Job Lot: The stage designer

Tracey Collins, aged 35, earns a living as a designer of stage-sets and costumes in Auckland. She says a designer's income can vary from $200 to $2000 a week.


What shows have you done stage and costume design for?

Midsummer Night's Dream with the New Zealand Actors' Company. Many designs for Inside Out Productions including This is It Millennium Celebration, the Louis Vuitton Party, and the Spectacle. And I've done many shows with Sam Scott's Aotearoa Young People's Theatre.


Where does your imagination begin and end?

I'm always designing. Life is part of my work and work is part of my life. It's all combined really. Walking down the street and looking at things is part of the process. I mean, there are so many factors that make us who we are.


Why did you chose design?

I enjoyed designing even as a child, though as a child you're not able to articulate what it is. At school it was a process of eliminating what I didn't like, and for me that left art. I enjoy being given a brief with a budget and deadlines. I'm also a problem solver. Plus, the urge and power to create is very strong.


What does your job involve?

Normally, the first thing is to meet the director and the musical and lighting designer. We'll discuss a particular approach to the production. From there I'll begin the design process which entails doing some research and script analysis.


Is there a certain something you need to be successful at what you do?

Diplomacy and good communication skills. Being a designer is all about communication.


What are the difficulties of your job?

Coming up with the right concept for the show. Every difficulty, though, can be overcome by communication and the right moment. Technical difficulties can always be solved by finding the right sort of materials.


Your latest design project?

I've just finished doing Midsummer Night's Dream which is touring the country.


What was your first job?

Designing an opera called The Pirate Moon for the School of Music at the University of Auckland where I was a student at Elam School of Arts in 1986.


Once a show is over, what happens to costumes and props?

They're usually worn out if the show has been really physical. But if they are okay, they're stored.


Where and how did you learn your craft?

I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam and majored in design. After I left art school, I worked at the Mercury Theatre for two years. I started out as a props maker and then became a trainee designer, then a designer, then a resident designer. Then in 1990 I began freelancing.


What other work do you do?

I'm also an artist. I do painting and installation. I also do the windows for ECC lighting down Nugent St and for Mortimer and Hirst optometrist in High St. And I've worked as costume props coordinator for the first four or five episodes of Cleopatra and as costume props supervisor for the Young Hercules series.


If you could be in costume, which one would it be?

Some people feel I'm already in costume. None of them. They were all designed for the people they were made for.


What are you most proud of?

My theatre designs. I love working with Inside Out Productions. I'm really proud of Midsummer Night's Dream which will soon be showing at Sky City.


What do you do when you're not working?

When I'm not doing my own art, I'm reading art books, or looking and reading about other people's art and design.