Multidisciplinary Artist, Brandon R. McWilliams holds a BFA in Theatre Studies from The University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in Costume Design from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. His CMU design credits include The Chairs, Sideshow, the musical, and the internationally acclaimed production of Nathan the Wise with director Mladen Kiselov. At CMU, Brandon studied under the modern masters Susan Tsu, Paul Tazewell and Barbara Anderson. He has designed costumes regionally for the Silver Spring Stage, Potomac Theatre Project, Actors' Theatre of Washington, Virginia Musical Theatre, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Adventure Theatre, Washington Shakespeare Company and Imagination Stage. He is the recipient of the Zelma H. Weisfeld USITT Costume Design Award, two-time recipient of the Elizabeth Shrader Kimberly Award in Costume Design and the Texas Educational Theatre Association's Founder's Scholarship in Design.
Brandon has also worked as Executive Associate to Sandra Gibson, President & CEO of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) as well as the Development Manager for the national service organization. While at Arts Presenters, Brandon helped in the development of Gateway to the Americas/Puertas de las Americas, a program partnering with Cultural Contact (US-Mexico Fund for Culture) to create new opportunities for Latin America to expand its presence in the realm of international presenting. He also had a hand in the creation of the Cultural Exchange Fund, a travel grant program assisting in the early stages of international collaborations between artists, presenters and artist managers.
Brandon's work in theatrical design has been on display at the Prague Quadrennial '07, hailed as the Olympics of theatrical design, as well as at the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Qatar Doha. He has taught as Assistant Professor of Costume Design at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland and currently heads the costume program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
