Kathleen Mulligan

Professor, Theatre and Dance Performance
School: School of Music, Theatre, and Dance
Phone: 607-274-3927
Office: Dillingham Center 203, Ithaca, NY 14850
Specialty: Voice & Speech

Kathleen Mulligan is an actress, vocal coach, and Professor of Voice and Speech. As a proud member of Actors' Equity Association, she has performed with The Acting Company (Off-Broadway and National Tour), The American Repertory Theatre, The Huntington Theatre Company, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, PCPA Theaterfest, Fort Worth Shakespeare in the Park, and Hope Summer Repertory Theatre in Holland, MI. Most recently, Kathleen was invited to perform her one-woman show The Belle of Amherst as a guest of The American University in Beirut. Upon return from Lebanon, Mulligan performed in the Cherry Arts (Ithaca) festival of one-woman shows Listen to Her. Watch the trailer for The Belle of Amherst:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z_5eoQ6fUkdFLl30Xt0wVnOE1Y2cgCvY/view?usp=sharing

While a Resident Actress at Cornell University in 1992, she began teaching voice and speech for the stage, and went on to teach voice and acting at the University of Illinois and PCPA Theaterfest in Santa Maria, CA before joining the faculty at Ithaca College.

In 2010 she was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru grant to Kerala, India for her project "Finding Women's Voices”, focusing on the empowerment of women through voice. She has continued this work in several Fulbright Specialist grants to Pakistan since 2012. Her 2015 sabbatical project was entitled “Voices of Partition” and was funded by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, The Fulbright Organization, and Ithaca College.  Drawing on interviews with survivors of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Mulligan and her husband David Studwell collaborated with Theatre Wallay in Islamabad to devise an original theatre production. The production opened in Islamabad in April 2015, performed in Lahore in May, and toured to Boston, MA, Ithaca College and Washington, D.C. in October 2015. Watch the trailer for Dagh Dagh Ujala (This Stained Dawn), the original play created out of the "Voices of Partition" project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUto1pMRn1E

In  2016, Kathleen, David, and fellow Fulbrighter Linda Alper collaborated with Theatre Wallay on the new project "On Common Ground", exploring the effect of violence on public spaces and community. This project was also be funded by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, and toured to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Artist's Repertory Theatre in Portland, OR, and throughout Pakistan.

Since 2010, Kathleen and David have managed their charitable organization “Wheels for Women”, which provides driver training to victims of domestic violence and the sex trade in Kerala, India. Each year, students in the Department of Theatre Arts produce a cabaret of music, poetry, and dance to benefit "Wheels for Women". To date, this student organization has raised over $70,000 for Wheels for Women, and supported the training 25 women as auto rickshaw drivers, giving them the skills to move towards financial independence and away from their abusers. http://www.wheels4women.org/

Kathleen is the recipient of a World of Difference Award  from The International Alliance of Women and a New Leader Group Award from the Institute of International Education.

In December 2019, Kathleen was selected to attend the World Alumni TIES seminar "Art, Culture, and Transforming Conflict" in Santa Fe, NM. She was interviewed at the seminar about her Fulbright Specialist experience with Voices of Partition: https://youtu.be/Dblo-WDnJ6w

In spring 2023, Kathleen returned to India as a Fulbright Scholar, continuing her work to preserve the stories of Partition through theatre. She worked with theatre students at Khalsa College in Amritsar to interview Partition survivors and create original monologues based on those interviews. In addition, she taught weekly workshops on confidence building and communication to students at S.S.S.S. College of Commerce for Women.  https://www.ithaca.edu/news/top-their-field

In 2024, Kathleen received an Ithaca College Faculty Excellence Award for scholarship and creative work. 

IC recognized as top Fulbright Award producer

Ithaca College has a long history of sending students and faculty abroad on Fulbright scholarships, to the point of being recognized by the Fulbright Program for the college’s continued commitment to academic achievement abroad. Kathleen Mulligan is currently in Amritsar, India to complete her Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship research, her second time traveling to India on a Fulbright scholarship. 

New Indian Express Article- Wheels for Women- 4/21

Article in New Indian Express on Cultural Academy for Peace, Wheels for Women partner in Kerala, India