.  In Alaska he was commissioned by the Crosssound Music Festival to conceive and produce an original film, "Lint", which featured an original soundtrack composed by former Sitka native Paul Cox.  At the invitation of Kyle Wylie Pickett, the Juneau Symphony's artistic director and conductor, Simonson has created four original videos for projection during the live concert performances. These include videos set to the music of Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Ferdi Grofe, and Artur Honeggar.  Several of these were later produced for the North State Symphony in Redding, Chico, and Red Bluff, California.  Roald Simonson is a graduate of Harvard University where he graduated with honors with a degree in Art History.