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Sarah Gahagan's costumed armatures are gaining the attention of theater designers around the world. Photo by John Dutton.

"Not everybody gets the opportunity that I've gotten," says the twenty-nine-year-old fiber arts and theater arts major.

From beauty school to Lane Community College to the University of Oregon, she's spent her education exploring what she's loved since she was a girl: clothes and playing dress up. This summer, Gahagan will represent the United States at the Prague Quadrennial, the 11th International Exhibition of Scenography and Theatre Architecture known informally in the field as the "Olympics of theater design."

The recipient of a Tobin Theatre Arts Fund travel award, Gahagan won for her design project, a stop-action animated video called Tailleur. Taking place in a doll's tailor shop, the video is about the "machines of our imaginations," how they make and alter who we are.

"I love the magic of creating the action, but I'm not an actor," she says.

Gahagan, who has earned a 4.01 cumulative GPA, says that the mixture of approaches in fine arts and theater arts has been a productive one. "One started from the head and the other, with the hands, but they were both about translating ideas into literal things."

Now that all her UO course work is completed, Gahagan is stepping quickly into the world of design. She recently attended her first professional theater conference at the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, the sponsors of the American student exhibit in Prague. She enjoys the travel but says she'll stay planted in Oregon for a while. In fact, she's spending her first term after graduation—where else?—back at University Theatre, designing for John Schmor's devised production of Anonymous.

"He can be pretty out there," she says with a smile of the UO theater arts associate professor, "but I think that's because he's trying to push the world into a better place."

Can directors be unreasonable? Sure. Most directors haven't been costume designers, says Gahagan, but there's always a way to work things out. "If it weren't a challenge, I don't think I would do it," she says.

The public is invited to hear how the UO costume shop, where Gahagan has spent many hours, is changing for the better at the groundbreaking ceremony for the James F. Miller Theatre Complex, set for 11:00 a.m. on May 11.

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