In 1997 Mitchell became responsible for programming at the Other Place – the RSC's now defunct black box space. While at the RSC her productions included The Phoenician Women which won her the Evening Standard Award for Best Director in 1996.
Mitchell's process involves long and intensive rehearsal periods and use of the Stanislavski 'system'. She regularly involves psychiatry in looking at characters, and in 2004 directed a series of workshops on Stanislavski and neuroscience at the NT studio. Since her 2006 play Waves, she has also experimented with video projections in a number of productions.
Mitchell has been described as "a Director who polarises audiences like no other" and "the closest thing the British theatre has to an auteur". In 2007, the artistic Director of the NT accused the British press of affording Mitchell's productions "misogynistic reviews, where everything they say is predicated on her sex".
In January 2011 she was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.
In September 2017, she was awarded the President's Medal of the British Academy "for her work to enhance the presentation of classic and contemporary theatre and opera through innovative new production".
