Ken MacDonald is an award-winning set and costume designer, based in Toronto, Ontario. Since completing a Bachelor of Education in 1972 from the University of British Columbia, Ken MacDonald has designed for all of the major theatre companies in Canada, as well as a number of major theatres across the United States. His career has long been associated with that of playwright and director Morris Panych, as actor, and director, but primarily as designer. Together, they have completed over 100 theatre projects. Panych believes that “Ken has an innate understanding of the underlying absurdity of [his] works, while at the same time understanding that, at its core, there is a strong undercurrent of realism.”(Program note, The Shoplifters, Theatre Calgary 2015). His designs are featured in Scenography in Canada by Natalie Rewa (University of Toronto Press, 2004).
Ken designed the set for The Overcoat, a non-verbal piece by Morris Panych first developed at Vancouver Studio 58, which then went on to the Vancouver Playhouse and CanStage followed by an extensive international tour for over a decade. It was then turned in to an Opera presented by Vancouver Opera and Tapestry. A decade later, Ken collaborated with Morris Panych once again and designed the set for the critically acclaimed Frankenstein: Revived at the Stratford Festival.
Notable recent designs include: Leopoldstadt (Huntington Theatre Company, Shakespeare Theatre Company); Frankenstein: Revived, Private Lives, Moby Dick (Stratford Festival); The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring (Vancouver Opera & Tapestry Opera); A Thousand Splendid Suns (ACT, San Francisco); Anything Goes, Newsies (Arena Stage, Washington DC); Sweet Charity, When We Are Married, Arms and the Man, The Doctor's Dilemma, Hotel Peccadillo (Shaw Festival); Maggie (Theatre Aquarius); Marriage of Figaro, Flight, Barber of Seville, Macbeth (Pacific Opera Victoria); The Shoplifters (Theatre Calgary); The Overcoat, (Vancouver Playhouse, Canadian Stage and Canadian, US and UK tours); Black (Vancouver Playhouse); Moby Dick ( Stratford Festival); Susannah, The Rake’s Progress,, The Threepenny Opera (Vancouver Opera).
Ken is the recipient of a Gemini Award, seventeen Jessie Richardson Awards, four Dora Mavor Moore Awards, a Gemini Award and a Betty Mitchell Award. His design for The Overcoat was featured at the Prague Quadrenniel in 1999.
