Video
Scenic Design and Technology at UMass Theater
0:04 - My name is Christine Hicks and I'm a senior. I was told a million times, "I was coming in with
0:12 - a performance idea and then I just ended up loving building or
0:17 - loving lighting or loving this." I was like, "Okay, yeah, I've heard it." But I've
0:24 - discovered that I'm actually good at it. I've discovered that I know what I'm
0:28 - doing when it comes to building stuff with tools, and I just can
0:34 - naturally understand kind of the direction that we need to go in
0:39 - whatever we're building. I just discovered a natural knack I had for
0:47 - it. I've been able to build the sets that
0:50 - I've been performing on which is really exciting.
0:53 - It kind of gets you into a close relationship with the piece that you're
1:02 - in. HEDDA was probably the one that I was
1:04 - most involved in with the building. I think I was
1:09 - actually taking an independent study just because I wanted to build more, and
1:14 - there weren't any more classes for me to build in. So I just kind of went and
1:18 - worked for the credit and was there three days a week just building and then
1:25 - also performing. I really enjoyed the set of Collidescope. I've also enjoyed
1:32 - designing, like in building the model boxes for scenic design on a smaller
1:38 - scale. I just recently took a design class and
1:42 - learned that the skills that I learned from my building class kind of
1:48 - transferred into the design class. The designer really encompasses everything
1:53 - including the walls, the way the painting is, and just all the
1:59 - textures and every part of the set. I realized it's a talent that I didn't
2:05 - know I had.