About Greg
Greg Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Theatre Design at University of California Santa Barbara. His work in Scenic Design, Lighting Design, Projection Design, Art Direction for Television, and Installation has been seen around the world.
Greg’s recent projects have included Scenic, Lighting, and Costume designs for Arjuna’s Dilemma, the first western style opera in Nepal. The Jazz-fusion cross cultural work was created as site specific production in one of the world’s oldest Hindu temples, a UNESCO site at Patan Durbar Square in Kathmandu.
Read an article in AMERICAN THEATRE about it here =>
HTTPS://WWW.AMERICANTHEATRE.ORG/2016/09/02/RISING-FROM-THE-RUINS-AN-OPERA-BRINGS-HEALING-TO-NEPAL/
Read more about it here =>
HTTPS://WWW.NEWS.UCSB.EDU/2016/016500/LIFE-IMITATES-ART
He collaborated with Opera Panama and the Panama Symphony Orchestra to design a site specific production of Verdi’s Macbeth in Panama City in the 400 year old ruin of the Convento de las Monjas Concepciones. In addition to scenery designed to accommodate the fragile archaeological site, he projection mapped the interior of the structure to create a media design that interacted with the architecture.
Read about it here =>
HTTPS://WWW.NEWS.UCSB.EDU/2017/017736/MAGIC-RUINS
In Dublin, Ireland Greg created an installation driven performing space in “The Boys School” at Smock Alley, the oldest extant theatre in Ireland, for the Creative Artists Collaborative involving a three story tall sculptural work and a projection mapping of the Gothic architecture.
Recently he worked with Ping Chong and Company as a lighting and video projection designer on the documentary-theatre production of Aan Yátx’u Sáani: Noble People of the Land.
Theatre work includes Off-Broadway productions in New York City including Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Tartuffe Supreme, Classic Stage Companys’s Tempest Tossed, Baruch Performing Arts The Actors Rap, and 321 Arts A Night in the Mind of Jim Jones. Other notable New York productions encompass years of collaboration with the site specific Brave New World Rep which yielded a large scale immersive production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest on the Coney Island Boardwalk, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Terrace), Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, and Fahrenheit 451 presented at the Prospect Park Amphitheatre as part of Celebrate Brooklyn’s 2010 Season. He has designed numerous other productions in the city for organizations including Three Graces Theatre, New York Theatre Experiment, The New York International Fringe Festival, and the New York Musical Festival.
Greg’s regional theatre work spans hundreds of productions around the country including a multiple productions in Anchorage and Juneau Alaska for Perseverance Theatre Company, in Maine at the Pensobscot Theatre Company, and Theatre at Monmouth, and seasons as the resident designer at Washington DC’s Source Theatre Company and Washington Stage Guild. Elsewhere his theatre designs have been seen at Mac-Haydn (NY), Curtain Call (NY), Alpine Theatre Project (MT), The Kennedy Center (DC), The Studio Theatre, (DC), African Continuum Theatre Company (DC), Tsunami Theatre (DC), Washington Shakespeare Company (DC), Imagination Stage (MD), Rep Stage (MD), Sierra Rep (CA), Summer Rep (CA), Hackmatack Playhouse (ME), American Stage Festival (NH), Playhouse on the Square (TN), Texas Shakespeare Festival (TX), Bristol Riverside Theatre (PA), Capital Playhouse (WA), and The Historic Iao Theatre (HI).
Design for opera includes international productions in Nepal, Panama, and the costumes for Tannhauser in Tirana Albania for their national theatre Teatri Kombetar i Operas dhe i Baletit. He has worked on the development of new operas including a commission for the Princess Sophia about the sinking of a passenger ship off the Alaskan coast in 1918, and Llantos about the intersection of Gypsies and Jews during the inquisition. He has designed multiple productions for Capital City Opera (DC), Juilliard Opera (NY), New Opera NYC (NY), Opera Modesto (CA), and Chicago Opera Theatre.
As an art director and assistant art director, Professor Mitchell has worked on projects for ESPN, CNBC, MTV, and VH1.
His work outside of the theatre includes planning and designing events, architectural spaces, and interactive installations for clients such as Heineken, Pink, The Food Network, Vornado Realty NYC, among many others. The range of this work spans turning a half acre of New York’s meat packing district into a Pumpkin Patch for Old Navy to multi-story interactive incendiary art for Nevada’s Burning Man.
Greg earned a MFA in Lighting and Scenic Design from NYU’s Tisch School of the arts. He is a proud member of USA Local 829, the union of stage designers. His work has been nominated for several awards including the Helen Hayes Award, Broadwayworld Awards, and Indy Awards.
