Peggy Ferguson Interview 

Peggy MacDonald Ferguson

Peggy MacDonald Ferguson came to Fairbanks from Minnesota on 1969, after having acted in high school and college and earning a degree in theater arts and speech from the University of Minnesota. She began teaching at Ryan Junior High school after a year transferred to Lathrop High School, and was immediately in show production there, directing Once Upon a Mattress, Lil Abner, and Where's Charley?

During the same period, the Fairbanks Arts Association sponsored her to teach a workshop for high-school and junior-high students, out of which came the production of Fanny, the Frivolous Flapper in 1972. In that  year she also gave a stellar performance as Mrs. Peachum in the UAF production of The Threepenny Opera.

In 1975, she began her long association with FLOT as director of My Fair Lady, the first of seven musicals she directed in five years. She also directed Last of the Red-Hot Lovers for FDA in 1978, winning ACTFEST Best Director award. Peggy then left Fairbanks in 1981.

In 1982-83 she was managing director of the Valley Performing Arts Center in Palmer and in 1983 a founding director of the Alaska Light Opera Theater in Anchorage. That same year FLOT brought her back to Fairbanks as a guest director of Riversong, which won both the ACTFEST and regional titles and became one of the nine shows in the National competition.

While residing in Anchorage, she directed Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, I Do, I Do!, and My Fair Lady for ALOT; Cactus Flower for Anchorage Community Theater; and Hansel and Gretel for the Anchorage Opera.

Moving back to Fairbanks in 1986, she directed two plays, American Coffee and Niagara Falls for the Out North Theater Company of Anchorage. She again became active wth FLOT, directing seven more musicals in the next ten years, including West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, and Ain't Misbehavin', as well as directing Personals for FDA in that period.

After teaching speech, drama, composition, and literature at Lathrop High School for six years, she was a youth counselor for the Tanana Chiefs Conference, reception director for Careage North, and the Fairbanks manager for the Alaska Repertory Theater. In 1996-98, she directed the Theater Division of the Summer Fine Arts Camp. In 1998, she founded a new company, the Looking Glass Group Theater, with a mission of nurturing new and emerging voices.

Peggy has won the Best Director award at the ACTFEST competition in Haines five times, a record approached by no one else. Her talents have greatly enriched Fairbanks theatrical life.