CHRISTOPHER D. BETTS is a director based in New York and Chicago, with a passion for musical theatre, radical joy, and uplifting Black Women’s stories. Christopher’s aesthetic is primarily informed by his Grandmother, a retired Chicago Public School Teacher and Visual Artist.
Christopher holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (Graduating as The Bachelor’s Rep for Tisch with Triple Honors) and an MFA in Directing from Yale School of Drama. Christopher is also the recipient of the Julie Taymor World Theater Fellowship, the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship, and a double recipient of the SDCF Observership.
Christopher has most recently directed The Color Purple (Pittsburgh CLO & North Carolina Theatre), Dreamgirls (Paramount &North Carolina Theatre), Choir Boy (Yale Rep), Legally Blonde: The Musical, Spring Awakening, & Applause (Tisch)
Other Collaborations include: Trouble in Mind (Hartford Stage), Katori Hall’s Pulitzer Prize Winning, The Hot Wing King (Hartford Stage & Baltimore Center Stage) In the Southern Breeze (Off-Broadway), Dutch Kings (Off-Off-Broadway), Barbecue (Movement Director, The Public Theatre), Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors (PopArt Johannesburg/Market Theatre Lab), The Cave: A Folk Opera (New York premiere), Carrie (Broadway World Best Musical nomination), a series of new works with the OBIE Award-winning Fire This Time Festival, Goodnight Tyler (Workshop, Kennedy Center/Alliance Theatre), Refuge of the Damned (Workshop, Long Wharf), and Legacy Land (Workshop, Court Theatre). At the Yale School of Drama: Is God Is, We Are Proud to Present..., Fireflies, littleboy/littleman, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, and The Winter’s Tale.
Internationally, Christopher has been an Artist in Residence at Kampala International Theater Festival, PopArt Johannesburg, and a teaching artist at The Market Theatre Lab.
Christopher is a professor in the Department of Undergraduate Drama at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, New Studio on Broadway, and a member of the support team at artEquity.
In addition to directing, Christopher is a physical fitness and natural hair enthusiast, a great baker (another skill from Grandmother), loves traveling, and is currently learning Spanish.
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Daring to Be Seen - Yale Daily News