Reserved senior’s artistic gifts say plenty

Though usually shy, always reserved, and frequently preferring not to speak, Stephanie Spotts still conveys vibrant ideas that grab attention.

The Purdue University Fort Wayne senior’s artistic gifts allow her to express herself in persuasive and sometimes moving alternatives to the spoken word as she starts to build a career as a costume designer. The theatre major also minors in creative writing and enjoys drawing, meaning she’s always battling between her heart and head to create.

“I think it’s the idea of being able to say what I want without using my voice,” Spotts explained.

While also taking small ensemble parts in middle school and high school stage plays, Spotts began designing characters after getting sparked creatively by her grandmothers. Her productive imagination didn’t require too much talking with anyone else.

“I kind of create characters in my head, and then I dress them,” Spotts said. “It feels like I’ve always been designing because I’ve always been interested in people, in particular, drawing people and what they would wear.”

Because she liked the setting and felt comfortable on the campus, she always wanted to attend PFW, but then she had to find what to study. After starting as an interior design major, she switched to theatre and blossomed. Her work is so inspiring, Spotts was part of PFW’s Student Research and Creative Endeavor Symposium that took place on Friday and received a Dean’s Choice Award.

“Stephanie has always demonstrated a superior work ethic, an incredibly creative spirit, and a highly intelligent mind,” said Jeff Casazza, professor of theatre, who has worked with Spotts on several productions. “Put those three things together, and you really have something!”

Casazza was the director during the first-semester presentation of “Eleemosynary,” with Spotts as costume designer for the story, which follows three female characters across many years. As much as the actors, Spotts studied the characters’ motivations to provide distinctive costumes. What would the characters want to look like? What is the individual look that enhances their voice? What drives them to do what they do?

Her empathy, compassion, and intuitiveness—along with her writing, drawing, and designing skills—allowed Spotts to create the perfect costumes. For the lead character of Artie, Spotts found inspiration during a visit to the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. While studying a display on Bill Blass, a city native who became a world-renowned and revolutionary fashion designer, one of his suit creations clicked with her.

“To me, suits communicate cool and calm yet distant, and that’s (Artie’s) character,” Spotts said. “I knew immediately I needed to have this in my design. I knew I wanted her in a suit.”

What she created enhanced the actors’ ability to build and express their characters’ traits. The end result was achieved with guidance from Jeanne Pendleton, Spotts’ advisor, costume shop supervisor, and clinical assistant professor of theatre, and costume design faculty member Austin Rausch.

“Stephanie is a unique storyteller due to her interest as a playwright,” said Rausch. “She cares not only for the character and how they look, but their emotional role within the entire landscape of a production.”

Part of that comes from how Spotts enjoys the challenge of the finite time available to connect with an audience.

“Theatre you know is temporary and is only there to last for a moment,” Spotts said. “It’s for actors to connect to the people, to have them share in that creation. All the work we put in and produced we hope is going to impact you in some form or fashion.”

And when that happens, the moment is transcendent. Spotts recalled a play she wrote dealing with how a mother’s death affected the other three family members. Spotts heard an audience member sniffle with emotion after a key line.

“That was her honest reaction, and that’s what we did as actors and the directors put together to elicit that emotion,” Spotts said. “That’s why I like to do this kind of stuff, to see people react and understand that their feelings are valid.”

So are Spotts’ gifts, and she’ll attend graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign next year to learn more about expressing her ideas.

“One of the things that made an impact on me from ‘Eleemosynary’ was when Echo was discussing the idea of flying,” Spotts said. “Costume design does a similar thing with me. There is something about costume design that makes me feel giddy, too. It also brings me to a higher plane.”