Megan Kenna is in the final year of a Bachelor of Arts majoring in theatre and performance, also focusing on art and creative designs as part of their degree.
After their work in the Semester 1, third year production Anenemy, Megan was approached by the production team at the Salamanca Arts Centre to design and construct the set for the play Utopia Now.
Utopia Now was created by an ensemble of emerging theatre practitioners and explored ideas about utopian futures.
Megan relished the opportunity to create a set which represented ideas of time travelling, space travel and the future.
“It’s been a fun show and really good to work with a lot of young people creating new work,” Megan said.
The play was performed as part of Salamanca Art Centre’s Winter Light, which aims to bring art to the darkest and trickiest time in Tasmania’s winter.
Theatre Lecturer Davina Wright said it was exciting to see Megan working professionally.
“Their design was responsive to the brief for the production, whilst also being creative and fun,” Davina said.
“Megan has a strong interest in ecoscenography and it is admirable to see them incorporating this ethos so early in their career.”
Megan, who grew up in Cygnet in Tasmania’s south, said while they dreamt of a career in the performing arts, they never imagined what it could be like until they moved for the final two years of secondary school and attended Hobart College.
“Before that I had never met anyone that wanted to do art or theatre or film or anything like that,” they said.
“When I did come to college and then University, it made me a bit more driven to say ‘yes’ to opportunities like these and to work with people that wanted to make and create.
“I think I came into it a bit more starstruck than if I had grown up around it.”
The Theatre and Performance major in the Bachelor of Arts has allowed Megan to study performance and design for theatre.
“I’ve been using my Bachelor of Arts degree to take lots of classes involving performance and woven into that are classes around design, lighting and all of those sorts of things,” they said.
“It’s been great to use that experience to approach a script from a performance point of view; it allows you to not only create designs based on aesthetic but to bring an element of purpose to each piece that will help drive the story and assist the actors on stage.
“It’s super exciting to be involved with a production like this and to adapt and change to suit the direction of the show, working with all of those involved.
“I can’t wait to have the opportunity to get on board and create more new work.”