CMU School of Drama


Thursday, April 13, 2017

Four School of Drama Students Win 2017 USITT Young Designer & Technician Awards

Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama: Four School of Drama students received 2017 USITT Young Designer & Technician Awards at the organizations annual conference in March.

The YD&T Awards bring acclaim and support to early career designers and technicians, through generous funding from industry sponsors.

5 comments:

Claire Krueger said...

It's always wonderful to see people you know up and coming in the world. The CMU connections are absolutely incredible. It’s weird to have people who seem to be a part of your everyday life step up on stage and receive awards, it's a feeling of pride for them, and for the school that is amazing. I tried to google search but I had no luck in finding out the requirements and process of submission/selection of the recipients. So as of right now I understand that it's a huge honor but I wish I could just how large. The awards are crazy impressive but pulling an article from the CMU website whose content is limited to photographs, names and a few lines of text is not the thrilling of a read. Possibly because, like me, the author also doesn't know what the awards are specifically for. Regardless it's still nice to see school of drama represent.

Alex Talbot said...

It's great to see that not only is CMU represented for awards like this, that 4 of it's members are given the opportunity to be represented at an event like this. However, considering how awesome this is, I wish the school of drama had said more in this little article on their website. This seems, to me, that most of that is glossed over, and that the article had been written quickly and without much thought. I'm glad these students were recognized, but the article seems very half-assed. In gemeral, I wish I could know more about the process for these awards--what is required, and what those choosing the awards look for in an applicant or nominee. That said, I think it bodes well for this school and program overall, since four of our students have been awarded at USITT--it shows that either those choosing the awards are paid off by the school, or that we produce talented, hardworking people at this school.

Megan Jones said...

I agree with Claire and Alex in that I wish this article would put more time into describing the significance of these awards. Maybe they could have interviewed the students who received the awards, or perhaps had the faculty who nominated them comment on article. Other than that, it's so awesome to see our peers receive these awards. Having an outside organization like USITT recognize these members of the School of Drama really helps to validate the hard work that we do. I'm also really happy to see that an undergrad received an award this year (go Philip!!). It seems like these awards overwhelming go to the grad students, so it's awesome to know that an accomplishment like this is something that's achievable for all of us. I hope that in the future we see even more of our students get recognized in this way, and that the School of Drama keeps acknowledging the success of it's design and production students.

Zak Biggins said...

This is so incredible! I am so proud and humbled to go to a school that receives so much global recognition because of its STUDENTS. We have a really beautiful and unique program! It is so important that our school's focus is on the process versus the product because it really changes the learning environment and the expectation. I agree with most of the comments above that this article did not go into depth enough about the awards or how they will jumpstart each one recipients' career. I can only imagine that in a couple of years there will be articles like this about my classmates and I am so excited to see what every graduate from this program accomplishes. I think the way that CMU keeps a connection with its alumni is one of the major reasons I chose this university. College is only a few years of your life but this connection is one to keep forever. To hear that our university is constantly reaching out to its graduates is reassuring that the transition from college wont be too terrible (;

Sarah Battaglia said...

When I first found out about these four winning their awards I immediately sent the link to my parents. Mostly to brag but also to reassure myself that what I am doing is worth it. Often times I think students at CMU but in the Drama school specifically think why am I spending all of this time and effort and sweat and tears on something that is so hard to be good at and that so few people excel in, and I think that the answer is in this article. We work really hard at CMU and there are a lot of days that I hate that, but there are also a lot of days where I think about the fact that it is putting us so far ahead of the game that when we work in the real world we will be well prepared and adjusted to the amount of work. I am so proud of our students every day for the amount of work that they do, and this is great but awards aren't everything and what is more important is that we have strong careers and we make strong connections that last longer than an award.