Susan Turcot, whose parents live in Greensboro, went on to have a distinguished film and television lighting career in Hollywood after attending UNCSA. Her credits include mega-hits Independence Day, The Negotiator, Titanic, Panic Room, Pleasantville, The Rat Pack and The Bird Cage. Her skill set? Dimmer board, lighting and rigging, among other specialties.
Her proud parents, Bud and Sharon Turcot, rented out a Sedgefield theater for a private showing when Titanic premiered.
“They gave out tissues and Life Savers,” she recalls with a laugh. Guests filed out of the theater wiping their eyes and Susan regaled them with stories about the set, cast and crew at an afterparty. That Titanic gig, however, couldn’t have delighted her folks more as it grossed over $2 billion, becoming the highest grossing film of its time.
She self-deprecatingly jokes that only her parents’ friends know she has rubbed elbows with the rich and famous and never name drops. Turcot also worked on the top-rated TV sitcom Two and a Half Men.
She didn’t enter UNCSA intending to specialize in dimmer board and rigging: “When I was there [at UNCSA], it was different.” She graduated in the 1980s with a concentration in design and production.
“Of course, there was no film [concentration] then, only theater. It was dance, drama, music, and design and production.”
Turcot left after graduation to pursue opportunities in California and found her niche. She keeps work options open, she says, even if she has been remiss about keeping her resume current. Now, at home in Los Angeles, where she has lived and worked most of her adult life, Turcot says a lot of her fellow graduates are active in the industry there.
In its 62 years, UNCSA has graduated alumni who work in a multiplicity of artistic careers, grabbing headlines well beyond the Triad. Many become notable musicians, actors, screenwriters, directors, producers and dancers. Much larger numbers who graduated from UNSCA’s five professional concentrations work behind the scenes in performing, visual and moving image arts.
UNCSA’s arts-based education produces many unsung heroes of the industry. Imagine a film when the lighting is too harsh — or dim. Or the sound is faulty. Or the casting is all wrong. Or the makeup and costumes are amateurish.
Those in “above the line” roles belong to composers, graphic designers, photographers, producers, directors, actors, musicians and writers. Those who execute on a technical, granular level, include “below the line” professions such as casting directors, production designers, costume designers, editors, cinematographers, camera work, set design, sound recording, makeup artists, sound, electrical and lighting technicians.
Many of those names are not always known to the arts and entertainment audiences. But you do know these talented alumni by their work.
Paul Tazewell, BFA ’86, concentrated in costume design and technology as a student from Akron, Ohio. Since then, he has steadily contributed to a body of creative work recognized as artistically and historically significant.
On March 2 earlier this year, Tazewell made school history when he won the Academy Award for Costume Design for Wicked, becoming the first UNCSA alum to win an Oscar.
He also made Oscar history as the first Black man to achieve that distinction. Plus, he has two Tonys on his shelf, for Death Becomes Her and Hamilton, plus a Primetime Emmy Award.
As an extra feather in the school’s cap, UNCSA quickly posted the news that Wicked was not only nominated in 10 different categories, but won two, scoring a second Oscar for production design. The original stage director, Joe Mantello, and the film’s casting director, Tiffany Little Canfield, both alums, contributed to the stage and screen versions.
Tazewell attributes much of his artistic identity to his N.C. alma mater.
“It was here that I first began to love myself — to trust my own voice. To trust my own vision of myself. And that love has shaped everything since,” he recently said in a commencement speech delivered to the school’s newest grads.
As UNCSA graduates have steadily migrated into professional careers in film, in touring productions, in music, and on Broadway — others are entering newer fields in digital media.
Photographer and director David LaChapelle attended high school at UNCSA, which he has since called his “big break.” This coming from a man whose early work was with Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. His museum-worthy body of work has appeared in the world’s top magazines plus a vast collection of music videos and includes signature photographs of celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Uma Thurman and Elton John.
Earlier this year, the North Carolina Museum of Art hosted two exhibitions of LaChapelle’s work. On display at its two locations in Winston-Salem and Raleigh were more than 80 prints, drawings and videos.
Tanase Popa, who graduated in 2006, studied stage management. Now, he pairs the right talent with the right project. He has since earned a Peabody and an AFI award, and has had multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his work in television and film. He has worked on popular series including Glee and American Horror Story.
The press-averse alum eschews the spotlight. “I want to be the one behind the scenes putting it together,” Popa said in a 2020 interview for the school’s website.
“I never looked at myself as someone who was creative in the sense that I need to write or be a director to put the pieces together that way. I always loved finding the right people for the right project.”
Not every career is spent on the Great White Way or working behind the Klieg lights of Hollywood. Training in production and design easily lends itself to work in an artful aspect of consumerism.
If you’ve shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue, you’ve seen the work of UNCSA alum Connor Matz, who directs the mega-retailer’s windows, visuals and interiors.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurial alum Destinee Steele has built a successful business and career in Florida working as a wig-and-makeup artist since her professional training at UNCSA.
In each case, their creative work is their calling card.
And when you’ve finished a movie that was so good, you just don’t want to leave the theater as the cast of characters behind the scenes scrolls on and on, remember that it’s a reminder how many people work in any production. These unsung creatives get little credit beyond the mention of their name.
Finish your popcorn and read on. Odds are good that those talents — with names like Turcot, Tazewell, Mantella, Canfield and Poppa — honed their skills at UNCSA.
