Ellen Peck

Originally from the Detroit area, Ellen has a B.A. in theatre from Oakland University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in theatre history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ellen started her professional theatre career as a stage manager, with credits from Michigan Opera Theatre, Spoleto Festival, Utah Symphony and Opera, and Meadow Brook Theatre, and has been the stage manager for the Michigan Opera Theatre/Rackham Choir/Auditorium Theatre (Chicago) production of “Too Hot to Handel: The Jazz-Gospel Messiah” since 2002. She has been a proud member of Actors Equity Association since 2000. Prior to taking the job as production manager for the OU School of Music, Theatre and Dance, Ellen was a professor of theatre and film at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, where she taught theatre history, musical theatre, dramatic literature, and stage management. She directed several department productions, including Broadway Bound, The Illusion, and Once Upon a Mattress. As a musical theatre historian, Ellen has published articles in Studies in Musical Theatre (for which she is also a member of the editorial doard), Contemporary Theatre Review, and Theatre History Studies, contributed chapters to two books on women in the arts and composers on film, and presented at theatre conferences around the world. Her proudest achievement to date is her book, “Sweet Mystery: The Musical Works of Rida Johnson Young” from Oxford University Press (2020). She is currently doing research on the life and works of Carolyn Leigh. Ellen also has the distinct honor of being a Fulbright scholar. She spent her Fulbright year (2016-17) in Romania, teaching American theatre and musical theatre history at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi.