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School of Theatre & Dance

Kevin Rigdon

Head of MFA Design & Technology

Kevin Rigdon is a John and Rebecca Moores Professor at the University of Houston where he teaches Scenic and Lighting Design and is the Head of Graduate Design. In addition to teaching, Mr. Rigdon is the Associate Director/Design for Houston’s Alley Theatre. 

Mr. Rigdon’s career in theatre began in 1974 when he joined fellow classmates Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry as the resident designer for the newly formed Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Since then Mr. Rigdon has designed over 400 productions including the Broadway productions of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (lighting), The Old Neighborhood (scenery), Buried Child (lighting), The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice (lighting), The Song Of Jacob Zulu (scenery), A Streetcar Named Desire (lighting), The Grapes Of Wrath (scenery and lighting), Our Town (lighting), Ghetto (lighting), Speed The Plow (lighting), The Caretaker (scenery and lighting), and Glengarry Glen Ross (lighting). 

In London his designs include Waiting for Godot, You Never Can Tell, and Orphans in the West End, The Grapes Of Wrath and Speed The Plow for The Royal National Theatre, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and The Man Who Came To Dinner for the Barbican Centre, and American Buffalo for Donmar Warehouse. For Sir Peter Hall and Theatre Royal Bath his designs include Measure for Measure (Bath, RSC), Habeas Corpus (Bath, National tour), Miss Julie, Much Ado About Nothing, Waiting for Godot, You Never Can Tell (Bath, National tour), Galileo’s Daughter, Don Juan, and Man and Superman. Off-Broadway Mr. Rigdon’s designs include: American Buffalo, Ricky Jay And His 52 Assistants, Oleanna, Distant Fires, Unidentified Human Remains, Orphans, Balm In Gilead, True West, Edmond, Road, and Picasso At The Lapin Agile. 

As Resident Designer for Steppenwolf Theatre Company from 1974 to 1996 he designed over 110 productions including the critically acclaimed productions of The Glass Menagerie, The Caretaker, True West, Balm In Gilead, The Grapes Of Wrath, A Clockwork Orange, A Streetcar Named Desire, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. 

For Houston ’s Alley Theatre his designs include: The Invention Of Love, Of Mice And Men, Equus, The Greeks, Closer, Inherit The Wind, In The Jungle Of Cities, The Crucible, Clybourne Park, The Nether, and As You Like It. 

Mr. Rigdon has also designed for The Kennedy Center, American Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The Cleveland Playhouse, Lincoln Center Theatre, Old Globe Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, Ford's Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Stages Repertory Theatre, The Rice Players, The Houston Shakespeare Festival, The Festival of Perth, The Festival of Sydney, and The Cameri Theatre of Tel-Aviv. 

Mr. Rigdon has been honored with two Tony Award nominations, seven Joseph Jefferson Awards, two Houston Theater Awards, four Drama Desk Award nominations, two American Theatre Wing Design Awards, and The Drama Logue Award. Mr. Rigdon is the Vice President International Activities for USITT, is the Head of the United States OISTAT Centre, and is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829.