During her 13 years in that position, she grew the company's budget to $5 million , built the audience to 15,000 subscribers, and improved the company's reputation to win the Regional Theatre Tony Award for Excellence in 1997. She worked with author Philip Kan Gotanda, directing world premieres of "Yankee Dawg You Die", and "The Ballad of Yachiyo", as well as a production of "The Was" in New York and Los Angeles. Ott also directed an adaptation of Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior" that premiered at Berkeley Rep before moving on to productions in Boston and Los Angeles. She directed the national tour of Anna Deavere Smith's "Twilight: Los Angeles" which started in San Francisco before touring to Boston, Houston, Seattle, New Haven, and Washington, DC where it was performed at the Ford's Theater with then President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore in attendance. Ott left Berkeley in 1997 to become the artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Under her leadership, a successful $15 endowment campaign was completed, and the Rep's annual budget grew from $6 million to $9. She maintained a subscription audience of 14,000 and grew the overall audience for the Rep from 14,040 in the year prior to her arrival to a high of 14,500. Ott re-introduced the classics to the Seattle Rep audiences, directing Shakespeare and Saw herself, and producing the work of Stephen Wadsworth, Mary Zimmerman, and Tina Landau. She maintained the Rep's long term association with August Wilson, producing the world premiere of Wilson's "King Hedley II" and "How I Learned What I Learned", Wilson's autobiographical solo performance work. Ott also produced the world premiere work of several major new artists to the Rep, such as Ping Chong, Phillip Kan Gotanda, and Nilo Cruz. Sharon Ott has been a guest director at such theaters as the Arena Stage, the New York Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Repertory Theatre, the Huntington Theater, the Alliance Theater, Playwrights' Horizons and the Manhattan Theater Club. She has also directed several operas, including "La Boheme" and "The Conquistador" at San Diego Opera, "Vanessa" and "Salome" at Seattle Opera, "Don Giovanni" at Opera Colorado, and "Bluebeard's Castle" at the Seattle Symphony with sets by Dale Chihuly. Most recently, she directed the stage reading of Amy Freed's "You, Nero" at South Coast Repertory's 2008 Pacific Playwrights Festival, and is scheduled to direct the play's world premiere at South Coast Repertory followed by a production at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2009.