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Mina Morita

She // Her // Hers

Director

Washington, District of Columbia

Mina Morita faces the camera with a determined, confident expression, her head turned slightly to her right. She wears a black sleeveless top and a vibrant chartreuse-gold textured scarf draped around her neck. Her brown hair is styled in a short, asymmetrical cut. She leans against a white column or wall, with soft natural light illuminating her face. The background is softly blurred, showing hints of greenery and architectural elements.

Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.

“I create theater to unsettle complacency and reveal truths about our vibrant differences. I direct new plays that question simplistic cultural norms and envision futures before their time.”

Mina Morita is a director of vital new plays that champion creative rebellion. Morita creates worlds where audiences and artists face uncomfortable truths and discover possibility together. She has worked with Australia’s National Theatre of Parramatta and La Boite Theatre, the Guthrie, Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, American Conservatory Theater, Woolly Mammoth, Boston’s CompanyOne, the Magic Theatre, CenterREP, Campo Santo, Shotgun Players, Playwrights Foundation, Ferocious Lotus, Bay Area Children’s Theatre, and Crowded Fire Theatre Company.

She currently serves as Woolly Mammoth’s BOLD Resident Director and Creative Producer as part of the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle, funded by the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation. Previously, she was the Artistic Director of Crowded Fire and the Artistic Associate at Berkeley Rep and its center for the creation and development of new work, The Ground Floor.

She is a recipient of the inaugural FrontOffice Mid-Career Director’s Award, a Beinecke Fellow with Yale University, as well as Theatre Bay Area’s 40@40 distinction for her impact on the region. Morita was honored to share her story on TEDx and was chosen as one of the YBCA100 for "asking questions and making provocations that will shape the future of culture."

Donor -This award was generously supported by donors of the USA Fellowship Awards program.

This artist page was last updated on: 01.14.2026

Theater & Performance
Three dancers and three actors perform in a tight cluster on a darkened stage, dramatically lit by a warm amber spotlight from above and striking electric blue light strips radiating from below. One dancer uses a wheelchair, positioned at the center of the group. The performers' bodies create sculptural silhouettes against the black void of the theater, their raised arms and dynamic poses suggesting movement and connection. The theatrical lighting — particularly the vivid blue linear patterns stretching toward the audience — creates a sense of energy radiating outward from the dancers. The composition emphasizes both individual presence and collective unity in the choreography.

Banish Darkness: Death Become Life directed by Mina Morita with Crowded Fire Theater Company, Axis Dance, and Ensemble Mik Nawooj, 2018. The Ruth Williams Opera House in Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco.

Photo by Adam Tolbert.

A performer stands alone, stage left, in a long Hawaiian-patterned dress with horizontal stripes in cream and black, arms crossed protectively across her chest and looking back. She is framed by a wall of jalousie doorways in a Koa-like reddish wood wall. The doorways glow with saturated blue light, with prismatic silhouettes of different Gala guests posing and casting overlapping magenta and purple lighting.

Today Is My Birthday directed by Mina Morita, 2022. Written by Susan Soon He Stanton. Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT.

Photo by Adam Tolbert.

Four performers strike martial arts-style poses across the stage, their bodies angled forward with fists raised. They wear 1970s clothing in earth tones — rust orange, olive green, and denim. A vintage motorcycle is positioned prominently in the mid-ground, while theatrical haze drifts through the space, catching the light. The background features a large yellow-green projection or set piece with intricate patterns, alongside weathered brick-like textures. The composition captures explosive energy, a massive fight sequence about to start onstage. Additional performers are visible at the edges of the frame, extending the sense of an ensemble in motion.

Vietgone directed by Mina Morita, 2022. Written by Qui Nguyen. Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, MN.

Photo by Dan Norman.