Mitch Levine
Director Designer
Theatre Opera Dance
Mitch Levine is a film
and stage director with credits the world over in theatre, film, opera and
dance. He was recently asked to lead the Directors Unit of the renowned Actors Studio and is a member of
the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). He served as artistic
supervisor for the world tour of the Robert Wilson/Philip Glass opera, Einstein
on the Beach, revived Cynthia Lee's A Dream Within a Dream for the
Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble, directed and designed the acclaimed revival
of Arthur Kopit's Wings (Best Production,
Direction and Lighting Design Awards) in Los Angeles and staged Jean Anouilh's Antigone for the Williamstown Theatre Festival in
Massachusetts. He directed Timothy Mason's Sorry! at Circle Rep in New York and Glen Merzer's
Amorphous George in Manhattan and New Haven for the MCC
Company. His production of Pippin re-opened the historic Opera
House at the Geneva Performing Arts Festival. Other directing projects
included the revival of Lyle Kessler's Orphans in New York and the
national tour of Big River. Several years ago, his "New
Wave" adaptation of the musical Godspell
was awarded Best Production and Best Director honors at the La Jolla Stage
Company in San Diego. He directed the recent national tour of GOD HELP US!, a political comedy starring the late, great Ed Asner and is currently preparing the classic Swiss drama, The Visit, starring Barbara Bain. Mitch is also developing STAND IN THE LIGHT, a multi-media exploration of the collective trauma humanity has faced through the pandemic with collaborators Jordan Marinov, Alberto Alvero and Maestro Gustavo Dudamel.
Mitch has worked in
theatres throughout Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. He designed
the world premiers of Paura di
Volare at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and of Peter
Gabriel and Moses Pendleton's Passion in London and New York. His
work has also been seen at the Sydney Opera House, Manhattan's Lincoln Center,
Sadler's Wells in London, the Ronacher Theatre in
Vienna, Artsphere in Tokyo, the Teatro
Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro
Olimpico in Rome, the Metropolitan Theatre in Rio and
the Maisón dès Arts in
Paris and Lyon. Mitch worked with the Bolshoi Ballet above the Temple of
Apollo at Delphi's ancient Olympic Stadium and with Alessandra Ferri, Robert LaFosse, Ann Reinking and Marge Champion at the Piazza di Miracoli in Pisa. He
designed the Rigoletto segment of the worldwide
broadcast of Festa a Corte from Montova and has directed adaptations of Guys and Dolls, Promises, Promises and Man of La Mancha on
the high seas. His American Opera Center stagings
of Le Nozze di Figaro and
Opera Kaleidoscope were seen throughout the New York area and his work
on the Robert Ward/Arthur Miller opera, The Crucible, was presented at
the Opera Ensemble of New York.
Mitch served as the
production director and designer for the hit mixed-media work, Baseball,
in New York, designed lighting for the new Los Angeles productions of Le Nozze de Figaro and The Dybbuck
and collaborated on the creation of Klezmania
with Tony Kushner, Naomi Goldberg and Brian Kulick.
He directed productions of David Mamet's Vint
and Maria Irene Fornes' Drowning, which opened
the new Raven Playhouse in Los Angeles and designed the world premiere of Love
and Death at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. He directed Peter Mellencamp's new adaptation of Bertolt
Brecht's Baal for the Goethe Institute’s Brecht Centennial Festival and
the Sony CineAlta Awards at the NAB in Las Vegas.
Mitch
served on the staff of the Juilliard School in New York and has stage managed
and provided lighting for ABC Television, Lincoln Center, and numerous opera,
theatre, music and dance companies throughout the world. He was the
resident lighting designer of MOMIX Dance
Theatre and of Naomi Goldberg's Los Angeles Modern Dance and Ballet, and
has lit the work of many other choreographers, including Paul Taylor, Anna Sokolow, Anthony Tudor, David Parsons and Tommy Tune.
He designed the premier of a dance theatre work commissioned by the San
Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies, entitled Bat Habits, and the
television premier of Lisa Giobbi's Motion
Pictures Company.
Mitch's lighting design work has been seen in museums and installations throughout the world. He created the Beneath the Ice exhibition for the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the telecommunications extravaganza for the Museo Contemporario in Milan. His concert lighting has been viewed at performances by Shadowfax, Donny Osmond, Rhythm Tribe, Debbie Gibson, Warrant, the Paul Winter Consort and several symphony orchestras. He has created lighting for the performance art works of Robert Faust and Tim Latta, of the Russian Cirque du Soleil aerialist Vladimir and for renowned Austrian acrobat Karl Baumann. He also designed the acclaimed Amnesty International benefit, No Holds Barred, produced by Carly Simon.
Mitch served as the executive director of the Los Angeles Directors Project (the professional stage directors association of Los Angeles) and is on the visiting faculties of Lee College, UCLA, Loyola Marymount University and the Dortort Institute of the University of Judaism, teaching classes in Cinema History, Art and Culture, the United Nations, Public Speaking and Acting, and conducting seminars in Twentieth Century Theatre, Opera and Dance. He has offered master classes in Performance and Lighting Design at institutions throughout the country and taught private acting workshops and scene studies in Los Angeles and New York.
Mitch’s education includes a degree in Political Science from Hobart College, a professional fellowship at the Juilliard School in New York and a Master of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute. He is a former member of the National and World Councils of the YMCA and has served on the boards of directors of ISO Dance Theatre, Los Angeles Modern Dance and Ballet and the MCC Company in New York.
For Film,
Television and Awards Work,
Contact:
Tel:
1.323.667.1714