Sarah Woodham has designs on theatre arts

Even years before graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Fashion and Design, after graduating from Bishops Anstey High School, Port-of-Spain, she was sure her career path would run in the vein of fine arts or culinary arts. It was during the months after graduating secondary school that she saw a televised performance of Cirque du Soleil’s Kuzo, and it was as if her fate was sealed.

“I was struck by how the costumes helped to tell the narrative,” she says of the awe-inspiring garments worn by the performers, “and transformed bodies and created spectacle.” From then on, the young creator set her sights on working in the film or theatre industries as a costume designer. While there was no costume design programme in Trinidad at the time, there was one in Fashion offered at CAFD. For Sarah, this was just her luck. For although her heart was set on costume design, she could still learn the same basic skill sets needed as a costume designer, such as technical sewing, fabric manipulation, design concept, art and fashion history, and illustration.

Sarah describes the four years before graduating with her BFA as “intense … but at the end of it I realised why they pushed us so hard: because we not only have to compete with ourselves but with the rest of the world.” She also speaks of TT’s own budding fashion and design industry, which most students of CAFD have and will continue to nurture and foster; tenets which are instilled along with technical skills through the courses and degrees offered at the academy.

In her third year at CAFD, she was the recipient of the Meiling Design Critic Award for Best Design in the category Gingerbread House. “It was a great moment,” Sarah recalls, describing the hard work put in to create her concept. “To have someone recognise that, con_ rmed for me that all the work and decisions I had made up to that point were right.” Since graduating from CAFD in 2013, Sarah opened and co-directed her own business from top to bottom alongside her mother, Greer Jones Woodham. She explains that after developing a business plan for a fabric store as part of an entrepreneurship class assignment at CAFD, her mother saw her research figures and decided to jump on board with helping bring her class project to reality. “She applied for grants and won enough to get us off the ground – that’s how we started A.M.E.N. (a memory emerging new) Print House.” The company produces its own fabrics, catering to a client base with an eye for unique prints. As time went on, the company’s list of services and products expanded to include clothing and accessories for men and women.

During this time, Sarah was also inspired to apply to do a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) in Costume Design at Yale University, through her design work in a local production of An Echo in the Bone, when she met two Yale School of Drama alums who further encouraged her to apply. It was these two colleagues who she says rekindled her passion to work in film and theatre.

“So I took a month off from work and created a portfolio and applied.” As hopeful as she was, her application to the esteemed programme was

rejected. But a mere week later, the school contacted her to inform her they had a spot at the school with her name on it. Come this fall, she will be entering the third year of her MFA programme at the Ivy League college. Thus far, her resume includes several shows for the school as part of her curriculum, as well as eight short plays as part of the Dwight Edgewood Project, a community project where local sixth graders write their own plays, which are then produced by Yale students over the summer months.

She says her biggest obstacle upon entering the MFA programme was having the courage to listen to her instincts and following through on them. “A young woman from the Caribbean with little theatre experience going to an Ivy League school seemed daunting, but once I made the decision to apply to Yale and had the conviction to follow through and ask for help from my family and community, everything fell into place.”

She also reflects on the decision to leave the comfort and familiarity of her family, friends, and home – a decision she says was not an easy one but which is unfortunately necessary for many local students seeking to make careers for themselves as creative professionals. “I left in order to truly learn what the theatre and film industry is about when well-supported by its own people; different ways theatre and film is run professionally; how to apply those production methods locally,” she says, adding that at the time of her departure there was no formal learning offered in the field she wished to pursue here at home.

In her third year, she has been assigned a repertory show, where plays are co-produced with industry professionals on the Yale stage. “I’m looking forward to designing costumes for Field Guide with The Rude Mechanicals, an amazing theatre group from Austin, Texas,” she says of her upcoming year of work.

Beyond her MFA, she says her future is neither here nor there. She hopes to move to London after graduating to work alongside experienced costume designers in their thriving theatre community and start designing shows professionally. Her inspiration is to create positive narratives that inspire people to collaborate with each other, respect and understand different perspectives on life, and address problematic social issues.

She says her creative process is simple: she continuously seeks inspiration and to understand the “whys” of the world. “Designers have to do a lot of inspection of the world and I think if people took the time to sit outside of their own bias and experiences and really get to know the people and the environment they are surrounded by globally then we would be a little closer to a true community.”

And she is still grateful to CAFD and her lecturers for helping her on her first step to realising her creative dreams. “CAFD gave me the tools I needed to get out there and compete with the rest of the world,” Sarah says of the irreplaceable motivation and knowledge she gained during the course of her BFA.

“To have a group of people that are a rich resource to me, that understand where I’m coming from and understand the struggle of becoming a creative professional internationally and locally is something I can’t put a price on.”