A Wisconsin native, Ken is a former theatre educator, actor, and director who has recently retired to his hometown of Manitowoc.  Ken received his undergraduate degree in secondary speech education from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1972 and spent the next five years teaching high school speech, drama, and English in southern Wisconsin.  After receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from the University of Minnesota and spending two seasons as an actor with the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Ken began his university teaching career at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.  That was followed by four years at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and twelve years at Tulane University in New Orleans where he received regional awards for acting, directing, and set design.  Ken moved back to Wisconsin in 2000 to chair the Department of Theatre and Dance at UW-Stevens Point and later to serve as the Dean of Fine Arts at Viterbo University in La Crosse.  At the invitation of Utah State University, Ken left Wisconsin once again to help form USU’s new college of fine arts as well as chair its theatre department and serve as producer for the Lyric Repertory Theatre, the department’s professional summer operation.

A member of the stage actor’s union for twenty years, Ken spent six summers as an Equity Guest Artist, and eventually Associate Artistic Director, with the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival where his one-man show, Floodgate, based on the life of actor Edwin Booth, premiered. Floodgate twice toured Texas and Oklahoma in the early eighties.  As a director, Ken has worked on the educational, community, and professional levels for nearly fifty years.  His most recent production was COLUMBINUS for STC’s Studio Players.  INTO THE WOODS marks his STC mainstage directorial debut.