Rate My Professor Michael Mufson

Michael Mufson is Professor of Theatre Arts and Co-Chair of the Performing Arts Department at Palomar College. He possesses a long history in professional theatre, starting at age sixteen as an apprentice at the Provincetown Playhouse in Massachusetts. Mufson traces his theatrical roots to his family’s close association with E. Y. Harburg, lyricist of The Wizard of Oz, Finian’s Rainbow, and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?,” a constant role model. He advanced through various positions at acclaimed regional and summer stock theaters, including Arena Stage, StageWest, and the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

Mufson received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California at Irvine, where he was considered one of the most exciting and accomplished directors to graduate from the program. There, he directed Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Setzuan, a cross-gender adaptation of Molière’s The Misanthrope entitled Ms.Anthrope, Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, The Trial adapted from Kafka’s novel, and Sam Shepard’s True West. Other favorite productions include Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid. He is particularly proud of conceiving, directing, and performing over twenty original collaborative performance works incorporating theatre, music, movement, sculpture, technology, and insanity, presented across the country from the Center for Contemporary Arts in Cleveland to the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles. Mufson founded experimental art/performance groups 2AM Productions and Fisheye Mongrel. His training encompasses Jerzy Grotowski’s intensive program on physical actions, Stanislavski adaptations, vocal training, original work, and ritual roots of theatre; Anne Bogart and the SITI company in Viewpoints and Composition; and Tadashi Suzuki’s approach at StageWest. In his acting classes, he integrates the actor’s body, voice, and imagination for all theatre styles. Mufson’s philosophy: “Theatre is a vital part of community. Nowhere else do you have a group of people coming together to share and experience a form of expression which is uniquely human, where the material is forged directly from the heart and soul of our humanity.”