masslive.com: A consolation prize in college put Ruth E. Carter on a path that would win her an Academy Award and other accolades from her peers.
The Springfield native recalled how she embarked on her career as an acclaimed Hollywood costume designer after failing to win a role in a college play at Hampton University in Virginia
2 comments:
I do find it interesting that a lot of the designers that I see or know say that they started theatre by acting and then transitioned to design when they found out that it was a field. I find it interesting that theatre on its own has that pull and that way of being that draw people into it even when they are doing a job, that, while Carter enjoys it all and there are definitely some that do, that is very different from design work. My question is to ask what about draws them in before design or technical elements take their interest? It’s also always interesting to see the intersections different designers have with different types of art or activities that inspire them, here acting leading into costume design. There are a lot of things that give inspiration to other people that I would normally glance over and its lovely to know how broad the sources of inspiration are aross all designers.
Hearing about Ruth Carter’s experience of turning from actor to designer, I think of something that has itched at me for a while. So many designer friends I know started out as actors and became designers, and it just makes me wish that theater was more advertised to people entering the field for the first time as an extremely varied and diverse field. Hell, there are concentrations offered at this school that I didn’t even know existed until I got here, and I wish I had known about them because they would have been super fun to explore in highschool. Like Ruth Carter, I was an actor first because I didn't know there were other options, and at my high school there weren’t really other options than acting or backstage crew. I envision children’s theater groups with design opportunities for children who are creative in ways other than acting, and I hope to see them one day.
Post a Comment