Raffaele Pacitti
Playwright
Raffaele Pacitti (Member, DGA) is a playwright, producer and performer whose plays have received stagings and readings in both New York and Canada. His latest play, Mister Halston, explores the life and times of famed American fashion designer, Halston, set against the vibrant, tumultuous New York of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Mister Halston has received awards for Outstanding Script, Outstanding Actor, and the Audience Award at New York's United Solo Festival.
Select NY/Regional Theatre: The Tempest (Mill Mountain Stage), The Heiress (Shadow Lawn Stage), A Casual Gathering (Theatre for a New Audience), Pterodactyls (Mercury Theatre), Digging for Fire (Factory Theatre), Hamlet (Canadian Stage), Count Dracula (Rainbow Theatre). Select Concerts: Bright Lights, Big City (Greenroom 42); Body and Soul (54 Below); Uninvited (The Metropolitan Room) Spring Fling, Don’t Misunderstand, Evening Lounge (Etc Etc Piano Room).
With years of experience as New York-based Art Director in the advertising, PR and media spaces, along with a varied background in both magazine design and publishing, Pacitti reveres the power of words and how they can affect perception. A passion for theatre, music and fashion, combined with these professional skills has proved to be a natural transition into the world of playwriting. Raffaele holds a BFA in theatre from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson Theatre School) and has studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and the Royal Shakespeare Company. misterhalston.com
Michael Wilson (SDC, DGA) is a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award-winning director working on Broadway, off-Broadway, and at major theaters across the country.
On Broadway, he directed the 2013 revival of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Condola Rashad, Vanessa Williams and Cicely Tyson, who won the Tony® Award for Best Actress. Other Broadway productions include the 2012 Tony Award nominated revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man (starring Candice Bergen, James Earl Jones, John Larroquette, Angela Lansbury, Eric McCormack, Michael McKean and John Stamos); the Tony® Award-nominated Best Plays Dividing the Estate (starring Elizabeth Ashley, Hallie Foote and Gerald McRaney); and Enchanted April (starring Jayne Atkinson and Molly Ringwald), for which he earned his first of two Outer Critics Circle nominations.
Wilson made his screen directoral debut with the 2014 Lifetime/Ostar television film adaptation of The Trip to Bountiful, which was nominated for two 2014 Emmy Awards — including Outstanding Television Movie, as well as a DGA Award for Outstanding Direction of a Movie or Mini-Series for Television. Among the film's many awards are the 2015 NAACP/Image Awards for Outstanding Actor (Blair Underwood) and Outstanding TV Movie, and the Gracie Allen Award for Outstanding Ensemble Cast, which included Keke Palmer and Clancy Brown.
His first indie film, the award-winning Showing Roots (produced by Michael Mailer Films in association with Bill Haber, starring Uzo Aduba, Maggie Grace, and Elizabeth McGovern) was acquired by Lifetime where it had its television premiere in 2016.
Off-Broadway, his production include Signature Theater Company's revival of Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy starring Richard Thomas, which was subsequently filmed by BroadwayHD (2015); Desire, the Acting Company's premiere bill of plays by Elizabeth Egloff, Marcus Gardley, Rebecca Gilman, David Grimm, John Guare, and Beth Henley based on short stories by Tennessee Williams; Roundabout's revivals of Landford Wilson's Talley's Folly starring Danny Burstein and Sarah Paulson (2013) and Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore starring Olympia Dukakis (2011); and the epic three-part, nine-hour Orphans' Home Cycle.
Internationally, he directed both parts of Tony Kushner's Angels in America for the 1995 Venice Biennale.
Recent projects including the American Repertory Theatre revival of The Night of the Iguana starring Bill Heck, Dana Delaney, James Earl Jones, and Amanda Plummer (2017); CTG/Ahmanson Theater's Los Angeles premiere of Grey Gardens: The Musical starring Betty Buckley and Rachel York (2016); and the Alley Theatre workshop of the new musical Tender Mercies (2018).
Treasurer of SDC since 2015, Wilson was Artistic Director from 1998-2011 of Hartford Stage, where he commissioned and developed the Pulitzer Prize winning Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes. mwilsonproductions.com