About Dottie Marshall Englis

Theatre has been the festive cornerstone of my creative life since I was 15,  A St. Louis-based designer for most of that time, I enjoy creating in a wide variety of  styles and theatres.  Collaboration with colleagues, fueled by thorough preparation and the excitement of meeting and creating characters, has become the spine and joy of my design process.

My career was recently acknowledged with the St. Louis Arts & Education Council, Catalyst Award: Arts Legend. Long associated with Repertory Theatre St. Louis, I designed extensively for their Mainstage, Studio, and Imaginary Theatre Company seasons, most recently Pride & Prejudice. Additional work includes The Marvelous Wonderettes, Hamlet, A Christmas Carol, All the Way, The Winslow Boy, In the Next Room, (or The Vibrator Play),  Macbeth, The Fantasticks, A Christmas Story, Amadeus, Saint Joan, Kiss Me, Kate, All the Great Books (with the Reduced Shakespeare Company), The Taming of the Shrew, The Three Musketeers, The Life of Galileo, and Candide.

I take great joy in Shakespeare.  For Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, I designed their inaugural season and last season’s Much Ado About Nothing.  Other productions there include Romeo & Juliet (twice), A Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Antony & Cleopatra , The Henry Project: Henry IV and V, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. This season I was delighted to be invited to design A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. For Illinois Shakespeare Festival, I designed  costumes for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Merchant of Venice, Henry VIII, Henry V, Titus Andronicus, and The Rivals.

Musicals have also been a delightful part of my  career, notably for STAGES St. Louis, There, my designs include The Secret Garden, My Fair Lady, Meet Me in St. Louis, Music Man, High Society, She Loves Me, Carousel, Camelot, Man of La Mancha, and A Little Night Music.

While heightened realism and  larger scale productions make up a significant part of my portfolio, I have also enjoyed the detailed explorations of classic and contemporary character-based plays, such as Suddenly Last Summer, Disgraced, Oslo, All the Way and The Whipping Man.

Along the way I have also worked with Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Geva Theatre, Reduced Shakespeare Company, PCPA Theatrefest and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

I am recently Professor Emerita in Design at the Sargent Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University. During my time there I was Chair and  recipient of the William T. Kemper Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.  I received my MFA in Costume Design from Carnegie Mellon University and my BA in Drama and English from Tufts University.