Derek Livingston
Interim Artistic Director & Director of New Play Development | Utah Shakespeare Festival
Cedar City, UT, UNITED STATES
Accomplished theatre professional with nearly three decades experience producing, directing, and providing artistic oversight in theatre.
Biography
Derek Charles Livingston is the director of new play development and interim artistic director for the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival. In addition to fulfilling those two positions, he participated in the 2022 season by acting in the one-person show Thurgood, a production about the life of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Previously Livingston served as the managing artistic director for LA’s Celebration Theatre, program manager/production and new play producer for Playwrights Project, and festival artistic producer for Plays in Progress.
Before the age of 30, Livingston built HIV prevention programs for people of color and for gay male communities; served as a case manager to homeless men in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction; been a re-education counselor to domestic violence perpetrators in a private agency and in the prison system; earned all his points to join Actor Equity, the professional union for stage actors; co-organized a contingent of participants for the Million Man March; co-produced a tribute to Bayard Rustin at the Kennedy Center; been the executive director of a statewide LGBT political action committee; and served as a national co-chair of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation – one of the largest marches on Washington in US History. His picture is in the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture.
Livingston earned a bachelor’s degree in theatre arts from Brown University and an MFA in filmmaking from UCLA’s School of Film and Television.
Media
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Industry Expertise (2)
Education/Learning
Performing Arts
Areas of Expertise (8)
Production and Set Design
Film Production
Stage Management
Fund Development and Fundraising
Artistic Management
Play Production and Development
Playwriting
Theatre Direction
Education (2)
Brown University: Bachelor of Arts, Theatre Arts
University of California, Los Angeles: Production and Direction, Master's degree
Accomplishments (3)
LA Scenie Awards, Best Director (professional)
Sweeney Todd and M Butterfly
LA Ovation (professional)
Shakespeare’s R&J (director nomination) Pinafore! (producer nomination) Hedwig and the Angry Inch (producer winner)
New Hampshire Drama Award/Lead Actor (professional)
Driving Miss Daisy
Affiliations (3)
- 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, National Co-Chair
- North Carolina Pride PAC for Gay and Lesbian Equality, Executive Director
- Southern Utah University's Juneteenth Celebration Committee
Links (1)
Media Appearances (4)
To be or not to be at the Utah Shakespeare Festival?
Good Things Utah tv
2022-09-23
Just two weeks remain in the annual Utah Shakespeare Festival taking place at The Professional Theatre of Southern Utah University. Come for the plays such as The Sound of Music, The Tempest, Clue (based on the board game), and Thurgood (based on the life of US Supreme Court Justice– Thurgood Marshall). But stay for the activities like play seminars, play orientations, repertory magic, and production seminars.
Utah Shakespeare Festival opens fall with absorbing “Thurgood”
Utah Arts Review online
2022-09-15
Derek Charles Livingston introduced himself to Utah Shakespeare Festival audiences Wednesday onstage in the persona of Thurgood Marshall, the pioneering civil-rights attorney, Supreme Court justice, and subject of George Stevens Jr.’s 2006 play Thurgood. Livingston’s captivating portrayal of the multifaceted Marshall—erudite, impassioned, mischievous—made for an auspicious introduction.
Utah Shakespeare Festival names interim artistic director
The Salt Lake Tribune online
2022-06-16
With only four days before the 2022 Utah Shakespeare Festival begins, the Cedar City-based arts group has named a new interim artistic director, after the abrupt departure of longtime artistic director Brian Vaughn. Derek Charles Livingston, who has worked for USF since March 2021, will take on the interim role, the festival announced Thursday. Livingston was first hired as a director of new play development and an artistic associate, according to the festival’s announcement.
Utah Shakespeare Festival presents world-premiere musical 'Gold Mountain'
KSL tv
2021-11-10
"The chance to premiere a new musical and bring it to the world makes a statement about the kind of work that Utah Shakespeare Festival is committed to. And it also makes a statement about the kind of works that we want to put into the larger American theatre community," said Derek Livingston, the director of new play development at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
Event Appearances (1)
Summit on Belonging
Featured speaker and panelist Southern Utah University
2022-10-25
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