Mark Murphy

Mark Murphy

Mark Murphy, Executive Director of Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (aka, REDCAT), is an influential leader in the national and international field of contemporary performing arts, with 20 years of experience producing, presenting and developing new audiences for interdisciplinary performances. Murphy has served as Chairman of the Choreographer’s Fellowship Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, was a founding s member of the National Performance Network (NPN), and an advisor to the National Dance Project.

Before joining REDCAT, he had served as Artistic Director of On the Boards, a contemporary performing arts center in Seattle for the year from 1984 to 2001. There Murphy commissioned or co-produced adventurous new productions from some of the world’s most influential contemporary performing artists, and developed a unique model for combining the disparate acts of producing and presenting – helping emerging and established artists to create and tour new works, and also serving as a leading host of major international and national productions.

Murphy developed an award-winning educational program for youth which combined everything from intensive artist-in-the-schools projects and the creation of rap and hip-hop musicals to the launching of a break-dance academy. Murphy has also been active as a writer, performer and director, having performed his original solo and group projects at multiple venues throughout the U.S., and developed three projects for PBS affiliate KCTS TV. He is the winner of first place awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for Feature Writing and radio documentary production. He is a graduate of Fairhaven College.