From now until the end of the school year, we will be introducing and celebrating our graduating students, looking back on the work they've done during their time here, and sharing their reflections and wisdom as they head off into the professional world. Today, in our final installment of this series, we meet graduating MFA lighting designer Matt Webb! You can see some of Matt's work from his time here at UW in the slideshow above.

What do you know now that you didn’t know when you started this program?
Well, I know a heck of a lot more about Seattle’s theatre scene, and the way that a city can be integrated with a university theatre department. I really didn’t know anything at all about Seattle or...

From now until the end of the school year, we will be introducing and celebrating our graduating students, looking back on the work they've done during their time here, and sharing their reflections and wisdom as they head off into the professional world. Today, we meet graduating MFA costume designer Emily Woods Hogue! You can see some of Emily's work from her time here at UW in the slideshow above.

What do you know now that you didn’t know when you started this program?
One of the things that I came to grad school for was definitely to become a better renderer, like to be able to draw better, ‘cause when Deb [Trout, Head of Design] saw my work at URTA they were like blimpy stick figures, and...

From now until the end of the school year, we will be introducing and celebrating our graduating students, looking back on the work they've done during their time here, and sharing their reflections and wisdom as they head off into the professional world. Today, we meet graduating MFA scenic designer Alex Winterle! You can see some of Alex's work from his time here at UW in the slideshow above.

What do you know now that you didn’t know when you started this program?
What I know now is that I am capable of so much more than what I thought I was capable when I began.  When I first got here I imagined that by graduation I would somehow become some shining professional other person. In some part, I have! I have had...

When Tatiana Pavela was six years old, her mother asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. “An actress,” Tatiana answered. Her mother laughed and said, “No honey, but what do you really want to be?” When she retells the story now, Tatiana describes her mom demonstrating how she, “took a step back, looked her square in the eyes, put my hands on my hips and said, ‘No, Mom! I really want to be an actress.’”

Tatiana hastens to add that her mother is “incredibly supportive…that story is not representative of her.” But, she says, it does stand out as the start of a pattern: “Being laughed at, made fun of, told no, and doing it anyways.”

That “do it anyways” spirit is on full display in Pavela’s solo show, Brandi Alexander, which opens May 24th for a four-show run at Love City Love. In it, Pavela plays a stand-up comic prepping for her comeback tour. For her first return gig, she’ll be the opening act for the man who raped her five years earlier. She...