Eastern Michigan University Theatre is welcoming two new professors this semester. Heather Brown, a visiting professor of lighting design, and Nikki Green, an assistant professor of costume design, joined the College of Arts and Sciences.
Heather Brown has over 25 years of experience working in lighting design in both theatrical and corporate settings. Brown has done lighting design in a wide range of different settings. She has worked on theatre productions with months to design and work on shows, and in corporate settings like galas, concerts and conferences with as little time as one day to design, set-up and follow through with an event.
"Heather will bridge the gap between commercial event production and collegiate theatre instruction. She is also a true Michigander, starting her journey with an Associate's degree in theatre from a Michigan community college, working as a lighting intern with Williamston Theatre, and ultimately earning her MFA in Production Design from Michigan State University in 2018," Pam Cardell, assistant managing director in the former School of Communication, Media and Theatre Arts, wrote in an email about Brown.
Brown also has background working with the non-profit organization United States Institute for Theatre Technology. According to its website, USITT is an organization dedicated to connecting performing arts design and technology communities and encouraging dialogue between educators, students and practitioners.
Brown was inspired to become an educator when she discovered her passion for teaching people lighting design while working on projects. She enjoys teaching students the wide range of career choice and opportunities that come with pursuing lighting design.
"I have really enjoyed teaching people on the job and I ... just started enjoying it that way. It is also nice to see new young designers coming into the field, because I think we really need to make sure that everybody who's coming into the field has sufficient training. And I have seen some areas where there are some gaps, especially because there's a million lighting-type jobs out there," Brown said.
Brown hopes to expand EMU's lighting design program to accommodate students' interest in lighting design outside of the theatre setting.
"I hope to expand the theater lighting design teachings into more of that corporate setting, so that you can be prepared not only in theater, but also if somebody wants to join a production event company, or they want to join manufacturing, or vendors, because there’s a whole other complex system there, too. And you've got to learn how to talk to all those different people when you're out there, so expanding that theater knowledge set," Brown said.
Nikki Green has worked in costume design in many different settings, including costuming at Disney World before pursuing a career in education. During her time at Disney World, Green designed costumes for shows on the Disney Dream Cruise Ship, parties that big companies would throw after the park closed and other shows.
"Nikki joins us from Washington University, bringing a background in both higher ed (with previous roles at Baylor University and Truman State University) and regional design. She holds an MFA from the University of Cincinnati CCM and has designed for exceptional organizations, including The Black Rep, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, and Disney Parks Live Entertainment. This is a return for Nikki, who grew up in Southeast Michigan and is looking forward to being back in the Mitten," Cardell wrote about Green.
Additionally, Green has worked with Theatrical Intimacy Education to complete more than 100 hours of specialized training. According to its website, TIE's mission is to make it easier for everyone to be in the room: "It is a consulting group specializing in researching, developing, and teaching best practices for staging and filming intimacy and more progressive practices for collaboration and leadership."
Green, who didn't originally plan to pursue a career in education, began teaching at Truman State University and fell in love teaching. She notes that the main thing that sparked her passion for education is watching students develop understanding of the materials they're being taught and celebrating that they succeeded in their creative endeavors.
"Teaching costumes, especially, is a kind of a unique field in that it is less quantitative than a lot of university classes are. It is very qualitative work. It is hard to judge art, and grade art, and that's essentially what we are doing. There's the hard facts of: this is how you sew this, this is how this is supposed to look. But at the end of it, you created something beautiful — assuming that it was supposed to be beautiful. Sometimes you create ugly things on purpose, but they are still well created," Green said.
Green highlighted EMU's dedication to investing in and uplifting the arts, especially in the Entertainment and Design Technology and Theatre Arts areas, as a key reason for her choosing to become a professor at EMU.
“I'm really looking forward to what opportunities might arise, to help grow the department and promote it, and help students see the awesome things they can learn and do and become in EDT and in the theater program. I'm at this point of: I'm so excited about the opportunities I don't know are there yet,” Green said.
