Christopher Mirto

  • Assistant Professor of Opera Theater

Areas of Study

Education

BFA in theater and english literature, New York University, 2004
MFA in directing, Yale School of Drama, 2010

Biography

Christopher Mirto is a director, teacher, sometimes producer, and sometimes actor. Starting out as an actor, training at Stella Adler Studio of Acting while a student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Mirto found directing through a series of extraordinary events. He went to Yale School of Drama, where he earned a master’s degree in directing, studying with Liz Diamond, Tina Landau, David Chambers, and Robert Woodruff.

Before joining the faculty at Oberlin Conservatory, Mirto worked as a freelance artist while teaching at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven and Philadelphia’s University of the Arts. He spent a year as the artistic directing apprentice at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Mirto’s career highlights include performing in two of Richard Foreman’s plays at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in New York City, playing Christina Crawford opposite Joey Arias in Christmas with the Crawfords, and directing a revival of Dionysus in 69 at the Performing Garage.

He is a frequent director with the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut and with Opera-Tunity, an organization that creates operas based on myths from underrepresented cultures, performed by professional musicians and singers for elementary school students. He has directed operas at Manhattan School of Music, Curtis Institute, and with the Longfellow Chorus in Portland, Maine.

Mirto is interested in investigating the intersection of opera and theater and the marriage of precision and immediacy. His teaching and directing work examine the role of opera in the 21st century and how contemporary audiences connect to and contextualize it.

Notes

Christopher Mirto directs "Wakey, Wakey" in Cleveland

October 11, 2019

Christopher Mirto, Oberlin Conservatory's assistant professor of opera theater,  makes his Cleveland directorial debut in Will Eno's play Wakey, Wakey at Cleveland Heights' Dobama Theatre. It opens Friday, October 18 and runs Thursdays through Sundays through November 10. Mirto describes the 80-minute production as "a smart show about life and death, silliness and simplicity, and it ends with quite a celebration of what it means to be human." In 2014, Dobama was designated as a Small Professional Theatre (SPT) level Equity House, only the third such theater in the region. Find information about tickets on their website.

News

2022 Winter Term Recap

March 11, 2022

More than 2,290 students explored projects and research opportunities outside of their normal course of study during Winter Term. In this wrap-up gallery we look back at some of the group projects students performed.