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The Mississippi Theatre Association’s annual festival will feature some stellar guests, including two who serve as proof positive that the state spawns its share of special talent.

The lineup of speakers will include professional costume designer Myrna Colley-Lee and actor/agent Sam Haskell III, former Worldwide Head of Television for the William Morris Agency. A variety of other speakers will hold workshops.

Myrna Colley-Lee

Colley-Lee has worked in the area of costume design for more than 40 years. She earned a master of fine arts degree in Scenic and Costume Design from Temple University, and a bachelor of fine arts in Art Education from the Women’s College of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Colley-Lee has worked on several recent productions: “The Piano Lesson” and “The Amen Corner” at The Cleveland Playhouse, “Wedding Band” for the Steppen Wolf Theatre; “The Old Settler” for Studio Arena Theatre and Portland Center Stage; “Wahderlust”; “Ophelia’s Cotillion” at Rites and Reason Theatre, Brown University; “Seven Guitars” at Arizona Theatre Company, “Crumbs from the Tale of Joy,” “The Amen Corner,” and “The Screened-In Porch” for Crossroads Theatre Company; “Between the Lines” for Actor’s Theatre of Louisville; and “Night of the Iguana” for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

Some of her other professional activities and honors include:

Worked on costumes for the theatrical production of “Mothers,” commissioned by Bill Cosby.

Colley-Lee has worked as art director, set designer and costume designer for both television and film.

Recently worked on a commercial interior project for Revelations Entertainment in Los Angeles.

Past faculty/staff member at Smith College, the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival and at the Design and Management Institute of the National Arts Consortium in New York.

Commissioner for the Mississippi Arts Commission.

Works with the Charleston Arts Revitalization Effort, the Rock River Foundation, a charitable group for the arts, and the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Mississippi.

In 2006, Colley-Lee will work as the production designer for “The Reprieve,” a feature film.

Colley-Lee lives in Charleston with her husband.