Biography
Dr. Charlie Mitchell teaches Theatre Appreciation (live and online), Playwriting, Advanced Improvisation, and Comedy Practice, a course that teaches stand-up comedy and sketch writing. After completing his BFA actor training at Ithaca College, he studied playwriting at Boston Universtiy with Nobel prize-winning author Derek Walcott. After earning a PhD from the University of Colorado, he was a production dramaturg for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and later for Playmakers Repertory, where he was a visiting professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For three years, he was an artistic associate with the award-winning Chesapeake Shakespeare Company and has worked as an actor for a variety of theatres in New York City, Chicago, and Baltimore. He is currently a company member of the Hippodrome Theatre, the only professional theatre in Gainesville, where he has appeared in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged], Let the Right One In, The Legend of Georgia McBride, Hamlet, Hand to God, Peter and the Starcatcher, Mr. Burns, and The Tempest. At the Hippodrome, he directed A Doll's House, Part 2, As You Like It, and The Snow Queen, his adaption of the story by Hans Christian Anderson. Dr. Mitchell's most recent play, The Report, was performed by the American Theatre of Actors in New York City. Based on real events in 1958/9, it shows how the lives of students and professors are forever changed when a state senator decides to root out homosexuality from a Florida university. At UF, Dr. Mitchell has directed the following productions: Eurydice, Luna Gale, Sketchy People (written by Dr. Mitchell), Metamorphoses, Hobson's Choice, Urinetown, A Piece of My Heart, You Can't Take It With You, The Grapes of Wrath, and In the Blood.
In addition to his teaching and production work, Dr. Mitchell is the author of Shakespeare and Public Execution, an examination of how Shakespeare utilized commonly known tropes of execution for his own dramaturgical ends. He was also the co-editor of Zora Neale Hurston: Collected Plays, the first compilation of the Harlem Renaissance writer's dramatic pieces (including two thought to be lost), and the editor of Theatrical Worlds, the first open source introductory theatre textbook. His current book, The Golden Age of Baltimore Theater: A History from Shakespeare to Vaudeville, was published by the History Press in 2024.
Finally, Dr. Mitchell directed a one-hour film entitled Shakespeare, Thou Art Translated which gave Shakespeare's language a modern context. It was awarded Best Feature at the CKF International Film Festival (Swindon, England) and an official selection to two other international festivals (Literature in Cinema & the Berlin Indie Film Festival). His short film, Two Emilia's, won the Shakespeare Shorts Film Competition sponsored by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and was Sir Kenneth Branaugh's pick for Patron's Choice. Another short film, A Law In Each Well Ordered Nation, was an official selection to the Monologues & Poetry International Film Festival.
Dr. Mitchell also designed a program for the Veteran's Administration which uses improvisation to help homeless veterans improve their social skills and address longstanding emotional problems.