Today@Sam Article

Nine Students Honored For Theatre Design, Method

March 4, 2019
SHSU Media Contact: Brianna Smith

The life of a theatre and musical theatre student at Sam Houston State University is full of amazing opportunities from stage management, scenic design, to the technology used within a production. For nine Design & Technology and Stage Management students, their hard work and skills were awarded at the 2019 Southwest-USITT competition.

The Southwest-USITT is a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote theatre design, technology and education by providing opportunities for students to compete amongst other colleges in areas of design, sound and media.

Senior, Jessica Hightower had the opportunity to show off her skills at USITT in technology for the production, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.”

“My design for this show was an interesting path for me,” Hightower said. “I had never worked with projections or media before so there was a fast learning curve. I learned a lot about technology including two programing softwares, how to create large scale imagery and how different programs talk to one another. This process also helped me in a sort of case study of line, color, and texture: all of which are important elements to scenic design, which is my emphasis.”

Hightower was tasked with creating a set that encompassed 2D visuals, a new way of thinking about set design for this student that had a rewarding end result.

“I knew going into the presentations at Southwest-USITT that there were so many people there with more experience and expertise than me in the subject, so I was not expecting to get a prize, much less the top of the category,” Hightower said. “I think this goes to show that focusing on fundamentals and building from the basics is a key to a successful design and that spectacle isn't always necessary.”

With such unique designs presented from the Theatre and Musical Theatre program, 50 students along with five Department of Theatre and Musical Theatre faculty attended the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Region VI, February 25 -28. The department was invited to perform their production of, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.”

Awards earned by theatre students include the following:

• Kaylee Sarton, Certificate of Excellence in Stage Management for, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.”
• Shelby Semands, Honorable Mention in Stage Management for, “A Macbeth.”
• Ben Stacher, Certificate of Excellence in Unrealistic Scenic Design for, “The Cherry Orchard.”
• Paul Lemmond, Certificate of Excellence in Sound Design for, “A Macbeth.”
• Sky Jones, Certificate of Excellence in Scenic Design for, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.”
• Jessica Hightower, Certificate of Excellence in Media Design for, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” and Student Registrations to USITT National Convention.

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