Heather Leigh Brown

Heather Leigh Brown, costume designer and shop supervisor at Alma College, is a graduate of Western Michigan University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her undergraduate degree is in design and technical production. Her Master of Fine Arts is in costume design.

Born and raised in west Michigan, Heather has focused her career on the small liberal arts college, adding Alma College to her previous opportunities at Oberlin College and Calvin University (formerly Calvin College). Her focus has been on introducing the liberal arts student to art making, conceptualizing, and storytelling though the fiber arts and theatrical design.

As a technician in costumes, Heather has worked as a stitcher, first hand, draper and shop manager across the United States. Organizations include Syracuse Stage, Glimmerglass Festival, America Players Theatre, Virginia Theatre Festival (formerly Heritage Theatre Festival), Dorset Theatre Festival, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and The Old Globe.

Professional Design Credits include the productions Seven Passages: The Stories of Gay Christians and Lines: The Lived Experience of Race, both devised and produced in Grand Rapids with Actors’ Theatre in multi-year processes of production involving interviews with members of the western Michigan community.