Corey Mitchell has twenty years in the classroom and this is his fifteenth year at Northwest. Corey does not shy away from material that challenges his students, the audience, or his own skills. Some of the most notable of the seventy plus productions include For Colored Girls..., Pippin, The Color Purple, Aida, Rent and Hair. During his career, Corey has garnered recognition as a director, performer, and teacher, including the North Carolina Outstanding Theatre Arts Educator in 2007 and the inaugural Excellence in Theatre Education Tony Award presented by the American Theatre Wing and Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to his work at Northwest, Corey is involved as a director and actor with the Charlotte area theatre community and is a strong advocate for arts education through his work on the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Theatre Conference and The Arts Empowerment Project, and his keynote addresses throughout the Southeast. Corey's production of The Color Purple and hugs students are the subject of the 2016 documentary, "Purple Dreams," produced by GreyHawk Films.