In the 2019 season, Kevin McKillip played Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Metellus in Caesar, and Duke Frederick in As You Like It.
Illinois Shakespeare Festival (ISF) Artistic Director John C. Stark named Kevin McKillip as the 42nd actor selected for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival’s “Actor Honor Roll” Saturday, August 10, at the Bard Bash & Cabaret fundraiser. The season-ending celebration, now in its second year, featured entertainment by the members of the summer company and was led by McKillip as the master of ceremonies.
In the 2019 Festival season, McKillip played Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Metellus in Caesar, and Duke Frederick in As You Like It. His other ISF credits include Master Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Fennyman in Shakespeare in Love, and Pistol in Henry V.
McKillip’s professional acting credits include work at the Goodman Theatre, Court Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare, Lookingglass Theatre, Iowa Shakespeare, New American Theatre, Boarshead, and Porchlight Music Theatre. He has more than 40 credits with First Folio, where he played the title roles in Hamlet and Richard III and 20 credits with Peninsula Players, including God of Carnage, The Elephant Man, and Around the World in 80 Days. He has also appeared with Mercury Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Famous Door Theatre, Sierra Repertory, and two seasons as an American invitee to the Stratford Festival of Canada, where he appeared in Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and was the recipient of a Tyrone Guthrie Award. McKillip has three Joseph Jefferson Award nominations including Best Lead Actor for Richard III. His television credits include Chicago Med (NBC), Empire (FOX), The War Years (HISTORY) and over 50 episodes of The Morning Sweat (Onion Inc.)
McKillip joins a select group of actors whom have performed at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival since its inception in 1978. Other honorees include Gary Cole, Yetide Badaki, Ian Barford, Tom Irwin, Phillip Earl Johnson, Nisi Sturgis, William Peterson, and The Q Brothers – JQ/GQ.
