Charlie I. Miller

Charlie I. Miller ’08 got his start in filmmaking in eighth grade. Always interested in his Jewish heritage, Miller became fascinated by the Jewish steam baths, or shvitz. One documentary later, Miller had laid the foundations for a career of turning personal passions into art. Several years after his first foray into filmmaking, Miller has a multi-faceted Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) thesis behind him and an undergraduate education’s worth of maturity.

“Ultimately, I think what [my time at Harvard] did was help me identify what interests me and turn that into some kind of product,” Miller says. “I think I came into Harvard with this great passion for creating art, but I didn’t know how to look within myself and see what I found important and how to translate that into a finished work.”

Miller came to Harvard for theater. More precisely, he came to Harvard because they had no theater major and, he presumed, less theater politics as a result. After witnessing an alum’s films about Africa at his high school, Miller arrived with an aim to pursue VES.

“My decision to do VES was sort of a decision that I wanted to create art for the rest of my life,” Miller says. “I realized at the end of high school that being creative was too important to me to just remain a hobby. I came here ultimately knowing I wanted to do VES and along with that knowing that I wanted to create art professionally or at least as a main part of my life.”

Miller entered the Harvard theater scene full-throttle, launching a play during his freshman fall that he’d co-written the previous summer. Meant to inspire people to vote, “2004: An Election Year Odyssey” production was faced with a rather inflexible timeline. As he tackled this project, Miller revealed the initiative that would become characteristic of his endeavors at Harvard.

“I wanted to mount it before the election, and the only way that was possible was if I produced and directed it myself, which I did in the Adams Pool [Theatre] in October of 2004,” Miller says. “It was insane, because I just threw together whoever I could find, but it ended up being quite successful and sort of launched my theatrical career.”

Following the success of his election play, Miller directed his first production for the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players in his freshman spring. While dabbling in Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club productions, he joined Gilbert and Sullivan’s board of directors, serving as treasurer and then president, and eventually directing the group’s 50th anniversary productions of “H.M.S. Pinafore” and “Trial by Jury.” Miller has only appeared on the Harvard stage twice, once as Frankenfurter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and once in a Gilbert and Sullivan production as a last-minute replacement.

Miller traces two threads through his college years—one related to theater and the other to film. “They converged at my thesis,” he says, “which was sort of the plan all along.” Miller’s thesis, entitled “Username: Faust,” premiered at the New College Theatre last month. A multimedia combination of theater, video, and various Faust myths, the production was a collaboration between Miller and four talented disabled actors from outside of Harvard.

“I think from an artistic side, collaboration is something that I really feed off of and one of the reasons my thesis took the path it did,” Miller says.

This interest in collaboration helps explain his shift from acting to directing. “I’m really less interested in acting and performing at this point and I’m more interested in directing, partly because it is the center for collaboration in a show,” Miller says. “I’ve enjoyed the many more challenges that directing offers.”

Miller’s path has truly come full circle. This summer he heads back to Denver, his hometown, to rework the election play he orchestrated freshman year. He will be working with the Physically Handicapped Actors & Musical Artists League, the theater group for disabled actors where he was first able to combine his interests in disability and theater. After bringing the show to local high schools, Miller plans to stay in Denver for the remainder of the year, pursuing creative projects and attending the shvitz.

—Amanda C. Lynch