Marc Levitt lives in Wakefield, Rhode Island and tours the United States and around the world with a varied repertoire that includes "growing up" and "almost grown up" children and adult stories, one person performances on Johnny Appleseed and Marco Polo, original folklore inspired tales, original Halloween-type stories and commissioned historical narratives with musical accompaniment.
His historical narratives include stories about watersheds, rivers, historical farms and a three-decker tenement house in Providence. Musicians who accompany Mr. Levitt's stories include members of Irish-American bands, old time banjo and fiddlers, bouzouki players, Cambodian xylophonists, Armenian oud players, Malian Djembe musicians, Irish flautists, Dominican trumpeters and Cape Verdean Guitarists.
Marc Levitt has performed and given workshops in storytelling, writing and in diversity celebration in almost twenty countries, including India, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Tunisia, Austria, France, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Great Britain, Netherlands, Mexico, the Dominican Republic. Ecuador, Peru and in 2006, Venezuela.
In addition to storytelling, Mr. Levitt is very involved with educational reform. In 1999, he began a "Museum in a School" program in Providence, Rhode Island, where student curiosity is encouraged and stimulated by the school building, a former cotton mill and its multi-use, multi ethnic neighborhood. Students develop a research strategy and the results are, with the help of artists, turned into museum quality exhibits. The exhibits, on subjects as diverse as local playgrounds, local dance forms, the icehouse industry as well as oral histories with former factory workers are essentially ways to "un-pack" the stories of the site.
Marc Levitt's philosophy that encouraged the creation of this National Endowment for the Humanities and Disney Learning Partnership funded program is called "Site Specific Education" and it incorporates a philosophy of integrating disciplines, appreciation for one's local community and '"real world" presentation. Inspired by his work in this project as well as his writer in residency work, Mr. Levitt has written a book on the teaching of writing called "Teaching Writing from the Roots."
Marc Levitt is a lecturer through the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, where he won its initial Tom Roberts Award for the creative use of the Humanities. His lecture topics include, Sprawl and How to Stop It, Democracy in Education and Stone Wall Makers of South County, Rhode Island. Mr. Levitt is also finishing a documentary film on Narragansett Indian Stone wall makers.
Additionally, Mr. Levitt is the Host/Creative Director of "Action Speaks," Underappreciated Dates of the 20th Century, the nationally award winning radio program, produced for Rhode Island Public Radio in association with the Rhode Island School of Design, the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and the arts/urban development organization, AS 220. Mr. Levitt has also been a talk show host and for ten years Wrote/Produced and Directed a syndicated Radio Variety show, The New England Chowda' Hour.
Mr. Levitt has also received the New Genre Fellowship, from the Rhode Island Council for the Arts. |
