A native of Toronto, Canada, Charlotte Brathwaite is Assistant Professor of Theater Arts at MIT. She joined the internationally renowned La MaMa E.T.C’s Great Jones Repertory as an actor at the age of 16 and performed in New York and in over 12 countries with the company. An independent director, her works presented in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia, range in subject matter from the historical past to the distant future illuminating issues of race, sex, power and the complexities of the human condition without adhering to limitation of genre. A director of classical and unconventional texts, operas, dance, multi-media, site-specific, installations and concerts her work has been commissioned and presented by Central Park SummerStage, DC Arts Commission, 651 Arts, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Aarshi Theater Company Kolkata, Test! Festival Zagreb, Het Veem Theater Amsterdam, Scarlett Project Trinidad, The Living Theater, Joe’s Pub, La MaMa E.T.C, JACK Brooklyn, Studio Museum Harlem and HAU Berlin among others.

In theater, we imagine the impossible and try to make that possible...We not only imagine, but create the world as we think the world should be.

Charlotte Brathwaite, MIT SHASS Great Ideas Change the World, 2017

Brathwaite has been dramaturge for Kyle Abraham/A.I.M., is co-founder of Naturaleza Humana performance group Berlin, and has assistant directed for Yale Repertory, Lincoln Center, Yale Opera, The Public Theater, Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, Francesca Zambello and Peter Sellars. Awards/Honors: Princess Grace Foundation Award; Julian Milton Kaufman Prize for Directing; Rockefeller Residency (A.I.M); National Performing Network Creation Fund; Glimmerglass Festival Young Artist Program (2013/14, 2014/15); Princess Grace Foundation New Works grant; Visiting Artist Williams College; Visiting Professor Amherst College. BA, Amsterdam School for the Arts, the Netherlands; MFA, Yale School of Drama.