Creative Statement

My passion for scenic design falls somewhere between a love of architecture, history, and narrative storytelling. I am drawn to projects that have meaning and impact for the communities they serve. The productions I return to most are the ones where the design does more than illustrate a setting and instead participates in how the story is felt.

I think about space as an active dramatic partner. A room can apply pressure. A wall can hold memory. A doorway can become a promise, a threat, or a question. I am interested in scenic environments that give performers something specific to push against while giving the audience a clear emotional architecture for the story.

Scenic design should shape how a story is felt, not just where it appears to happen.

Collaboration is central to that work. I value every person involved in bringing a production to life, beginning with the playwright and extending through the director, design team, technicians, managers, carpenters, and artisans. The work is strongest when the full production can move toward a shared spatial idea together.

I especially care about the conversations that happen between departments, where scenic design has to remain flexible enough to support lighting, costumes, projections, movement, and performance. Collaboration is not a secondary value in the work. It is part of the design itself.

My process usually starts with too many possibilities at once. Early conversations with a director are about the text first: what they see, what the play requires, and how a shared visual logic can emerge. From there I build digital models, sketches, research boards, and renderings to explore and sculpt the world.

I am never afraid to start over, no matter where we are in the process.

I care about the transition from rendering to drafting, where an idea has to become clear enough to build, rehearse in, and perform inside. That part of the process is not separate from the artistry. It is where the idea becomes accountable to materials, labor, time, money, and the actual event of performance.

Whether I am working on a classic or a new play, I want the environment to feel inevitable once it is revealed. The best designs carry the weight of revision quietly. They feel resolved, even when they were hard-won through many iterations and collaborative breakthroughs.

I am looking for clarity rather than spectacle for its own sake. The strongest design choices are the ones that support performers, deepen the dramaturgy, and make the audience feel that the world of the play could not have been built in any other way.