Transport Group in New York City, led by Creative Artistic Director Jack Cummings III (MFA ’96) and Producing Artistic Director (MFA ’96), has been around for 4 years and in that time has been nominated for 5 Drama Desk awards.
For more information -
www.transport-group.org

Nine Lives produced by Julie Lynn (BA ’88 & Law ’92) was screened at the 2005 Virginia Film Festival. A post-show discussion included Ms. Lynn, co-producer Kelly Thomas (Darden ’93), director Rodrigo Garcia, actress Kathy Baker and actress Sissy Spacek. Nine Lives received three Independent Spirit Award nominations: Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress (Robin Wright Penn).
For more information –
www.9livesmovie.com

Alumni: Share your news with us. Email updates and links to mr2xk@virginia.edu

University of Virginia
PO Box 400807
Charlottesville, VA 22904

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Spotlight on Janine McCabe
an interview by Tom Bloom, Chair, Associate Professor, Scenic Design
tab4p@virginia.edu

Janine McCabe graduated with an MFA in costume design spring '02 and headed off to New York and for the past three years has assisted Tony award winning costume designer Martin Pakledinaz. Janine's own work is beginning to attract attention and her schedule is quite full, alternating between assisting and designing.  I was able to catch a few moments with this very busy designer via cell phone as she sat, one recent evening, waiting in Reagan airport for a return trip to NY.  She had flown into DC that morning with Pakledinaz to handle shoe fittings for Arena Stage's production of Damn Yankees opening early December.  Janine also will be assisting Pakledinaz on the upcoming Signature Theatre Company's production of The Trip to Bountiful.

After working with Pakledinaz for the last three years on a number of musicals, ballets, and operas, she became the principal costume designer of a new Frank Wildhorn musical, Waiting for the Moon, which opened last summer at the Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center in New Jersey.  Wildhorn's jazz-inflected musical is about the marriage of literary legends F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.  Janine recounted that the whole experience was "...really exciting; ...Frank was redoing music [along with the writer Jack Murphy] as we tried to get through tech - things were in constant flux. A whole musical number was cut the first day of tech and a new one was added the next day, so we had to come up with a whole new look."  But, conveying the joy for the work that characterized her student days with us in the Culbreth Drama building, Janine says her experience on "Moon" "...was hard, but it was fun to turn it around overnight."

Waiting for the Moon

Gweneth West, Janine's mentor while studying at UVa says that, "She came here knowing what she wanted and would take no less – she took on projects with great joy."  This spirit obviously got Janine through those hectic days on Waiting for the Moon because as the company and designers moved into techs they were faced with mounting a major work that had skipped over the work-shop process. With the knowledge that little had been worked out before arriving at techs, Janine says that they were ready for the unexpected.

I asked Janine if she could offer some advice to young designers moving to NY – "be ready for very hard work, it's such a different world how it really works in the theatre here as opposed to what you do in school – it's another whole learning experience once you get here – there's so much more to learn. I always expected to work hard at whatever I do and I always have, but it is amazing to think how much time and energy goes into theatre just from the one aspect I do. We work long hours 6 and sometimes 7 days a week and the minimum seems to be 10 hours a day not including travel to and from."  Janine offered a glimpse of the life of a young designer,  "... everyday I worked hard mentally and physically and continued my education, the learning never stops; I guess that's the great thing about life though, there is always more to learn, more to understand and more to strive for.  The only way to do this job successfully is because you care and you love it. When you get up here you start doing any show you are asked to design, maybe it will pay you $200 maybe nothing, and you get whatever the budget is, $500, $1000?  Anyway you start to try and pull a show together and realize how difficult it is without the luxuries you had at school.  If you want a central place to work out of you have to rent one, ... you are lugging costumes, shoes, everything - to and from the city and where you live which barely has enough room for you to live in, let alone work in.  You can't just drive from store to store and load up the car because most of the time you don't own a car in the city, so you're lugging everything on the subway and the bus, maybe in a cab now and then, but many transportation expenses aren't covered on shows where your fee is $200.  There is not a big room of clothes to pull from, no shoe bins, no wigs from old shows and no help unless you beg your friends or pay someone, and believe me my friends have helped me through some major shows on payment of pizza and beer.  It is tough, the quality you are able to give is below what you were able to do in school - it is an awakening"

Janine is currently working as assistant to costume designer Greg Gale (Urinetown) on the musical The Wedding Singer, opening in Seattle in January and scheduled to arrive in NY with previews beginning in March.  Janine hopes that her work on Wedding Singer helps to move her career forward, but this doesn't necessarily have to mean Broadway.  Janine says she's happy continuing to do shows like "Moon" at the Lenape.  She hopes that her career also will progress along with many of the young directors that she's worked with in the last three years.  "I can't assist forever, I want to design, it is what I love doing. It is not the only thing I love, though. I love going to the gym, bike riding, hiking, making dinner, seeing my family and friends and especially spending time with my future husband (getting married to Scott in April).  I have a lot of things to do in this life so I need to make sure that my career doesn't overshadow all the other things I enjoy because I see how easy it is to let that happen. I have noticed that many designers spend all their time on their work and that is fine if it makes them happy.  That wouldn't be enough for me though."

For the time being Janine may have found a way to merge her work with her life.

Father Time from The Ocean and Lyphinia

"My fiancé, Scott, is an artist and we have even managed to merge our loves a little.  One of my current projects, The Ocean and Lyphinia, is a dance story that a friend of mine has written and is working hard to develop.  Scott and I were asked to do the storyboards for it.  We used my designs and then Scott drew the storyboards and I painted them - it was exciting.  Designing, drawing, and painting took a long time but seemed a little less like work with being with my favorite person.  Maybe there will be more projects like that as well."  And we too, wish that many more projects will come their way – we'll be watching!

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