Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1976 - 24

basis and they just can't stay in the program.
One of the problems that plagues me is how you discover a designer. Can you make a designer? What can you
really teach an advanced student?
BRIGITTE SITTE: Wouldn't that go under the field of
aesthetics, and more or less on an artistic revel? Isn't that
what you would really teach in advanced assignments?
Try to develop his artistic perception and his sensitivity.
Work towards a certain artistic integrity: that is what I
mostly push. I mean, really, I have found artistic integrity
lacking in most graduate students. They do not have a
sense of artistic values.
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: You know, I think that is a basic
for us anyway in Canada. It is as if people don't have any
general culture.
BRIGITTE SITTE: Yes, they are not broadly enough
educated in my estimation, to really know they are not
totally knowledgeable in art, not totally knowledgeable
in literature. They do not have a broad enough background to even realize that that is what forms them as
designers. They consider these things superfluous or not
really pertaining to their field.
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: One thing that I insist they
should learn is how to look at things. They should look
at people. I think, if you don't know to look, you'll
never be a designer.
BRIGITTE SITTE: I try to teach them to look at people
in the tram, look how they walk. Why is that face so
strange? Why is that posture? Why do the pants on that
person look all-of-a-sudden different even though they
seem to be a perfectly normal pair of pants? All these
tiny little quirks about people to observe so you can
transfer that little idiosyncrasy on a character sometime
in the future when you need it; pull it from storage; pull
it from memory and make it work. That is what they are
lacking. They don't have that versatility.
MILLIA DAVENPORT: I like what you said about
students who think they don't have to bother with that.
The first thing they have to learn is that they cannot
possibly learn too much about anything anywhere.
Absolutely everything that has ever happened to you in
your life is going to be very useful sometime. My life
is founded on "Try everything once" and after you understand it, if you don't care to go on, (especially if you are
making a lot of money) get the hell out fast and do
something else. One day I wonder, "what do I need this
for?". And then six years later if I hadn't known that,
I could not have done this.
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: Do you do any teaching?
MILLIA DAVENPORT: No, I have never done any
teaching. I worked in the theatre. I was the first woman
scene painter in the United States, 1918, and we did
everything. We did properties, costumes, curtains, sets,
everything there was to do and then, every once in awhile,
I would retire from theatre. I would get married or I
would say, "This is all ephemeral. I would rather build
houses or design gardens." Then something would happen,
and I would walk across the park to see how the Provincetown Greenwich Village production was comi ng by a
friend of mine. She had fallen in a dead faint having a

FALL,1976

felon on her finger and nothing was done. So I would stay
and finish and then I would work until that theatre went
bankrupt in three or four years, then I would retire. And
I would go traveling three months, so I never stuck to
the theatre. I was in and out. I can't stand actors. Mine
has been a very strange and interesting life. But three or
four times I worked with theatre very hard and I have
done just everything there you ever want to do except
electricity. Thank god there was one good union, that was
the electrical union, so I was never able, but I had to do
everything else.
VAN PHI LLlPS: One weakness we face is that the majority of students want to study only theatre from start to
finish, so their range of experiences artistically is very
narrow. I think what Brigitte meant about "Superfluous"
is they think they should not be interested in figure drawing as it pertains to getting a costume sketch done, not
in the structure of the human form.
FRANCOISE BARBEAU: We teach only figure drawing
every Friday and on Saturday we have it again from 9 to
12.
BRIGITTE SITTE: I would think that something like that
is mandatory. I mean that is my very personal opinion
because I feel that if you cannot sell or present a drawing,
an idea properly, you will not communicate. So wouldn't
you think every anatomy is very essential for a costume
designer to know?
DR. STOWELL: Do you teach this or is there someone
else?
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: I do the Saturday class and on
Friday there is another teacher who comes.
DR. STOWELL: How does the rest of your schedule
work?
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: Well, we work in four day
blocks, so we do history of costume four days or we do
color four days. Friday we always have drawing. And we
have a production week every five weeks. This is for the
first part of the first year and then they do two projects.
In their second year they do four projects and start with
cutting class and colors, dyes. I am in charge of the production week, too, to see that everything goes well.
VAN PHILLIPS: Where do you fit in skills of fitting, of
construction, of the final selection of dressing out a
costume and dealing with the actor?
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: This happens in the third year
when they design a production. They design a production
and they are supposed to be the head of everything. They
have to make their choices. We are always in the back,
never in the front. They just make their own mistakes.
VAN PHILLIPS: Do they ever have an opportunity to
assist one of the faculty designers through fittings, etc.?
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: No, but we are always there.
VAN PHILLIPS: Can they work as an apprentice?
FRANCOIS BARBEAU: Yes, because when they have
prod uction week we divide the class in three sections.
Some of those in painting scenery, then others go into
props, and the others in costume. So after two years,
they know what is going on. Sometime they only do the
shoes.
VAN PH IL LIPS: They have experience in all phases
before they design their production?

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