KIMILLE HOWARD
DIRECTOR
BIOGRAPHY
“...masterful direction...” – Splash Magazine
Kimille Howard is a New York-based director, deviser, writer, and filmmaker. She’s an Assistant Stage Director at The Metropolitan Opera, Artistic Director of the Lucille Lortel Theatre’s NYC Public High School Playwriting Fellowship, and a founder of the Black Diaspora Theatre Collective. Kimille was awarded Best Director at the 2016 Thespis Festival for It’s All About Lorrie by Joseph Krawczyk (Hudson Theater) which received a commercial run at The American Theater of Actors in 2017.
This season is shaping up to be Howard’s most rigorous and exciting year yet, including the workshop of Psyche with Clear Space Theater, the workshop of Kindred with Principe Dynamics, returning to The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson with North Carolina Opera, This Little Light of Mine with Kentucky Opera, and assistant directing Die Zauberflöte at The Metropolitan Opera. Last season, Howard directed Treemonisha and led the New Works Collective over multiple periods with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Additionally, Howard led a workshop of the new musical Influence Her, as well as Sanctuary Road with Virginia Opera, The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson with Pittsburgh Opera and Opera Carolina, and the world premiere of Two Corners, a new opera from composer B.E. Boykin and librettist Jarrod Lee, commissioned and presented by Finger Lakes Opera.
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Most recently, Howard assisted with the workshop of Two Corners, in addition to directing L’italiana in Algeri with Tulsa Opera, the revival of The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson with the Washington National Opera, Plantation Black with Playwright’s Horizon, Honey and Leon at Theatre Row, Songs in Flight at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Sparks & Wiry Cries, and On the Town for Montclair University as well as returning as Assistant Director at the Metropolitan Opera for both Champion and Die Zauberflöte.
Previously, Ms. Howard’s opera engagements included a return to The Metropolitan Opera as Assistant Stage Director for Porgy and Bess and Tosca. In addition, she directed productions of William Grant Still and Verna Arvey‘s Highway 1, USA for Indiana University, the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen and Deborak Brevoort’s Quamino’s Map commissioned by Chicago Opera Theater, Carlos Simon and Sandra Seaton’s Night Trip for Opera NexGen, reprised The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson for the Glimmerglass Festival, Damien Geter and Lila Palmer's American Apollo for Des Moines Metro Opera, and directed a workshop of a new modern opera called Echos of the Great Migration by Vince Di Mura for Catapult Opera Company. Theatre engagements included B.R.O.K.E.N Code B.I.R.D Switching for the Berkshire Theatre Group, as well as readings of Ghost Story for New Jersey Repertory Theatre, Pelican Bar for The Gural Theatre produced by Theatre Now, and a concert presentation of select excerpts from The Oscar Micheaux Project, a new musical produced by Prospect Theater Company at 59E59, and later part of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s 35th Annual Festival of New Musicals. She also directed an 8-part film series adapting BIPOC classic pieces for New Camerata Opera called Refractions.
Kimille first joined The Metropolitan Opera in 2019 as the Assistant Stage Director in the “Splendid” (New York Times), and “Exhilarating” (Washington Post) new James Robinson production of Porgy and Bess. She also made her Broadway début as Assistant Director on the 2019 Tony Award winning musical Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations.
Recent operatic engagements have included L’amant anonyme for Wolf Trap Opera, Death By Life: a virtual opera for White Snake Projects, and The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson, a new play with music, celebrating the founder of the historic and groundbreaking National Negro Opera Company with original music composed by Carlos Simon for the Glimmerglass Opera.
Theatre credits include Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau for TheatreSquared, TRIGGERED by Gabriel Jason Dean for Cherry Lane Theatre, Soil Beneath by Chesney Snow for Primary Stages/59E59, $#!thole Country Clapback by Pascale Armand for the Loading Dock Theatre, A Light Staggering by Jeesun Choi and Low Power by Jon Kern for the Ensemble Studio Theatre, BLACK GIRLS ARE FROM OUTER SPACE by Emana Rachelle for the National Black Theatre, The Visit for East Carolina University, In The Open by Mona Monsour for Western Connecticut State University, and Tidwell: or the Plantation Play by Rodney Witherspoon II, winner of the Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival.
Her work has also been seen at MultiStages, The Circle in the Square Theatre Circle Series, The Queens Theatre, Juilliard, The Flea, The Lark, JAGFest, NYU, Sea Dog Theater, and Atlantic Acting School, CLASSIX/The Lewis Center, among others. She has worked with Des McAnuff, Rebecca Frecknall, Ruben Santiago Hudson, Emily Mann, Stephen Wadsworth, Lorca Peress and more.
Recent Fellowships include New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship, the Manhattan Theatre Club Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship, and New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NYSAF NEXUS project. She is a former Resident Director at the Flea Theater, and she was the Series Producer for American Opera Project’s first season of Music as the Message. She has produced shows at the HERE Arts Center, FIAF, and more. She is a recipient of OPERA America’s 2023 Robert L. B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize.
Current as of October 23, 2024
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
"... a fine eye for comic flair..." – Tulsa World
L’italiana in Algeri– “Director Kimille Howard stages the action with a fine eye for comic flair, allowing the buffoonery to build up slowly to the cartoonish finale. She also kept the action on stage in almost constant motion — a bit like Rossini’s music — with the chorus and extras reacting to the silliness on stage”
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“... Howard’s skillful management…” – DC Theater Arts
The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson – “It is director Howard’s skillful management of the performances, set-sound-and-light cues, and staging that keeps all those disparate pieces of the scaffold balanced.”
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"... Howard’s forthright concept…” – Seen and Heard International
The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson – “Due to Kimille Howard’s forthright concept, careful placement of the stage and the high-powered performances by the cast, it really worked. There was nothing make-do about this performance whatsoever.”
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"... masterful direction..." – Splash Magazines
B.R.O.K.E.N code B.I.R.D switching – “The movement is exceptional—at times slinky, sensual, and visceral, always realistic—likely reflecting superb work by intimacy coach Marie C. Percy along with masterful direction by Kimille Howard. In an interview, newcomer playwright Tara L. Wilson Noth explains that Howard took pains to assemble a predominantly BIPOC creative team. Her efforts have paid off in the sterling execution of this arresting theatrical exploration of finding the space to delve into one’s true feelings and address unresolved trauma along with the concept of being seen.”
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"presided over a visually clear and attractive staging" – Hyde Park Herald
Quamino's Map – “Director Kimille Howard presided over a visually clear and attractive staging, even when the Studebaker Theater boards were packed with principals and chorus.”
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"Kimille Howard directed a[n]...effective production." – Washington Classical Review
L’Amant Anonyme – "Kimille Howard directed a minimal but effective production. Technicolor costumes situated the action in the 18th century, with some of the character dynamics further fleshed out by a zany dumbshow staged during the overture."
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"...a testament to the power of clear vision." – I care if you listen
Death by Life – "Based on original writings by incarcerated authors and their families, Death by Life is a testament to the power of clear vision. The 90-minute live digital opera is the latest production from White Snake Projects, an activist opera company committed to transmedia work and partnerships with non-musical activist communities. Using a custom software Tutti Remote, engineers Jon Robertson and Paul Deziel mixed live feeds of four singers located in California, Nebraska, Illinois, and New York and integrated Unreal Engine’s 3D environments into a live YouTube stream. At the May 20, 2021 premiere, singers Aaron Blake, Lucia Bradford, Nicholas Davis, and Tiana Sorenson were impressively synced, tuned, and compelling."
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"Strip away the remarkable visuals and technological wizardry, and Death by Life is the stuff of which opera is made. " – Seen and Heard International
Death by Life – "Strip away the remarkable visuals and technological wizardry, and Death by Life is the stuff of which opera is made. Death by Life is great theater with an activist edge that brings to mind Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart or Jonathan Larson’s Rent. Just as those authors made AIDS real for audiences with no personal experience of the disease, Death by Life does it for the twin evils of systemic racism and mass incarceration. And, like the other two plays, Death by Life left me with tears in my eyes, as well as the unsettling realization that Orange Crush is not just a soft drink."