Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Cox
Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Coming from a very small, rural community in Southern Indiana, I had no intention of being a music producer in a major US city! I started in the entertainment industry as a singer. I attended the University of Evansville and got a Bachelor’s of Music Performance in Vocal Performance, then continued my studies and got my Masters in Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Northern Colorado. I eventually launched Cox Productions in 2015 out of necessity when I moved to Chicago, IL. Growing up, my mother was an actress and director in our region, and my aunt was a well-known actress and director in Indianapolis. I had the benefit of experiencing productions on various scales and professional levels throughout my childhood, and watching how the process worked from start to finish. It wasn’t long before I was dreaming about creating my own productions, and helping my friends who were playwrights and composers launch their own projects into existence. But Chicago’s theater and music scenes weren’t able to rent performance spaces out to individuals–they only were able to rent out to companies and small LLC’s due to the City’s insurance requirements. Out of this burning desire to create new stories and craft new works came Cox Productions. I went online, did a lot of research, filled out the required paperwork to form an LLC in Illinois, and Cox Productions was born! We started very small, with single-run projects and productions with small casts and one or two instruments in total. Eventually, after a lot of hard work, we’ve managed to grow more and more each year.
Today, Cox Productions delivers innovative new works that make artistic events both relevant and exciting for all audiences. We commission, produce and promote musical concerts, site-specific theatrical events, educational and community programs, and immersive productions for diverse audiences across the nation.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the major struggles that I’ve encountered have been the social stigmas attached to my formal education and performance backgrounds. When my fellow producers learn that I was formally trained as a classical singer or that I come from a rural Midwestern background, they tend to openly dismiss or devalue my insights and input. At first, this was incredibly frustrating for me–now, I like to think of my training and upbringing as my secret weapons! I grew up in a very small town in Southern Indiana, where theater was very scarce. People didn’t have as much time and money to go to live entertainment, so companies needed to be discerning about what they selected for their seasons. The shows that my mother was able to successfully produce were very different from those that were being produced only three hours north of us in Indianapolis. I learned how to poll audiences directly for feedback and how to read what they aren’t saying aloud to you, how to predict changes in your upcoming audience base, and how to market to the audiences you’d like to attract as well as those you’re currently servicing. I am also a trained opera singer with a love of new opera, which is constantly searching for its niche audience within the US–from this, I’ve learned a lot about internal company vs audience needs and wants. Sometimes, companies will want to launch brand-new productions, but they aren’t sure how well these new shows will sell. So I had to learn how to market an event in such a way that you create excitement and build an audience from the ground up. I think all of these experiences have really helped me and my clients to identify which projects and productions would be successful now and which should wait for future seasons, and how to grow their audiences in an organic way that creates authentic connections and impacts. Chicago is still used by Broadway-based theater companies to experiment and develop new productions, so living and working here also helps keep me on the cutting-edge of new and exciting audience trends and tendencies on a national level.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Cox Productions is a full-service production company that specializes in helping creatives get their projects underway and assisting them in bringing their visions to fruition. We largely focus on emerging contemporary composers, filmmakers, playwrights, visual artists, dancers, and writers. We are committed to commissioning, marketing and producing work by living American artists, and firmly believe that contemporary art, music and theater has the ability to transform lives. We insist on working with collaborators who know their mediums inside out, and who know how to communicate with their audiences. Our roster of seasoned professionals—directors, writers, designers, performers, and producers—are committed to critical inquiry, the sharing of new and exciting stories, and the development of new cultural perspectives.
One skill that has really helped me as a producer is my personal background in performance! I continue to actively perform in a variety of genres, including opera, operetta, musical theatre, jazz, contemporary and experimental music. I’m constantly meeting new transplants to the area and networking with established professionals, which helps to get the word out about my brand and the services we offer. It also helps to keep me aware of the current performers’ demands on their time and talents, and to anticipate any needs, wants or desires they might have within a working environment. This helps me with everything from selecting venues for individual projects to scheduling rehearsals-I always have my performers’ best interests and comfort in mind, and I really think this helps to set us apart from other production companies. After five seasons of operations, we have an established roster of singers and instrumentalists to return to work with us again and again–so I’d like to think this is a sign that we’re doing something right! I’m very proud to say that as of today, we have worked with a wide variety of clients: small storefront theater companies, enormous Jeff-Award-winning theater companies, independent composers, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, individual artists, colleges and universities, and more! To date, we have created over 125+ independent concert experiences in a variety of musical genres, six full-length professional album recordings of contemporary composers’ works, fourteen separate concert series, ten successful fundraising events, one contemporary ballet recording, a social-justice song cycle commission, one 150-guest birthday party and two grant-awarded productions of contemporary operas. We are currently finalizing our roster of works for the 2025-26 season, and it’s shaping up to be our most exciting season yet!
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I absolutely could not have gotten anywhere close to my level of success without my mother’s influence. Her excitement, dedication and deep love of theatre and the arts truly impacted me as a child. I always knew that I wanted to work in the arts. My mother’s influence and her own journey, from actress to director to an artistic director, showed me that not only was a full-time career in the arts possible, but could offer me a rich and diverse lifestyle. I could grow and develop into different roles and responsibilities throughout my life the same way a performer does. I didn’t have to feel trapped or stuck in one particular genre or role–I could literally do anything that I put my mind to!
Another set of extremely influential people in my career have been my creative partners-in-crime, Johnanna Moffit and Chungers Kim. I met Chungers in 2015 when we were both assigned as Teaching Artists with Chicago Opera Theater. Our program was based on Chicago’s South-side in a poverty-stricken neighborhood that was mostly Spanish-speaking. We were asked to produce a full-length version of ‘Once On This Island’ for audiences in the span of eight weeks’ time. We had a LOT of challenges to overcome–neither Chungers nor I spoke Spanish, our program was woefully underfunded by both COT and the State of IL, and it had a history of failure in terms of both community participation and production quality. Both Chungers and I had come from similar backgrounds in terms of creative opportunities and financial poverty. We were dedicated to our amazing students, all of whom showed a lot of promise and excitement to learn, and we were determined to make miracles happen for them…and we surely did! With a LOT of hard work and long hours, we created a program that in 6-8 weeks’ time showed 125% growth and improvement scores in terms of production quality and educational return, as well as 300% improvement in attendance by local vendors and community members. We continued to work as a two-person production team for the next four years, helping over 100+ students prepare for college and local auditions and opportunities. Our proudest achievement was watching our first class of freshmen graduate as seniors, three of which earned full-time scholarships to music schools in the area! Chungers and I continue to collaborate on projects to this day.
I met Johanna in 2014 when I auditioned for her production company, /kor/ productions (side note: I didn’t get the role!). I then lost contact with her until 2020, when she reached out for help with marketing efforts. At that time, the pandemic was just starting and stay-at-home orders had just been issued, making all in-person opera performances impossible, Johanna had gathered a group of professionals together and consulted with them in terms of new technological advancements. She then created a new form of opera that allowed for every single cast and audience member to remain remote while simultaneously creating a real-time digital performance platform. Johanna oversaw a team of professionals from across six different states and created a performance of Puccini’s ‘La boheme’ to be musically condensed and broken into individual acts. Each act was roughly the length of a Netflix episode, allowing audiences who were new to opera to experience it in a familiar and exciting new way. Neither Johanna nor I were Each night, we saw the viewing numbers on our YouTube channel grow and grow. More and more people came to see the story develop over the course of three days’ time, and the performers themselves got returns in the form of followers on social media and donations from their fans in the audience. To this day, that performance remains one of the most inspiring and bright moments of my creative history–in the middle of a frightening and financially-destitute episode of history, Johanna was able to build a community of creatives to support, uplift and inspire a brand-new audience with a wild experimental new way of making music. After this, Johanna asked me to join /kor/ productions as Managing Director, and the two of us have been creating new and exciting events and performances across the nation ever since.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emilycoxsoprano.wixsite.com/emilycox
- Instagram: @theblondehurricane
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilycoxsoprano/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theblondehurricane
