About 30 Music, Theatre & Dance students displayed portfolios of their work from the past year for the opening reception of the annual BFA Theatre & Drama Design and Production Portfolio exhibition Friday afternoon. The exhibit is open to the public and held in the Duderstadt Center event gallery from Jan. 24 to Feb. 7, showcasing students’ costumes, drawings, paintings and sets.
At the exhibition, second, third and fourth-year students set up their portfolios for review by the theatre department’s faculty members and guests. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Christianne Myers, area head of design and production in the theatre department, discussed the goals of the exhibit as a way for students to showcase their work through SMTD.
“This is an opportunity for the whole design and production faculty to meet with each person individually for a half hour and hear their reflections on the past year,” Myers said. “We want to understand their goals for the following year, what they’re considering doing for the summer, and help them make connections.”
Music, Theatre & Dance junior Ellie Van Engen displayed her portfolio of costumes created for various productions at the University of Michigan, including the fall 2024 production of “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, she discussed how it was exciting to showcase her work to the public.
“I’m a costume designer so I designed costumes for Julius Caesar,” Van Engen said “You see the costumes in the show but there’s so much behind-the-scenes work that goes into it. And so to get to showcase all that to the public is really fun.”
Van Engen said she has been involved with theatre for a long time before beginning to explore costume design in high school.
“I started out as a performer when I was very young and when I got to high school, they told me I had to be on crew in order to be in a show,” Van Engen said. “I joined costume crew and I realized that it combined all the things that I loved like creating, crafting, combined storytelling, combined fashion…I found that it was a really big combination of so many different things that I loved, and I just fell in love with it.”
Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Justin Comini presented a portfolio of different set designs that he had worked on, including one for Vanguard Theater’s production of Pippin. In an interview with The Daily, Comini discussed the importance of highlighting students working behind the scenes to bring theater productions together.
“We spend all year supporting the actors and supporting the musicals and the performers,” Comini said. “This is our one and only time to really shine and have people see what we do and the process in which it happens. Because so often you just see the finished sets or the finished lights or the finished designs, but you don’t see what goes into all of it.”
Similarly to Van Engen, Comini fell in love with the art of theatre at a young age, which is why he decided to pursue a degree in the field.
“I’ve been doing stage management since I was 12, I’ve always been like a little theatre kid,” Comini said. “I had the theatre bite when I was younger, and it’s never gone away. I love working with people, and I think theatre people are so awesome, it’s a good industry and it’s so fun.”
Comini said he hopes the exhibit helps visitors gain a greater appreciation of the work that goes on behind the scenes of theatre productions.
“I hope they get to see all the creativity that’s behind all the productions that they see and that they feel inspired and inspired by all the work that goes into it,” Comini said. “Maybe next time they see a production they’ll have a better understanding of what we do and who we are.”
Daily Staff Reporter Halle Pratt can be reached at hallehap@umich.edu.
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