Kelly Marie Schaefer is a Professor of Teaching at Iowa State University specializing in Costume Design. Kelly designs costumes and makeup for ISU productions, teaches courses in Costume Design, Costume Technology, Makeup Design and Theatre and Society and mentors student designers. Some of her favorite ISU credits include: Night of the Living Dead! The Musical!, BABA, Iphigenia, The Tempest, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Secret Garden, Les Miserables, Into the Woods, and Arabian Nights. Kelly has also designed costumes for Repertory Theater of Iowa (King Lear, Much Ado about Nothing, Our Town, Sense and Sensibility) as well as Stage West Theater Company (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play). Kelly also works with Iowa Stage Theatre Company in Des Moines and has designed the costumes for A Christmas Carol (2017 & 2018) and performed the roles of Sarah in Company and A Witch in Macbeth. She is also active in Region 5 of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival as the immediate past Chair of the Design, Technology and Management area. Prior to moving to Iowa she had the pleasure of working in the shops of The Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and The Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago as well as Shakespeare & Co in Lenox MA. She holds an MFA in Theatre from Western Illinois University with a double emphasis in Acting and Costume Design. Her favorite acting credits include: Diana Goodman in Next to Normal, Margaret White in Carrie the Musical and Helen in Fat Pig with StageWest; Dottie Ottley in Noises Off, Antonio in The Tempest both at ISU. But her favorite role was playing the Gypsy Acid Queen in The Who’s TOMMY at WIU in 1999.
Show Credits
- Costume Designer, Head Over Heels, 2023
- Costume Designer, She Kills Monsters, 2023
- Costume Designer, Night of the Living Dead! The Musical!, 2022
- Costume Designer, BABA, 2022
- Costume Designer, Street Scene, 2021
- Costume Designer, Corners Grove, 2021
- Costume Designer, Songs for a New World, 2021
- Costume Designer, Our Community Carol: A Blueprint for a Play, 2020
- Cast, Our Community Carol: A Blueprint for a Play, 2020
- Costume Designer, Of the Deep: Meditations Upon the Death of a Blue Whale, 2020
- Costume Designer, 9 to 5, 2020 [CANCELED]
- Costume Designer, The Wolves, 2020
- Costume Designer, Climate Change Theatre Action: Lighting the Way, 2019
- Costume Coordinator, Iowa Odyssey (or How we Got to Here), 2019
- Stylist, Godspell, 2019
- Costume Designer, It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, 2018
- Costume Designer, This Is Not a Pipe Dream, 2018
- Costume Designer, Our Town, 2018
- Costume Designer, Iphigenia, 2018
- Costume Designer, Out of the Fire: The Banned Books Monologues, 2017
- Costume Designer, The Tempest, 2017
- Costume Designer, The Importance of Being Earnest, 2017
- Costume Designer, Cabaret, 2016
- Costume Designer, The Birds, 2016
- Costume Designer, The Secret Garden, 2016
- Costume Designer, The Magic Flute, 2015
- Costume Designer, On the Verge, 2015
- Costume Designer, Les Misérables, 2015
- Costume Designer, Love and Honor: Iowa in the Civil War, 2015
- Costume Designer, Crimes of the Heart, 2014
- Costume Designer, Into the Woods, 2014
- Costume Designer, Amadeus, 2014
- Costume Designer, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, 2013
- Costume Designer, Fiddler on the Roof, 2013
- Costume Designer, A Streetcar Named Desire, 2013
- Costume Designer, The Three Musketeers, 2013
- Costume Designer, Alice in Wonderland, 2012
- Costume Designer, Candide, 2012
- Costume Designer, Noises Off, 2012
- Cast, Dotty, Noises Off, 2012
- Costume Designer, Rent, 2012
- Costume Designer, To Kill a Mockingbird, 2012
- Costume Designer, Chekhov Short Stories, 2012
- Costume Designer, Love's Labor's Lost, 2011
- Costume Designer, Hedda Gabler, 2011
- Costume Designer, Six Characters, 2011
- Costume Designer, The Miracle Worker, 2011
- Costume Designer, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, 2010
- Costume Designer, The Arabian Nights, 2010