Kate Pitt is a dramaturg, producer, writer, researcher, editor, and director.
Guthrie Theater
Assistant Director, Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V directed by Joseph Haj (March 2024)
Chicago Opera Theater
Resident Dramaturg, Vanguard Emerging Opera Composer Program
Des Moines Metro Opera
Primary Stages
Associate Director, Dig directed and written by Theresa Rebeck
Shakespeare Theatre Company
Assistant Director, King Lear directed by Simon Godwin
The Acting Company
Associate Director, National Tour
Writer, Student Guides
…Shakespeare’s play unfolds over five hot summer days – Romeo and Juliet meet on Sunday night and are dead by Thursday morning – while Brooke’s poem unfolds over nine months and the lovers meet at a Christmas party… Brooke expands the story in places where Shakespeare stays silent, telling us what happens to the Nurse and Friar after the lovers’ deaths (she is banished and he becomes a hermit), and Shakespeare develops characters that Brooke only mentions in passing. Benvolio does not appear at all in Brooke’s poem and Mercutio appears only once as a party guest with very cold hands…
Alexander Dumas moved to Paris in his 20s and quickly became a successful writer with the support of his late father’s friends. He wrote over 250 books in his lifetime and serialized many of his novels including The Three Musketeers in magazines…[his] prolific output was made possible by his collaborators who researched and wrote drafts for him to polish. Author Auguste Maquet wrote the first draft of The Three Musketeers, completed in 1844, as well as another of Dumas’ best known works, The Count of Monte Cristo, published the following year.
Odysseus addresses the men…as “friends,” “companions,” and “servants.” …They are both sympathizers and servers, keeping Odysseus company on his journey while doing the physical labor to make it possible. Never once in all his desperate desire to return home does Odysseus ever actually touch an oar. He is willing to face many dangers – monsters, whirlpools, and witches – but not rowing. Ultimately it is Odysseus’ men, his “friends,” who suffer the most on his journey home. One by one they are bewitched, eaten, and drowned. Not one of them survives and when Odysseus finally arrives home, he arrives alone.
American Lyric Theater
Dramaturg & Resident Artist, Composer Librettist Development Program
Folger Shakespeare Library
Line Producer, 40+ public programs during The Wonder of Will season including Free Folger Friday talks, young patron events, film screenings, and conversations with directors, actors, and curators.
Adopted by Folger Public Programs in honor of Katharine Pitt – in recognition of her bright spirit, keen intelligence, and tremendous contributions to Folger, particularly those during 2016’s 400th Anniversary Wonder of Will.
Translator and Adapter for Performance, Le Roman de Fauvel: Politics and Counterpoint in Medieval France
Now ‘tis time the mystery to all of you must be exposed
Our story has a twist where he – Fauvel – is but a horse supposed
An equine anagram, a sham. Never mind, I’ll diagram –
Script Supervisor and Production Assistant, Folger Luminary Shakespeare Apps and Folger Audio Editions of Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet.
Writer and Editor, Spotlight production blog
An Eye for an Eye, an Edward for an Edward (Richard III)
Assistant Director, The Way of the World, Assistant to the Director, Twelfth Night
French Dialect Coach, Nell Gwynn, Dramaturg Assistant, Romeo & Juliet
The Reduced Shakespeare Company
Dramaturg, The Comedy of Hamlet! (a prequel)
Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast Episode 492, Hamlet’s Prequel Adventure
Dramaturg Kate Pitt joins us for a deep dive into the creation of the script for Hamlet’s Big Adventure! (a prequel), on which she cast her dramaturgical magic. Kate discusses HBA’s intertextual conversation with Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, its biofictional elements, and reveals the identity of the most confusing Hamlet ever…
Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast Episode 391, Gender-Flipping The Shrew
Good Tickle Brain Comic
Dramaturg
Shakespearean Valentines, Shakespearean Bingo, Hamlet Outtakes, The King: A Review/Rant in Tweets, Pirate Ex-Machina, Disguise, A Stick-Figure Hamlet
Q&A August: Kate Pitt, Pocket Dramaturg
Apart from being a delightful human being, Kate is also a genuine Shakespearean powerhouse, with a vast amount of both scholarly and practical Shakespeare knowledge and experience. You might have noticed that many of my recent comics have included the note “Thanks to my pocket dramaturg, Kate Pitt, for consulting with me on this comic.” This is because I quickly fell into the habit of texting Kate with random Shakespeare-related questions, like “IN HOW MANY SHAKESPEARE PLAYS DO SHEEP REGULARLY APPEAR ON STAGE?” Kate, in her infinite patience and bottomless depth of knowledge, would always promptly text me back with answers, including sources. It was like having my own personal dramaturg in my pocket.
Shakespeare Webcomic Dramaturgy in New & Noteworthy, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas
Writer
Saye Anything & Saye What? (Henry VI, Part II)
Jack Cade, the leader of the rebellion, accuses Saye of such abominable crimes as printing, teaching grammar to children, and dressing his horse in excessively fancy horse-clothes. Saye is definitely not guilty of the first indictment, as this scene takes place in 1450 and the first books in England weren’t printed until at least twenty-five years later…
Saints Have Heads (Macbeth)
James I has a family connection to Macbeth not only through his ancestor Banquo, but also because the mummified head of Malcolm’s wife may have been one of the first things he saw when he was born…
Perilous Arrow’s Motion (Henry V)
Henry’s wound was not the “shallow scratch” he dismissively describes in Henry IV Part I when his father asks him to leave the battlefield because his bleeding is becoming conspicuous…
Program Notes
Pericles, Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival
Despite his best efforts, Pericles cannot always keep those closest to him safe or solve the great evils of his world. He and his family must fight against the forces of nature, humans, gods, and yes, pirates...
Così fan tutte, Santa Fe Opera
While writing Così, an opera that generalizes about the flirtatious behavior of all women (the title can be roughly translated as 'Thus do all women') Mozart may have had one particular woman in mind…
M. Butterfly, Santa Fe Opera
Since its premiere in 1988, David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly has metamorphosed several times and exists in multiple editions – including two Broadway productions – and now as an opera. M. Butterfly’s opalescence is much like that of the creature itself: constantly revealing new facets as it shifts form and perspective…
The Barber of Seville, Opera Saratoga
When Barber finally premiered on February 23, 1775, audiences hated it. According to one of Beaumarchais’ friends, the public was exhausted by the play’s “superabundance of wit.” According to Beaumarchais, newspaper publishers were out to get him…
La Fille du Régiment, Opera Saratoga
Donizetti’s librettists for La Fille du Régiment – Jules-Henri Vernoy and Jean-François Bayard – were both talented artists and the authors of numerous successful plays. They also possessed sufficiently Gallic credentials to help the Italian composer win over notoriously difficult French audiences. Vernoy was particularly well-placed for this task: he was the manager of the Opéra-Comique theater in Paris where Fille was first performed...
The Merry Widow, Opera Saratoga
There was almost a riot...when a producer offered free 'Merry Widow' hats…to every female audience member. 13,000 women showed up at the theater to claim 1,000 hats, and The New York Times reported that one patron 'tackled the woman next to her with a vim that would have done credit to the world's champion female wrestler…’
Ellen West, Opera Saratoga
Ellen cares for her disease in a way she is unable to care for herself. She nurtures her hunger, preserving and guarding it against those who would seek to sate it. While her body wastes away, her appetite grows and becomes literally all-consuming. Ellen believes that her true self is thin, and that by keeping her belly empty, she may will her self full. She is her own whetstone and wears herself away – body, heart, and soul…
Writer’s Assistant, Bernhardt/Hamlet
Guest Lecturer, Opera Creation Lab at Bard College
Ambassador, Shakespeare Society
Student Coordinator, Shakespeare at Yale
Member, Wingspace Theatrical Design, Opera America, LMDA, NPX, SAA, ATHE, TCG