Featured Faculty Friday: Eric Appleton
May 10th, 2013 by Ann Ricca
If you’ve gone to a show from the Theatre/Dance Department in the Barnett Theatre or Hicklin Studio Theatre, chances are you may have seen our featured faculty Friday’s set designs. Eric Appleton teaches and designs in the Theatre/Dance Department. His recent stage designs include the sets for Aladdin, She Stoops to Conquer, and Almost Maine. Want to learn more about him? Keep reading on!
Q: Where are you from?
A: Chicago, Il. Within the city limits. I’m actually, really, a Chicagoan.
Q: What do you do at UW-Whitewater?
A: Teach and design.
Q: What is your favorite thing about UW-Whitewater?
A: The collegial atmosphere of the Theatre Department, both among faculty and students.
Q: What are some of your hobbies?
A: Theatre doesn’t allow you to afford to have hobbies unrelated to theatre.
Q: If you could have any superpower what would it be and why?
A: The one I would like would be to go invisible so I could explore interesting buildings and places I couldn’t ordinarily get into, but it would make me feel guilty since that superpower wouldn’t really help anyone else.
Q: What’s the best thing that you have ever done that you suggest others try?
A: Cook for yourself.
Q: What’s your favorite movie? Book?
A: No favorite movies, but the book I continue returning to through the years is Valis, by Philip K. Dick
Q: What is your best advice for students?
A: Do the work.
Q: What’s one thing that you want people to know about you?
A: If it’s not already apparent, I must not be working hard enough for it to be apparent.
Interested in learning more about Appleton? His professional bio is below.
Eric Appleton is in his fifth year as the assistant professor of set and light design in the Theatre/Dance Department of the UW-Whitewater. Recent scenic designs for the department include Aladdin, She Stoops to Conquer, Almost Maine, Urinetown, and The Coronation of Poppea. Recent professional work includes lighting designs for Sylvia at Next Act Theatre, A Thousand Clowns and Crimes of the Heart at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre¸ and the scenic design for Music in the Air for Music by the Lake, in Williams Bay. His full length play homeland was given a staged reading in October of 2012 at Urban Stages in New York, and his ten-minute play Return of the Living is slated for production this summer as part of Washington DC’s Source Festival.
Thanks for being our featured faculty for this Friday Eric Appleton! Check back next week to see who the next faculty member will be!