Theatre Professor Susan Mickey has been selected as a Research Award Winner by the University Co-Op Hamilton Book Awards.
Mickey is an accomplished costume designer with more than 30 years of professional experience. She joined the faculty in the Department of Theatre and Dance in fall 2004 and is now the senior associate chair and head of the production area and the design/technology program. Her professional credits include extensive design experiences in regional theatre, television, film and print.
In 2015, Mickey’s costume designs were seen in a new production of The Marriage of Figaro, the season opener for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, one of America's most prestigious professional opera companies. She also designed costumes for the world premiere of the new Paul Gordon musical Sense and Sensibility at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, another first-rate national theatre venue. This musical was so successful that it was chosen for a 2016 run at The Old Globe in San Diego. Mickey’s costume designs for Sense and Sensibility were nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Costume Design. (Outside of the Emmy and Tony Awards in costume design, the Jeff Awards are among the most coveted in the United States for theatrical designers.) She also designed costumes for the production of Pride and Prejudice at American Players Theatre with British director Tyne Rafaeli.
Also in 2015, Mickey's designs were exhibited in Moscow at the Barushkin Museum in Costumes at the Turn of the Century, an exhibition featuring contemporary designs and designers from all over the world, which has since traveled to Beijing for an extended life. She also was featured in the exhibition TEN at Lyric Opera Chicago—highlighting 10 accomplished women working at the Lyric in the 2015-16 season.
In 2014 Susan was the recipient of the Michael Merritt Award for a lifetime of excellence in Design and Collaboration. She is the winner of the 2012 Regents Teaching Award, the 2010 College of Fine Arts Teaching Award and the 2008 Department of Theatre and Dance Teaching Excellence Award. Mickey was named a distinguished alumna of her alma mater University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2015.
Mickey will be honored alongside other Hamilton Research Award Winners and the finalists for the Hamilton Book Award in a private event later this month hosted by the University Co-Op.