Like many women and many actors, Meghan Covington knows what it’s like to be judged based on your personal appearance. She also knows what it’s like to be your own worst critic, struggling with negative body image, eating disorders and anxiety.
That was before she discovered yoga and exercise and began bringing in-home personal training and yoga practices to clients of all ages and fitness levels throughout New York City. In 2011, she created Mind Body Fitness NYC, a concierge service in which she and four other like-minded trainers pair with 20-plus clients in Westchester County and New York City for yoga, Pilates, barre work, fusion workouts or pre- and postnatal fitness. (Covington’s specialties include pre/postnatal yoga, movement skills development for children, restorative yoga and holistic fitness training.)
A National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA)-certified personal trainer and RYT200 yoga instructor, meaning that she has completed the Yoga Alliance’s 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) program, Covington also teaches at Yoga Love in Irvington and Hastings Yoga.
But the Ardsley resident, and mother of three girls, maintains her other career in the theater, too. With her husband, David, executive director of City College of New York’s Alumni Association, she is co-founder of River’s Edge Theatre Co. in Hastings-on-Hudson, which stages new and experimental works with social justice themes.
This summer, for the first time, the company is doing Shakespeare. The River’s Edge production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is all about sustainability, with each actor preparing on his own and creating a homemade costume to reduce his carbon footprint. The cast will come together for a tech rehearsal before four performances at Bethany Arts Community in Ossining July 20 and 21, in which lighting rather than scenic design will set the mood.
Covington said she hopes the production will inspire patrons to engage in sustainable living, just as Mind Body Fitness NYC is designed to inspire women, especially mothers, to achieve their best bodies and their best selves.
“Homegrown Shakespeare: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” is at Bethany Arts Community, 40 Somerstown Road, Ossining, 4 and 7 p.m. July 20 and 21. Tickets are $25; $20 for seniors and students. (The production is recommended for ages 8 and up.) For more, visit https://www.riversedgetheatre.com/onstage and https://bethanyarts.org/calendar/homegrownshakes07217/ .
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