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.