Arts Leadership and Administration Highlights
Kitt is the Artistic Director of the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, an annual event that develops new plays that would thrive in a university theater setting and trains student and early-career artists in how to work on new plays with a living playwright. For 22 years he was Artistic Director of The CRY HAVOC Company, a not-for-profit theater company he co-founded in 1997 focused on new play development and artist training. Under his leadership, CRY HAVOC has contributed to the development of hundreds of new plays, musicals, and screenplays and provided training in acting, writing, and directing to thousands of students and working professionals. Additionally, Kitt is Partner and Executive Producer at Allright Productions, a commercial film and theater company he co-founded with Emmy-winner and Tony-nominee Lonny Price.
Theater Directing Highlights
Kitt has directed more than 125 shows in New York City, across the United States, and in Europe, as well as countless readings and developmental workshops. Directing credits include Lincoln Center Originals: The CRY HAVOC Company at Lincoln Center, a production of The Spaceship Lands on Christmas by Sydney Painter that took place simultaneously in front of live audiences in New York and Tokyo with the actors interacting via video connection, and The CRY HAVOC Company’s much-lauded production of Romeo & Juliet featuring a female Romeo and female Juliet.
Film and Television Highlights
Kitt produced and co-wrote the acclaimed documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened about the creation and aftermath of the original 1981 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along (New York Times’ Ten Best Films of 2016, Newsweek’s Favorite Documentaries of 2016, The Evening Standard's Ten Best Arts Documentaries, Playbill's Top Five Theatre Documentaries, Esquire’s Twenty Best Documentaries of All Time, Official Selection – 2016 New York Film Festival). Also, the short film Rainbow Rabbit Reliant, which Kitt wrote and directed, won multiple acting, directing, audience, and best film awards on the festival circuit. His animated screenplay Plume (co-written with Jenny Kirlin) was recently named a Finalist in the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest (top 10 out of 7,000+ entries).
Additionally, Kitt works frequently as a member of the directing team for the filming of live theatrical events to air on Live from Lincoln Center, PBS Great Performances, and for broadcast in movie theaters. Projects have included the Emmy-winning Sweeney Todd (starring Emma Thompson) and Sondheim: The Birthday Concert (starring Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, and Elaine Stritch), as well as Company (starring Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, and Christina Hendricks), Camelot (starring Gabriel Byrne and Christopher Lloyd), and the HBO filming of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (starring Audra McDonald in the role that won her a record sixth Tony award).
Playwriting Highlights
Kitt is the only playwright ever to have his work performed on all seven continents during their lifetime. He is the author of 32 produced plays and musical books, which have been performed in English, Spanish, Hungarian, Norwegian, and Latin. Plays include Sabbatical (Lincoln Center), Kiki Baby (Theater for the American Musical Prize), The Median Line (Herbert J. Robinson Award for Dramatic Writing), [pwnd] (NYIT Best Original Script nominee), realer than that (winner, Samuel French Festival; Samuel French Press, 2010), Bank & Trust (Vintage Press, 2014), Good Enough (finalist, Samuel French Festival; Vintage Press, 2015), And it came to pass in those days… (Collective Press, 2015), Fine (American Playrwight's Press, 2019), Together, Even When You're Not (Applause Books, 2023) and Sunshine (which premiered in three countries and in two languages on the same night).
New Play Development Highlights
Kitt’s work with playwrights has made him a highly sought-after collaborator on new plays, screenplays, and musicals. As an artistic director, director, and dramaturg, he has been integral to the development of more than 1200 new plays which have won multiple awards and been seen in theaters around the world – including Juicy and Delicious, which was adapted for the screen as Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Teacher and Educator Highlights
Kitt is an Assistant Professor of Theatre: Acting and Directing and Coordinator of Acting and Musical Theatre Performance at the Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance at Southeast Missouri State University and Associate Professor of Acting and Directing at the Norwegian Actors College (NSKI Høyskole) in Oslo, Norway. He spent several years on the Directing and Playwriting Faculty at the New School for Drama in New York City, and has guest lectured at universities around the United States. His students currently appear on Broadway, Off-Broadway, on television, and in major films. He is the Executive Producer and host of the popular CRY HAVOC Podcast, which focuses on elucidating the craft of acting, directing, and playwriting for an audience of both theater artists and theater-goers.