University of Missouri-Kansas city

About

Mr. Mardikes has worked on over 250 professional productions nationwide as Sound Designer for Kansas City Repertory Theatre (formerly Missouri Rep), the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, the Dallas Theatre Center, Syracuse Stage, Coconut Grove, the Roundabout, Buffalo Studio Arena, the Alley Theatre, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He has directed several stage productions including Taking Sides (2008) for Kansas City Actors Theatre, Nadya (2008), Burnt by the Sun (2013) and Playboy of the Western World (2014) for UMKC Theatre. Mardikes has been head of graduate sound design training since 1986 and was chair of UMKC Theatre from 2001-2017. He has long been active in the United States Institute for Theater Technology, first as a Sound Vice Commissioner for Education and then as Sound Commissioner from 1998-2000. He was one of five professional sound designers who helped facilitate the organization of sound designers into the United Scenic Artists Local 829 that has led to the official recognition of sound design by LORT and professional theatres nationwide. He was one of two featured sound designers in the USA Exhibit for the 2003 Prague Quadrennial and served as co-Curator of Sound for the American Exhibit for PQ2007. He co-founded Kansas City Actors Theatre in 2004, an artist-led, artist-driven professional theatre company performing in Kansas City’s Union Station. In 2010, he led a group of top Theatre graduate design programs to create the National Design Portfolio Review where graduating M.F.A. designers are introduced to the New York theatre profession. He serves as president of this prestigious group of 15 member schools, who now produce their annual event every May at New York University.  Mardikes’s research project has been the Sound Mandala, which he has been working on since 2014.  The summer of 2024 saw the production of a 50-minute show at the KC Fringe Festival, with over 800 people coming to hear a variety show of magical and unusual audio art pieces in an 80-loudspeaker sound system.  Mardikes is very active in service at UMKC, having served as chair or past chair of the UMKC Faculty Senate from 2019-2024, as a member of the University Budget Committee, as chair of the UMKC Conservatory Faculty, and on the Conservatory’s Promotion and Tenure Committee.