Ricardo Pitts-Wiley

Ricardo Pitts-Wiley

Co-founder and artistic Director, Mixed Magic Theatre, Pawtucket, RI

Visiting Scholar 2009-2010

Hosted by Prof. James Buzard, Literature Department

Bio

Ricardo Pitts-Wiley is an accomplished actor, director, playwright, composer and theatre arts instructor. He is Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Mixed Magic Theatre, an arts organization based in Pawtucket, RI. Founded in 2000, MMT brings “diverse stories and images to the stage through prose and song, tackling well-known dramatics as well as original theatrical productions”.

Over a career spanning almost 40 years Pitts-Wiley has performed at noted theatres throughout the Unites States, including The Actor’s Shakespeare Project in Boston, Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI, and The Old Globe theatre. He has directed over 50 plays including: “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” and “The Emperor Jones”.

Prof. James Buzard in the Literature Department was his faculty host at MIT. As an MLK Visiting Scholar, Pitts-Wiley co-taught one class per semester, lectured on Shakespeare and page-to-stage adaptations of classic literature, and participated in dance and theatre productions in both fall and spring semesters.

Audio

In 1968, following the order to desegregate the public schools, Ricardo Pitts-Wiley was bused to a predominately white school. He tells his son Johnathan T.M. Pitts-Wiley about the opportunities it afforded him and how that year changed his life.

At MIT

 

Misery's Fiend Frankenstein, 2010

Adapted by the Mary Shelley novel by Ricardo Pitts-Wiley with Bill Pett and Jim Brown. Directed by Visiting MLK Artist Ricardo Pitts-Wiley and cast with MIT students.

Following the performance, a panel of MIT scholars discussed the novel, addressing questions such as what it is about Frankenstein that fascinates us.


MIT New Media Literacies Project: Remixing Moby Dick

Ricardo Pitts-Wiley's historic 2007 stage adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick is the centerpiece of Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom by Wyn Kelley and Henry Jenkins of the MIT New Media Literacies Project.