FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2007
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 329-7124

Biddy receives Kossen Faculty Excellence Award

William “Peppy” Biddy, chair of the Department of Music and
Theatre, recently received the Connie and Tom Kossen Faculty Excellence
Award at Mississippi University for Women.

Biddy was awarded $5,000 for this honor, which recognizes the role of
faculty as the heart of the university. The award was established in
2004 by Tom and Connie Kossen, a 1964 alumna of MUW.

Criterion for the award is based on three fundamentals: excellence in
teaching, excellence in scholarly or artistic achievement and excellence
in service, preferably both on campus and in communities throughout
MUW’s service area.

Biddy’s first assignment at MUW was as a guest artist to direct
“Godspell” for the Homecoming musical in 1987. “The musical
review which we just presented a few weeks ago (at Homecoming) was
exactly 20 years to the day of that performance,” he said.

Since that first assignment, Biddy was hired as director of theatre and
most recently appointed to chair the Department of Music and Theatre
under the new academic restructuring.

Biddy said there are many enjoyable components to his job.

“I enjoy my colleagues both in my department and across campus. I am
surrounded by intelligent, hard working, fun people. The creative side
of my job is very stimulating. When you work to produce or direct a new
show every semester, you must immerse yourself in the subject matter of
that play. The subject of the play may be a historical event, a
real-life character, politics, a foreign land, or metaphysics (the list
is endless) and you must understand the world of the play to make it
come to life on stage,” he said. “I am, therefore, constantly
learning. The job is never boring. The most rewarding parts of the job
are, of course, those moments when a student makes a real discovery. It
might sound trite, but when you witness a student’s moment of
recognition, when the light bulb goes on, it is truly a cause for
celebration…and it happens almost everyday.”

Biddy is also actively involved in professional theatre in various
parts of the country, as are his colleagues and students.

“It really is necessary to work outside the university in order to
enhance the work that is done within the university.”

Currently he is directing “Hank Williams: Lost Highway” at New
Stage Theatre in Jackson. This is his fifth consecutive year to direct
the closing musical of the season at New Stage Theatre.

He will travel to Utah where he will work his eighth summer as
production manager at the Sundance Theatre Lab.

“The work at Sundance is some of the most exciting in the country. In
the last two years alone, I’ve had the chance to see six Broadway
shows which originated at the lab. Last year, I had the opportunity
bring these two worlds of Sundance and The W together by having two of
the leads from the Broadway production of ‘Light in The Piazza’ to
perform here on our campus during the Welty Weekend.”