Margaret Wenk-Kuchlbauer, dance/opera scenery and costume designer for the Performing Arts Production Unit, shared highlights of her creative career, which has included work in collaboration with Dance, Opera and Theatre for over four decades.
Monday, April 14, 2025

By Fatima Salinas 

Margaret Wenk-Kuchlbauer has been part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences since the fall of 1980, designing scenery and costumes for most UI operas and dance productions for the School of Music and the Department of Dance, as well as designs for the Department of Theatre Arts and UI Summer Rep dotting her mid-career.  

Margaret posing for camera at her workplace

As her retirement on June 3rd nears, Wenk-Kuchlbauer prepares to wrap up a more than four-decade chapter. Wenk-Kuchlbauer reflects on her time working for the university and college with the opportunity to collaborate with many guest performers, artists, faculty members, staff, and, most specially, the students.  

During her 44 years, Wenk-Kuchlbauer says she’s enjoyed working with and mentoring students. Alongside design work behind the scenes, Wenk-Kuchlbauer had the opportunity to teach in the design area for Theatre Arts from 1995 through 2001.

“It has been an honor and a joy to design scenery and costumes these many years, with a shared artistic vision providing theatrical environments and looks, all in support of the student performer doing their best work.” Wenk-Kuchlbauer said.

She said among her favorites was Così fan tutte by Mozart, about two young couples in love. 

“I have done it now four times during my career here, so I've had the opportunity with four different directors, four different casts and four different ways of approaching the piece, each a mark of time over the decades,” Wenk-Kuchlbauer said. 

She has designed many environments and costumes for the Department of Dance's Dance Galas at Hancher Auditorium and Space Place productions, working with many renowned guest choreographers and dancers that have come to the university as well like Trisha Brown Dance Company, Urban Bush Women, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Donald McKayle, Alfonso Cata´ and Louis Falco Company.

“It’s always a wonderful, collaborative experience to creatively bring a choreographer’s or director’s vision to life,” Wenk-Kuchlbauer said. “Over the years, it has been a joy to be able to work in the large, heightened scale of opera and the more spare, abstract gesture of dance.

Looking back to where she started, Wenk-Kuchlbauer reflected on her work, the opportunities she's had, and the mark she leaves behind. She advises young artists to stay energetic and engaged, be open to new ideas keeping centered and balanced as possible, and to pay it forward. She expressed gratitude for the opportunities and the supportive community that fostered her creative growth.

“What a lucky, lucky person I am to have been able to do these art forms in a place that fosters students' growth and experience in the performing arts,” Wenk-Kuchlbauer said.