Susan Pellowe's Biography

Susan Pellowe has worn many hats and she's still placing orders with the milliner!

From choral accompanist to British Music Hall performer, junior high newspaper editor to travel writer and book editor, from fairy godmother in a play at the local library when she was six to world-traveling actress, from associate professor of theatre to theatre critic, organist's page-turner to symphony manager, Pellowe has embraced all aspects of the arts.

She has traveled (and written about) Europe, East Africa, the South Pacific, Malaysia, and Singapore. She considers her spiritual homes to include London, Cornwall, and Stratford in Ontario.

On graduation from Albion College she began her career at WTTW/Channel 11 in Chicago. She left to study Shakespeare in Britain. On her return, she taught English and journalism at West Senior High School in Aurora (IL) then joined Aurora College/University to become Director of Theatre. As Associate Professor of

Speech and Theatre and Coordinator of Fine Arts, she encouraged the growth of performing and visual arts on campus; oversaw fine arts festivals and concerts; developed a theatre curriculum; and supervised the design and inauguration of the new Perry Theatre.

She has directed over 100 plays, musicals, and operas, with "specialties" in Shakespeare, classical Greek, and medieval theatre. She presently is the Creative Director for 4th Acts, the theatre group at 4th Presbyterian Church in Chicago.

Onstage her favorite roles include Dona Ana in Shaw's Don Juan in Hell; She in Albee's Counting the Ways; Zerbinetta in Moliere's Scapin; Mrs. Patrick Campbell in Dear Liar. Her emphasis the last few years has been touring her one-woman shows and writing.

Pellowe's articles and photos have appeared in the Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, London (Ontario) Free Press, and Miami Herald. For 14 years she was the Chicago theatre critic for the British theatre magazine Plays International. An active member of the Shakespeare Globe Center North America, the support group for rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe in London, she edited the Midwest chapter newsletter. She has led study trips to Great Britain, Minneapolis, and Stratford, Ontario, and regularly spends time researching and relaxing in London and Cornwall. Her day job since she moved to Chicago in 1986 has chiefly been at the Art Institute of Chicago, from which in typical fashion she just may glean a book to join the two in her computer about Cornwall and mermaids.

She and fellow Cornish-American Jim Wearne are co-founders of the Illinois Cornish Society. They both also regularly perform at the biannual Gatherings of the Cornish American Heritage Society. In 1996 she was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd for her services to Cornwall.

To learn of her multi Methodist activities and contributions, see Susanna Wesley.

Susan graduated from Adrian High School in Michigan. Her degrees in Speech and Theatre are from Albion College in Michigan and University of Illinois/Chicago, with further graduate work at Northwestern University, University of Illinois/Champaign, and the Shakespeare Institute through Birmingham University. She has twice been the recipient of awards from the Westminster Experiment and Research in Evangelism Trust (London), the most recent to study the Wesleys in Oxford for two weeks in May 2003. In October of 2003 she was named a Distinguished Albion Alumna – a distinction seldom awarded to one in the arts. To read her response The Quest of the Human Heart, which was published in the alumni newspaper Io Triumphe and which speaks to the importance of the arts in our lives, click here.

Calendar of Performances