Associate Producing Director
Margaret (Peggy) McKowen brings both artistic and administrative experience to CATF. Peggy spent five years as Chair of the Division of Theatre and Dance at West Virginia University. During that time she promoted and implemented commercial theatre internships, international performance exchanges, and professional development activities for the students of theater. She was an active participant with the University/Resident Theatre Association, the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and the National Association of Schools of Theater while serving on the Chair’s Advisory Committee to the Associate Provost for Academic Personnel.
Prior to joining the Festival staff in January 2007, Peggy was working as a free-lance designer. Most recently her work was seen in New York with the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble and Gateway Playhouse; and in California on Libby Larsen’s new opera, Every Man Jack. As resident designer for the Obie-award-winning Jean Cocteau Repertory, Peggy designed: the Darius Milhaud scored version for Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, the Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heany’s The Cure at Troy, and several productions directed by late Eve Adamson. Regional theater work has been seen at Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Texas Shakespeare Festival, and the Dallas Shakespeare Festival. She designed Romeo and Juliet, one of six tours of the National Endowment for the Arts’ series: Shakespeare in the American Communities. In 2006 Peggy began her affiliation with CATF, designing the costumes for Mr. Marmalade and the World Premiere of Keith Glover’s Jazzland. Peggy’s international design work has been seen at the B.A.T. Studio Theatre (Berlin), the Teatro Alfa Real (Sao Paulo, Brazil), and for the E.T.A. Hoffmann Theatre in Bamberg (Germany). She designed the first full-length English speaking production of The Tempest performed in Beijing, China.
Additional examples of her design work can be seen in the texts, “Theatre: The Lively Art” and “The Theatre Experience.” Peggy’s work has been shown in the Ukraine as part of the American Theatre Design Exhibit. Her designs for the Jean Cocteau Repertory production of Mother Courage and her Children can be found in The New York Public Library’s Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Peggy is a member of United Scenic Artists 829 and received her MFA from the University of Texas in Austin.
Contact: 304-876-3304 • pmckowen@shepherd.edu
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