Biography

Dr. Charlie Mitchell teaches Theatre Appreciation (live and online), Playwriting, Advanced Improvisation, and Comedy Practice.  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 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 also directed A Doll's House, Part 2, As You Like It, and The Snow Queen, his adaption of the story by Hans Christian Anderson. His 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. He 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.

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, the film he directed, Shakespeare, Thou Art Translated, won Best Feature at the CKF International Film Festival (Swindon, England) and was an official selection for the Berlin Indie Film Festival.  An excerpt from the film won Best Film in the Shakespeare Shorts Film Competition sponsored by the The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and was Sir Kenneth Branaugh's pick for Patron's Choice.