Thea Wigglesworth is stage director and choreographer. She works interdisciplinarily in theatre, opera and dance to innovate both new and old works. Born in Kentucky, Ms. Wigglesworth first began her arts career with violin lessons with her elementary school music teacher and as a dancer with School of the Lexington Ballet at age 7 under the instruction of Frank Galvez and Lucia Montoya. She performed in such roles as a featured soloist in Giselle and Piquita, and Clara in The Nutcracker. Her ballet career ended, though she continues dancing to this day in a variety of genres including hip hop, ballroom, and tap dance. Most recently she has developed a passion for Okinawan folk dance, under the instruction of Yukie Shirohama shinshii of the Kin Ryosho School.
While attending Mount Holyoke College, where she obtained a BA in African and African American Studies, she also began exploring the world of theatre. She studied viewpoints and suzuki under Sully White each summer as part of the Lexington Shakespeare Institute. She choreographed several student produced musicals including Urinetown, and Cabaret as well as exploring design positions. Not content with the box theatre so regularly places itself in, she founded OPERATION: Disturbing the Peace, MHC’s first guerilla theatre and performance art troupe.
Upon graduating from MHC in 2011 Ms. Wigglesworth moved to Chicago to pursue a career in theatre. She worked as the Artistic Intern at Collaboraction Theater and for two seasons as a House Manager with the Chicago Fringe Festival. She served as the prop designer for Theatre Seven of Chicago, Laugh Factory, Collaboraction, and Citadel Theatre Company as well as several theatrical events including the After Dark series at the Art Institute of Chicago.
She then transitioned her theatrical career in directing and choreographing focused on music theatre and opera and moved to Boston. While there she directed and/or choreographed such works as Nunsense, H.M.S. Pinafore, A Year with Frog and Toad, and Godspell. She also worked as assistant director to Nathan Troup at the Boston Conservatory, Sarah Meyers with Guerilla Opera, and Gregory Turay at the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre, she also served for one summer as the Artistic Staff Intern for Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera where she assisted all visiting directors and choreographers.
In 2014 Ms. Wigglesworth co-founded Cutout Theatre in New York City where she served as Producing Director from 2014-2017 producing both world premieres and Shakesperian classics. Now in her 2nd year as an MFA Directing Candidate at University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, she studies intercultural performance and its effects on liminal space. She has directed and choreographed many new works and participates as a designer, creator and performer as a founding member of the Instant Coffee Ensemble.
