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Resident Creative and Technical Director
Bill Kirby is a professional theatre artist, specializing in sound design and live sound engineering for theatre. Educated at the prestigious Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Kirby spent the last 10 years as the Head Sound Engineer and Resident Sound Designer at McCarter Theatre Center, one of the foremost regional theatres in America, located on the campus of Princeton University.
Bill oversaw an audio department responsible for over 250 live performances per year, spanning theatre, dance, jazz, cabaret, classical, children’s events and more. As McCarter’s lead live sound engineer, he has mixed for world renowned artists including Audra McDonald, Josh Ritter, Rosanne Cash, Alan Cumming, Garrison Keillor, Ira Glass and David Sedaris, just to name a few. Bill played a pivotal role in McCarter’s produced theatre series, working with some of America’s top sound designers and directors in creating bold new work and fresh takes on classic plays and musicals. Kirby’s most memorable theatre projects include the 2013 production of Into the Woods, which went on to run in New York and London as well as a national US tour, and 2012’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which went on the a successful run on Broadway and won the Tony Award for Best Play – an award that McCarter accepted as the developer and producer. As a freelance designer, Bill has designed for both professional and educational theatre, including the New York Fringe Festival, Passage Theatre, and Westminster Choir College. Kirby has also served as an associate sound designer, remounting existing productions around the world, including recreating Mary Zimmerman’s The White Snake at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in Wuzhen, China.