Bonnie McCoy

Chair

Assistant Professor

Department of Theatre

Department of Theatre

Bonnie McCoy has worked professionally in New York and regionally on a wide range of projects, including work as an associate costume designer for Toni-Leslie James. Credits include seven Broadway shows, such as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom with Whoopi Goldberg and Charles Dutton, King Hedley II with Brian Stokes Mitchell, Leslie Uggams and Viola Davis, The Wild Party with Toni Collette, Mandy Patinkin and Eartha Kitt, Marie Christine with Audra McDonald, and the original Broadway production of Footloose. She has also worked for many Off-Broadway, regional and international theatre companies, dance, television, commercials, and film.

McCoy has worked as an associate designer or designer for a number of Off-Broadway venues. Selected credits include The New York Shakespeare Festival including George C. Wolfe’s production of Macbeth starring Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett as the title roles; George C. Wolfe’s The Tempest with Patrick Stewart; and Mary Zimmerman’s Henry VIII, starring Ruben Santiago Hudson;  Lincoln Center, including the original production of A New Brain with Malcolm Gets and Kristen Chenoweth and four productions in the New York City Center Encores! Series; and Second Stage Theatre working with director Graciela Daniele on Little Fish with Jesse Tyler Ferguson. McCoy’s regional credits include several projects at Hartford Stage in Hartford CT, Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C., and Williamstown Theatre Festival in MA, in addition to international theatre companies—McCoy has designed for productions on The Queen Elizabeth II traveling worldwide; dance productions including work for Ballet Hispanico; various tv commercials and small films; and television shows including Whoopi with Whoopi Goldberg and Law and Order SVU, (Season 3). 

McCoy has been Chair of the Department since 2021. She has taught various design classes at VCU since 2007 and served as the Administrative Director for the department since 2010.  She taught students while serving as a guest artist at Duke University and Hollins University. She also worked professionally as an artist and illustrator, including all new product development furniture sketches for Rowe furniture, as well as all of their artwork for the showrooms at their world furniture market, and artwork for various advertisements, invitations, brochures, and large scale projects, including a mural for a restaurant in Florida. McCoy earned her MFA in Stage Design from Southern Methodist University and her BFA in Theatre Design from West Virginia University.