Date of Award

5-2012

Degree Type

Report

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Theatre Arts

Committee Chair(s)

Bruce Durden

Committee

Bruce Durden

Committee

Dennis Hassan

Committee

Nancy E. Hills

Abstract

I didn’t always want to be a theatrical designer. As a child, I wanted to be a ballerina, an artist, a teacher. My answer to, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” changed ever time someone asked me the question. Though I didn’t understand it a the time, what I wanted was to affect people. I wanted my work to create emotion and thought.

I found that reaction in the theater. Here was a small circle of people who were entirely codependent upon each other to create one large piece of art, all in the hopes of evoking an emotional reaction in the people who viewed that art

While I possessed a talent pertaining to several aspects of the theater, the fact that I labored for my achievements in design made them that much more dear to me. I was used to being naturally good at whatever I put my hand to, and designing a product for the stage was an artistic and intellectual challenge. I struggled and pushed myself for years before I turned out a product I was proud of, a design that people were effected by. Finally, my own work evoked an emotional reaction.

As Oscar Wilde once said, “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” This communication is what I strive to accomplish in my designs. It is always my goal to enhance and support the direction, acting, and technical elements so that the combination of all creates a shared human experience.

Through the following chapters I will strive to explain my process of design and give a detailed account of the development of my work on the productions of Issun Boshi, Proof, and Our Country’s Good

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This work made publicly available electronically on September 20, 2012.

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