COLUMN: Theatre major lives life behind the curtain
As stressful as college life can be, it is no shock to be surrounded by people constantly trying to find something. For most students this falls along the lines of notebooks, Scantrons, resumes or the like. For Morgan Golightly, it was an empty champagne bottle.
Golightly, a 19-year-old theatre arts major, was organizing props for the recent USU theatre production of “Proof.” After weeks of gathering set pieces and notebooks — calling upon the aid of classmates and roommates to get the notebooks filled with math equations — she was down to what she said is, by far, the most difficult piece of the ensemble to find. She said she needed a very particular type of champagne bottle that would pop each time the cork was removed.
Being underage, she couldn’t purchase the bottle herself, and after a week-long saga to find the item she needed, said she finally fell upon a colleague who found one for her. Finally everything was perfect, and the show could go on.
A strong theatre enthusiast since she was a small child, Golightly said she first got into the world of set design in high school, after finding fascination in it years earlier.
“In the seventh grade I went and saw ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ at Dixie High School,” Golightly said. “When I saw the set come up on stage I remember thinking ‘Wow, that is really cool, I wonder if I could do that someday.'”
Over time her interest in the trade dissolved, and she entered high school with her sights fully set on stage performance. This, she said, was when her theatre teacher approached her with a word of guidance.
“He simply told me I should do both, so my sophomore year I got started,” she said.
By her junior year of high school she was already doing full set designs, including an arrangement for “Beauty and the Beast” that received positive local acclaim. This put her on a path to receiving a USU scholarship to pursue a career in set design, which she said she was happy about.
“It’s something I love doing,” Golightly said. “Whenever I tell people I am majoring in theatre, they act like I’m taking the easy way out, but after all the projects and constant designing, it gets really time consuming. I’ve always enjoyed doing it.”
Most days for Golightly start at 6 a.m. With a full class schedule, constant performances to plan for and a part-time job, she said the early morning is generally the best and most opportune time for her to catch up on homework, draw up set designs and get things organized for the day.
After spending most of the morning and early afternoon in lectures, she said the rest of the day is spent meeting with art and stage managers for whatever productions she is involved in, to discuss the needs of the set, extra purchases, budget constraints or anything else that must be done before the show finally comes to audiences.
From there it’s a string of responsibilities, Golightly said. Getting props selected and ready, sending set pieces to the theatre, organizing things to be where they need to be, on time, answering emails from stage managers, and, when time permits, watching rehearsals to see if set designs work well with the performance take up a majority of her day.
After an early morning start, the day usually finishes late. There are nights she has gotten home as late as 5 a.m., she said, usually as performance days creep closer.
“There is always a lot to do, but that is what it takes to get things just right,” Golightly said.
So with early mornings, endless nights and an ever-growing barrage of things to accomplish well before performances hit stage, it’s hard to imagine what keeps one so motivated to keep such a demanding trade. For Golightly, it’s the opportunity to give audiences a service almost no one else can, she said.
“I love to tell stories,” she said. “I love seeing kids run up to the stage before a show — all excited — and say things like ‘It looks just like I imagined it.’ I just love creating stories for people, and theatre has been my way to do that.”‘
–steve.schwartzman@aggiemail.usu.edu