The Upstage Interview: Kaitlin Hickey on the National Theatre School and Moment Factory

                                        Kaitlin at work on a ceiling concoction. Courtesy Moment Factory.

The birth of a project from design conception to production and completion

Upstage Host Eric Sukhu spoke with third-year National Theatre School (NTS) English section Production program student Kaitlin Hickey about a unique first-time collaboration between NTS and Moment Factory on a training workshop.

UPSTAGE:  Tell us about the collaboration project.

HICKEY: Twenty-four NTS students from the third-year Productions program in French and English as well as second-year Scenography students have all been brought to Moment Factory. We’re participating in a week-long immersion  project  in installation creation and production process. We’ve been divided up into teams and we’re in the final push before presenting what we’ve been working towards all week.

We’re creating an interactive dance room that will be filled with all kinds of crazy lights.

UPSTAGE: Can you tell us a bit about the projects?

HICKEY: We’ve been broken up into three teams. Each team has a goal or mission they’ve set out to create. The goal of the team I’m working with is to have an active experience that encourages people to dance and enjoy the atmosphere.

Moment Factory is very involved in creating these multi-media experiences and each of the installations is geared to create, in a small time frame, what they do on a big scale. We’re creating an interactive dance room that will be filled with all kinds of crazy lights.

UPSTAGE:  How do you work on a project like this where you have a constrained amount of time?

HICKEY: What’s really great about this whole week is that you take the birth of a project from design conception to production and completion. We were given a goal, we brainstormed, then we had to give a presentation explaining what we tried to achieve.  

UPSTAGE: Were you teamed up with professionals at Moment Factory guiding you through the project?

HICKEY: Yes it’s been amazing. We’ve had so much support  in learning how to do things, and giving us tools we’ve never seen before. Being exposed to Moment Factory state-of-the-art equipment builds on what we’ve been learning. When we come across something we might not know how to use, or to create an effect we don’t know how to do,  Moment Factory Is a great place to try it out.

UPSTAGE:  What have you learned from this project?

HICKEY: The main thing I’ve learned is that no idea is too small. We should be encouraged to think big and someone somewhere is going to let you do it. The first day we were shown a lot of examples of  some of the projects that manufacturers have produced; everything from Madonna concerts to multi-media installations. Any creative idea with the right team and the right materials can be successful.

UPSTAGE: What are your goals? Where do you see yourself five years from now?

HICKEY: I’m really passionate about lighting design. I’m using this experience as an opportunity to explore all facets. Lighting is so transposable from theatre, to music to architecture. 

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