Michael Ritchie is a former American

stage manager Stage management is a broad field that is generally defined as the practice of organization and coordination of an event or theatrical production. Stage management may encompass a variety of activities including overseeing of the rehearsal proce ...

artistic director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogu ...

of Williamstown Theater Festival from 1996 to 2005 and

Center Theatre Group Center Theatre Group is a non-profit arts organization located in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest theatre companies in the nation, programming subscription seasons year-round at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and th ...

from 2005 to 2021.

Early and personal life

Ritchie was born in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...

to Irish-Scots parents. He holds Irish citizenship. In 1982, while stage managing a revival of

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of c ...

's '' Present Laughter'', Ritchie met actress Kate Burton, the daughter of actors

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and gave a memor ...

and

Sybil Christopher Sybil Christopher ( Williams; 27 March 1929 – 7 March 2013), formerly known as Sybil Burton, was a Welsh actress, theatre director, and founder of popular celebrity New York nightclub "Arthur".Paul Vitello ''New York Times'', 12 March 2013. Sh ...

. They married in 1985 and have two children."Biography: Kate Burton"
''Yahoo movies''

Career

While Ritchie was in high school, he began stage managing at the Surflight Theatre. His first Broadway stage management credit is the 1981 revival of George Bernard Shaw's Candida at Circle in the Square, starring

Joanne Woodward Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American retired actress. She made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a characteristic nuance and depth of character. ...

. His subsequent twenty-five Broadway production stage management credits include the 1988 revival of

Our Town ''Our Town'' is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder in 1938. Described by Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written", it presents the fictional American town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 ...

, starring

Spalding Gray Spalding Gray (June 5, 1941 – ) was an American actor, novelist, playwright, screenwriter and performance artist. He is best known for the autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for the theater in the 1980s and 1990s, as well ...

. In 1996, Ritchie became the third artistic director of Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Over fifty productions were staged during Ritchie's tenure, including six productions that were later transferred to Broadway. In 2002, Williamstown Theater Festival won the

Regional Theatre Tony Award The Regional Theatre Tony Award is a special recognition Tony Award given annually to a regional theater company in the United States. The winner is recommended by a committee of drama critics. Background Initially presented in 1948 to Robert ...

. In 2005, Ritchie left Williamstown and became the artistic director of

. CTG operates the Ahmanson Theatre, the

Mark Taper Forum The Mark Taper Forum is a 739-seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center designed by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles. Named for real estate developer Mark Taper, the Forum, the neighborin ...

, and the Kirk Douglas Theater in Los Angeles. At CTG, Ritchie produced the first American productions of

The Drowsy Chaperone ''The Drowsy Chaperone'' is a Canadian musical with music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, and a book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar. The story concerns a middle-aged, asocial musical theater fan who, feeling "blue", decides to pl ...

, 13, and

Curtains A curtain is a piece of cloth or other material intended to block or obscure light, air drafts, or (in the case of a shower curtain) water. Curtains are often hung on the inside of a building's windows to block the passage of light. For instan ...

. In 2021, Ritchie retired during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

References

External links

*
Center Theatre Group

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ritchie, Michael 1957 births Living people Artists from Worcester, Massachusetts Assumption University (Worcester) alumni American theatre managers and producers American artistic directors