FEATURED EVENT
REFLECTIONS OF A JAPANESE-AMERICAN THEATRE DIRECTOR
In this intimate and wide-ranging talk, director Mina Morita reflects on how her Japanese-American identity has shaped her artistic voice, leadership, and curatorial practice. Drawing on a career dedicated to championing AAPI playwrights and expanding the narratives represented on U.S. stages, she will explore how cultural heritage and artistic vision intersect—sometimes directly, sometimes in tension. Morita will also offer behind-the-scenes insights from a recent Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company production inspired by the work of Akira Kurosawa, including how traditional elements such as the hanamichi (花道; a long raised platform used as an extra stage in kabuki theater) and benshi (弁士; performers who provided live narration for silent films) were reimagined for contemporary audiences. Part personal journey, part artistic inquiry, this talk invites conversation about lineage, influence, and the evolving visibility of Japanese aesthetics in the American performing arts.
Want more Kurosawa? Join us on June 26 for our screening of Stray Dog.
Photo by Chesire Isaacs
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Mina Morita (she/her) is an accomplished theatre director and arts leader dedicated to creating vital, complex work that centers visionary voices and makes the invisible visible.
Morita has directed productions for numerous esteemed theatres, including the Guthrie Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, American Conservatory Theater, and Australia’s National Theatre of Parramatta. Her collaborators include Susan Soon He Stanton, Qui Nguyen, Anna Deavere Smith, Sanaz Toossi, Dipika Guha, Christopher Chen, and Young Jean Lee, among others.
Morita is currently the BOLD Resident Director & Creative Producer (part of the BOLD Theatre Women's Leadership Circle) at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, where she will direct The Great Privation by Nia Akilah Robinson. Previously, she served as the Leader of Artistic Curation & Strategy (2023) and Artistic Director (2015–2022) of Crowded Fire Theater and held artistic leadership roles at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The Ground Floor.
Her accolades include the inaugural FrontOffice Mid-Career Director's Award (2023), Theatre Bay Area's Outstanding Direction of a Musical (2014), and nominations for Outstanding Direction of a Play (2017) and the Shellie Awards Best Director (2018). In 2022, she was recognized as a Beinecke Fellow with Yale University.
Morita has also served on the board of Shotgun Players, co-founded Bay Area Children’s Theatre, and spoken for organizations including TEDx and YBCA100, who named her among those shaping the future of culture.
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