Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Kangas-Preston
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 2/27/2019
Greenwood Native Receives University Staff Award (Kangas-Preston – 5 February 2019)
Karen Kangas-Preston
A Greenwood High School graduate was among four College of arts and letters faculty members to receive All-University Awards at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing Feb. 5.
Karen Kangas-Preston was selected to receive the Distinguished Academic Staff Award, which honors academic specialists for outstanding achievements in advising, curriculum development, outreach, extension, research and teaching.
Kangas-Preston is a senior academic specialist and head of design for the MSU theatre department. She teaches costume design/technology and stage makeup and leads the Theatre in London summer study aboard program. She is a member of the United States Institute of Technical Theatre and its costume commission as well as the Costume Society of America.
Kangas-Preston has designed costumes for several MSU and local professional theatre productions. Some of her costume design credits include “Mom’s Gift,” “The All Night Strut” (Meadowbrook Theatre); “Smell of the Kill” (Williamston Theatre/Tipping Point Theatre); the Greater Tuna series, “Our Lady of Poison “ (Williamston Theatre); “The Jack Sprat Low Fat World Tour” (A Wharton Center and MSU department of theatre collaboration); “Cyrano de Bergerac,” The Wizard of Oz,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” “The Life,” “Urinetown,” “Three Sisters/Anton in Show Business” (MSU Department of Theatre; “The Drunken City,” “Fallen Angels” and “Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play” (MSU Summer Circle Theatre).
Her costume designs will be seen this spring in MSU’s production of “Oklahoma!” and at Meadowbrook Theatre for “Stick Fly” and “The Marvelous Wonderettes.”
“I am honored to be representing the academic specialists in the College of Arts and letters who are so varied in their appointments,” Kangas-Preston said. “It is also wonderful to be supported by my colleagues who recognize the balance of teaching, scholarship and service to the university and profession.”
Kangas-Preston is a 1992 honors graduate of Greenwood High School. She earned her bachelor of fine arts degree at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and a master of fine arts degree in theatre costume design at Illinois State University-Normal. She began working for the theatre department at MSU in 1999. Kangas-Preston’s parents, Walter and Shirley Kangas, reside in Longwood, rural Owen.
