Derek Livingston

Director of New Play Development & Artistic Associate Utah Shakespeare Festival

  • Cedar City UT

Accomplished theatre professional with nearly three decades experience producing, directing, and providing artistic oversight in theatre.

Contact

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.

Social

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning
Performing Arts

Areas of Expertise

Production and Set Design
Film Production
Stage Management
Fund Development and Fundraising
Artistic Management
Play Production and Development
Playwriting
Theatre Direction

Education

Brown University

Bachelor of Arts

Theatre Arts

University of California, Los Angeles

Production and Direction

Master's degree

Accomplishments

LA Scenie Awards, Best Director

Sweeney Todd and M Butterfly

LA Ovation

Shakespeare’s R&J (director nomination)
Pinafore! (producer nomination)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (producer winner)

New Hampshire Drama Award/Lead Actor

Driving Miss Daisy

Affiliations

  • 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

Media Appearances

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.

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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.

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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.

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Event Appearances

Summit on Belonging

Featured speaker and panelist  Southern Utah University

2022-10-25