Margaret McFadden is a Boston-based director and theater educator and the Founder & Producing Artistic Director of The Hive Theatre Company. She recently founded The Hive, which achieved notable success in its first year. Margaret directed and produced the company’s inaugural season of The Wolves and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, earning sold-out performances, glowing reviews, and local news coverage. Fulfilling The Hive’s mission to engage teens, young adults, and empower emerging artists in Boston, the inaugural productions drew over 600 local auditioners and featured early-career actors and designers from nearly every major university in the area, including Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Boston College, Emerson College, Salem State University, and Suffolk University.
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Margaret has taught and directed shows in a wide range of educational settings throughout Massachusetts, bringing high-quality theater training to students of all ages. She is currently Adjunct Faculty in the Theatre Department at Salem State University and serves as a Director and Musical Theater Teacher at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts Summer Theater Intensive, where she was part of a small artistic team that revived the summer program post-pandemic. She also directed Walnut Hill’s recent winter mainstage production of Clue.
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Margaret began her undergraduate studies as a BFA Musical Theater major at Boston Conservatory at Berklee before shifting her focus toward education and directing. She holds a degree in Theater Arts from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and a Master’s Degree in Theater Education from Emerson College. She is also a licensed Massachusetts K–12 Theater Educator. She has worked and performed with numerous theatres across the Greater Boston area, including Reagle Music Theatre, Wheelock Family Theatre, Zeitgeist Stage Company, Marblehead Little Theater, Boston Children’s Theater, and others.
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Previously, Margaret taught, choreographed and directed at The Rivers School & Conservatory, Schechter Day School, and The Fay School, where she developed the curriculum for a new theater program from the ground up. She is also a Standardized Patient for New England Clinical Skills Consulting where she portrays different patient roles to support medical students at Tufts, Harvard, and Boston University in practicing their clinical skills.
Her work extends beyond Massachusetts with notable contributions in Southeast Michigan through organizations such as JumpStart Theatre Detroit, Spinning Dot Theatre Company, Neutral Zone, and Crescendo Detroit. As part of her work with the University of Michigan’s Office of Outreach and Engagement, Margaret helped launch musical theater productions in three Detroit public schools that previously had no theater programs.
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Inspired by her combined experiences as a professional actress and educator, Margaret founded The Hive Theatre Company to create theatre that empowers young artists in Boston. Margaret admires the collaboration in a beehive, where each role supports a greater vision led by a clear sense of purpose.
