Kitt Lavoie

Kitt Lavoie
Director, School of Theatre and Dance
lavoiec25@ecu.edu
252-328-1191
105 Messick Theatre Arts Center
Mail Stop 553
East Carolina University

Kitt Lavoie is a playwright, librettist, director, arts administrator, new play dramaturg, and filmmaker. He has worked on Broadway, Off-Broadway, across the United States, and around the world, and is the only living playwright to have had their work performed on all seven continents – including at the Rothera Research Station of the British Antarctic Survey.

Plays and musical books include Sabbatical (Lincoln Center), Kiki Baby (Theater for the American Musical Prize), The Median Line (Herbert J. Robinson Award for Dramatic Writing), realer than that (winner, Samuel French New Play Festival), And it came to pass in those days… (Collective Press), Winter Break (American Playwrights Press), Good Enough (Random House/Vintage Press), Fine (American Playwrights Press), Together, Even When You’re Not (Rowman & Littlefield/Applause Books), and Bank & Trust (Random House/Vintage Press).

Kitt founded the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, which identifies and honors new plays that feature dynamic roles for college-aged actors and also trains early-career actors, directors, and designers to be effective and ethical collaborators with playwrights in the developmental process and on first productions.

For 22 years, Kitt was the Artistic Director of The CRY HAVOC Company, a New York City-based not-for-profit theater dedicated to new work development and training the next generation of new play developers. At CRY HAVOC, he oversaw the development of more than 1200 plays, musicals, and screenplays.

As a stage director with a special focus on nurturing and directing new plays and musicals, Kitt has staged more than 150 productions in the United States, Europe, and Asia, as well as countless developmental workshops and readings. Plays, musicals, and screenplays that Kitt has developed have been honored by the Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, and Academy Awards.

Also a filmmaker, Kitt wrote and produced the acclaimed documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened about the cast of the original Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along (New York Times‘ Top 10 Films of the Year, Newsweek‘s Favorite Documentaries of the Year, Evening Standard’s Ten Best Arts Documentaries, #2 on Playbill’s list of Best Theatre Documentaries of All Time). His narrative films Fair, Kind, and True (which was commissioned by the Globe Theatre in London) and Rainbow Rabbit Reliant received multiple awards on the festival circuit.

Kitt has also worked frequently as a member of the directing team for the staging and filming of live theatrical events for PBS, HBO, and the BBC. Projects have included the Emmy-winning productions of Sweeney Todd (starring Emma Thompson) and Sondheim: The Birthday Concert (starring Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, and Patti Lupone), as well as Company (starring Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, and Christina Hendricks), Camelot (starring Gabriel Byrne), Gypsy (starring Imelda Staunton), and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (starring Audra McDonald).

Prior to coming to ECU, Kitt led the Acting and Musical Theatre BFA programs at the Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre & Dance at Southeast Missouri State University. Before that, he was a member of the founding faculty of the BFA in Drama program at New School University, where he developed the program’s career preparation curriculum; mentored the acting, directing, playwriting, and design capstone projects; and was Producing Artistic Director of the Senior BFA Project Festival.

He has guest lectured on subjects including acting, directing, playwriting, new play development, intimacy staging, career preparation, and arts management at colleges and universities around the United States, including Yale University, Pace University, and Penn State University, and holds an adjunct appointment as Associate Professor of Acting and Directing at NSKI Høyskole (The Norwegian Actors College) in Oslo, Norway.

Kitt is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the Dramatists Guild (where he served as Regional Representative for St. Louis and Kansas City), and the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.

Interview with Kitt Lavoie by Jessica Vanderkolk

Education:
MFA in Directing, Actors Studio Drama School at New School University

BA in Political Science, Fordham University