I met Kaitlin through my friend Lauren (remember her Q & A? Lauren the Activist). Women doing what we do best … introducing each other to our friends. Lauren attends Northern Kentucky University with Kaitlin and they are both involved with Common Ground, an organization for people who identify as LBGTQ and their allies. Lauren said she’s always wearing such unique vintage dresses, so I naturally had to meet her! Kaitlin is in her junior year majoring in scenic design. She spends her days in the theatre department taking classes and designing sets.
Name: Kaitlin Findley
Age: 21
Location: Northern Kentucky
What got you interested in scenic design and theatre?
To be honest, I don’t really know. My brother did theatre, so I guess that kind of got me interested because I would see him in shows. But I mean I had also watched like stuff at the Aranoff Center with my mother. We would watch musicals when I was younger. I guess when I decided to join my drama club my junior year, I fell in love with it and just immediately jumped in, and starting building and painting anything I could.
Which do you prefer, the performance side, or the scenic and set design side?
It really depends on the day. I mean, I wish I could perform more than I do because I haven’t performed since high school. But I think for the most part, I enjoy the designing more because I get to see what I’ve done whereas you don’t get that when performing, obviously. You can see people’s reactions but you don’t actually get to see your stuff.
Cool. So do you design the sets for NKU productions?
I have not yet. I’m going to be assistant designing in the Spring for Into the Woods.
Cool. So I guess just kind of describe where you are right now in life? And there are like no right/wrong answers here.
I’m not really sure. Just living on campus, taking classes and spending most of my time in the theatre building, helping out with everything. Doing homework. It’s not too exciting. Just trying to build up my portfolio that way I have stuff because I want to go to grad school after this to study more.
What’s the process of building a scene like?
It’s a lot of research. You have to obviously read the play or musical first, do tons of research of the time period if that’s what the director wants, or the director could take it somewhere else. So it’s really working with the director, figuring out what they want, going from there, doing a lot of research and developing like a concept. A lot of people build a model so that way the director can see what it’s like. If they want or not. Then going from there and drafting what you have so that it can be budgeted by the scene shop or whoever is building it.
So there’s a lot of collaboration?
Yeah it’s a collaboration with pretty much everyone involved.
Is that kind of stressful sometimes because some people might have one idea and then you’re like no this looks better and then they’re like we can’t afford that?
Yeah … since you are the designer and the director’s the one who decides everything, you basically have to listen to them. Like you can say your input and be like I really like this, but if they don’t, you kind of have to go with them, obviously. Money … you gotta follow that part a lot more.
I’m sure that can be kind of frustrating at times too.
Yeah.
How much of it is you actually getting on there and painting things? Or are they getting away from that now?
I mean everything is … pretty much we create it all. Unfortunately there’s not always a lot of detail work. So it’ll just be like a flat color. With Les Miserables, there was a ton of detail work because everything has to look distressed. So when we do shows that like, we can. They’re a lot more fun to work on because you get to do more than just paint a flat color.
Where are you hoping this takes you? I know you want to go to grad school, but where do you see this taking you?
I’m not entirely sure. I think I would prefer to work with a community theatre because then it would be a more stable job. Hopefully designing sets for them. I could do different things, whether it would be scenic painting or building it, that would be nice.
So you know Lauren through Common Ground. What sort of prompted your involvement?
Let’s see freshman year before we come here we have an orientation. They had a table at it. I was with my friend who also goes here. We’ve known each other since high school. We saw the table and were like oh, I guess we’ll go to the first meeting. And we did and kind of fell in love with it. So I’m part of the E-board this year and I was last year. I don’t know … it’s a fun way to de-stress.
Yeah so do you find that that’s like a group of your friends as well or how does it de-stress you?
It gives me a break from my classes and homework. I get to be with other people from a wide variety of majors and it’s nice to be with people from different fields. I like having that because in the theatre department, a bunch of people just stick with theatre people. So it’s nice to be with everyone rather than a small, select group of people.
So what are you most passionate about, in general?
Anything where I can get creative, in any sense, whether that be an artistic thing or just … I don’t, the way I dress is obviously more creative. Any outlet of life where I can try to be as creative as I can. Because I want to a unique person. I kind of like that.
So how do you feel like you express yourself through what you wear?
I wear a lot of vintage dresses, or tend to. I go to thrift stores or vintage stores just because I like having stuff that no one else has. And I mean tend to prefer that style more so than a lot of the stuff that’s seen today. I mean, I do have some of that stuff obviously.
What about vintage clothing interests you?
Really just the style of it. Just the cuts, the clothing, the way it flows is just very different from a lot of what is out there today. A lot of things are the shorter cut and I like the … a lot of it is over the knee and I like that look. It just looks like … more professional in a sense. And I like that.
Okay so you grew up in Cincinnati. How many siblings do you have?
I have a brother and a sister.
What was your childhood like?
It was good. My parents didn’t really like set any … I don’t know how to describe it. They weren’t crazy sticklers on the whole gender roles thing. We could do what we wanted. Like I would tend to play with a lot of legos. Whatever we wanted to do. So we could really be ourselves. Like my sister just died her hair. She’s a freshman in high school. My parents just want us to be ourselves and they don’t stop us from that, which is nice.
What does being a woman mean to you?
Hmm. That’s a tough question. I don’t really know. It’s hard to explain. I guess it’s recognizing that there are challenges and especially in the theatre world until recently, there wasn’t a lot of females making it far in the design aspect just because especially with building stuff, women are typically seen as not as strong. So I guess finding ways to express that that’s not the case and luckily that’s finally changing.
Yeah how is that changing in the theatre world? I mean there would always be roles in theatre acting-wise for women. But I don’t know, how is it changing?
I mean I tend to watch the Tony Awards and they’ve always had females nominated for stuff, but recently a few have actually won which is helpful to see work from other females. They can do just as good of work.
Yeah so they weren’t always directing, producing or designing the set. But by the nature of the way our world works we’ve always had a role for a woman acting but now it’s like well, let’s not just value her for her good looks but maybe her brain too?
Yeah I mean that probably is it. Also just that I mean a lot of middle schools and high schools don’t have any thing close to theatre, so that’s also part of it. If you don’t have stuff, you don’t an opportunity to be exposed to it. I think that is also part of the problem. People aren’t exposed to it at a young age and don’t know you can do those kinds of things necessarily until you get to college.
What has been one of the most proud moments of your life?
One of them was being accepted into the BFA program here. That made me feel like I had the potential to pursue this. I guess that.
What was that process like? Was it selective?
You have to go in for the tech side and you interview with a group of staff members and professors. You show them your portfolio, talk about the work that you’ve done and what you hope to accomplish at this university and beyond that. So that was pretty nerve-wracking but fun at the same time just getting that experience. On the tech side, you don’t get to do as much with the auditioning stuff as the performers do. While I’ve done that, I don’t do it regularly or as often. So you’re not as prepared. So being accepted made me feel good. Like okay, I can do an interview.
Who are the most important relationships in your life?
Definitely my parents because they let me explore what I wanted. I danced all my life from a young age and they let me do that. I took many different classes in high school because I was toying with many different things I wanted to do. I wanted to be an environmental engineer and graphic design. Eventually I settled on theatre. I originally came here wanting performance but then I realized that the tech side is probably more feasible for me. And they’ve been supportive of all those decisions. In high school, I had several teachers who were also like do what you want. They were mainly my art teachers. They saw my work and helped me to see that I have potential because I can be very hard on myself, so it’s nice to hear that from other people.
We are our own worst critic.
Yes.
So I also saw you go to conventions. What kinds do you attend?
The past two years, I’ve gone to the Cincinnati comic expo. In the summer I also went to the Indiepop Con.
What got you interested in that?
It was mainly my dad and my sister. My freshman year I didn’t go because I had a bunch of homework and they sent me pictures while they were there. I was like dangit! I wish I had gone and like put off my homework ’til the last minute. So they drug me there last year and I absolutely loved it. I mean I guess being able to create stuff and having people come up to you and be like I love what you did! Can I take a picture? It’s just fun. And then seeing a bunch of artist’s work and seeing a bunch of people, loving the same stuff … it’s a nice environment.
So tell me about your dress (the one in the first photo)?
I found this at a thrift shop and just decided to buy it. I like things that are unique, different and fun!
