Charles Newell: Director

The Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director of Court Theatre, Charles “Charlie” Newell, has been Artistic Director at Court Theatre since 1994, where he has directed over fifty productions. He made his Chicago directorial debut in 1993 with The Triumph of Love, which won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Production. Newell has been nominated for sixteen Joseph Jefferson Director Awards, winning four times. Additionally, in 2018, Court Theatre received a special Joseph Jefferson Award for “extraordinary commitment to the Chicago theatre community for over fifty years.”

Newell won the Theatre Communications Group’s Alan Schneider Director Award in 1992, the League of Chicago Theatres’ Artistic Achievement Award in 2012, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation awarded Newell with their Zelda Fichandler Award, which they give to honor “an outstanding director or choreographer who is transforming the regional arts landscape through singular creativity and artistry in theatre.”

Newell’s directorial highlights at Court include All My Sons, The Hard Problem, Man in the Ring; One Man, Two Guvnors, Satchmo at the Waldorf, Agamemnon, The Secret Garden, Iphigenia in Aulis, M. Butterfly, The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, Proof, Angels in America, An Iliad, Porgy and Bess, Three Tall Women, Titus Andronicus, Arcadia, Uncle Vanya, Raisin, The Glass Menagerie, Travesties, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Invention of Love, and Hamlet. Charlie has also directed at Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Arena Stage, John Houseman’s The Acting Company, the California and Alabama Shakespeare Festivals, Juilliard, and New York University. His opera directing credits include Regina (Lyric Opera), Rigoletto (Opera Theatre of St. Louis), Don Giovanni and The Jewel Box (Chicago Opera Theater), and Carousel (Glimmerglass).

Newell has served on the Board of the Theatre Communications Group, as well as on several panels for the National Endowment for the Arts.