Chris Young, BFA Technical Production, 1984
Chris was in one play in high school and “hated having to wear makeup, so I slid on into technical stuff. I didn’t have a whole lot of carpentry experience, but knew how to keep my fingers out of way.”
After a year at Christopher Newport College in Mass Communications, he dropped out and “took a crappy job in a lumberyard. It helped my bank account, but boy does it make you motivated to get back to school. Two friends were from VCU and they suggested it.”
While at VCU, Lou Szari (former Head of Lighting) and Rick Pike (former Head of Scenic Design) “helped me get an internship at the Arena Stage scene shop that led to a job offer, but I’d already sent the check in,” so he returned to finish his degree. When the time came, “I finished my last exam and loaded up the U-haul the next morning for DC.” After his three years at Arena (as an intern, then stage carpenter, then in the scene shop), Chris recalls, “I realized, I’m looking at what’s coming out of the prop shop and was more interested in that.”
That’s when his focus switched. Chris looked for a master’s program in props and found it at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music. He remarks, “I went to an opera school to learn about props.”
In 1990, the man who’d been assistant prop director at Arena was now props director at The Folger, which became Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he’s still working. Chris’ business card said “Furniture, weapons, fire and blood,” which got him noticed by the Washington Post (read the article below). When they were producing Richard III with Stacy Keach, “Blood was an issue, so that’s what got me stuck doing blood.”
Something he learned from Lou Szari’s class in color theory of light and paint came in handy, “The only place I had to mix blood was in the green room with florescent lights and boy did that look bad when it got on stage. I’m known for being offside the stage with blood samples to see how it works under light.”
Chris had a rule not to date anyone within the department and he met his future wife Laurie at a dinner party. Turns out she was a graphic design major…whew! They now have two adult children.
Compiled by Liz Hopper (professor emeritus) and Jerry Williams (BFA ’71) for the August 2023 Theatre Alumni newsletter