Ruth Mitchell was an American stage manager, director, producer and the assistant to the acclaimed director and producer Harold Prince, working on Broadway from the late 1940s through the late 1990s. She is known best as the original production stage manager of The Phantom of the Opera and Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, both on Broadway.
Over her career, Mitchell stage managed over 50 Broadway productions, many of which are considered some of the most popular and influential of all time. With a flair for the dramatic, Hal Prince called her the "chicest stage manager on Broadway", even though she was known to also cuss out stagehands. Her extensive production files are archived and accessible at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.