About MAC

Montana Arts Council Staff

Beck McLaughlin

Beck McLaughlin has been at the Montana Arts Council since 2001. She grew up in Eugene, Oregon. Both her parents were born and raised in Montana. One set of grandparents had a wheat and cattle ranch outside of Winifred and the other had a dairy and grew vegetables and gladiolus on the Billings Bench.

She holds a bachelor's degree in Arts Administration and an interdisciplinary master's degree in Dance and Education from the University of Oregon.

For ten years, she was co-director of a touring theatre company, Aleph Movement Theatre that created 22 original productions and produced the work of Samuel Beckett and Dario Fo. Aleph also created interactive computer presentations that included animations, sound, and video, which were shown in Montana libraries and art museums. Beck was a member of the Montana Arts Council's Artist Registry 1985-1995 and worked with over 1,000 students a year in the public schools throughout Montana. In 1989 she received an Individual Artist Fellowship in theatre from the Montana Arts Council.

As Education Director at the Myrna Loy Center she managed the Arts Plus program, which was a partnership with 39 schools in Lewis & Clark and Jefferson counties. During that time she directed artists residencies, developed professional development workshops, was a member of the committee that wrote the Montana Arts Standards and produced a theatre curriculum framework for K-8 and a dance curriculum framework K-5.

She created several web sites for non-profits and artists before coming to the Arts Council. Beck has served on the board of several non-profit arts organizations. In her free time she designs and constructs hand-made books.