Enter the Walgreen Drama Center’s scene and paint shop and Beth Sandmaier will greet you in paint-splattered jeans and a messy ponytail, paintbrush in hand.
On a recent Friday afternoon, white, monolithic walls are scattered about the warehouse-sized room as she flits around and puts finishing touches on pieces for “All My Sons, ” which concluded Sunday.
Sandmaier is charge scenic artist at the Walgreen Drama Center. When the university produces a play or an opera, the director and designer articulate what they want the set to look like and she is one of the people responsible for physically creating it. She has been painting at the university for 10 years.
During the summer, when classes aren’t in session, Sandmaier freelances as a designer as well as a scenic artist. Two summers ago, she worked on her biggest project to date — designing an original “Nutcracker” production for the Fort Wayne Ballet in Indiana.
Her backdrops for “The Nutcracker” are beautifully painted pieces of muslin as wide as 46 feet. The company asked for a traditional interpretation — a fancy house, a snowy landscape and a candy wonderland — and the artist must balance his or her own touch with the demands of the designer.
She says she particularly enjoyed creating the illusion of depth in the snow scene, a drop she is particularly proud of, and she found humor in the candy details. “I just never thought I was going to paint big old ribbon candy for my work.”
Sandmaier says that, at the outset, she was terrified to design a project of that scale. Summer time constraints and limited labor exacerbated the pressure. However, she now hopes to take on more projects like it in the future. She plans to work as a scenic artist for the full span of her career.
For Sandmaier, who has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in theater, painting always seemed a natural career path. She essentially was born into the job. Her father designed professionally at the Fort Wayne Civic Theater, and her mother directed a youth theater.
“It seemed like a natural thing,” she says of beginning to paint for her father as a young child. “Painting is in my blood.”
On the “Nutcracker” project, Sandmaier actually replaced some of the sets her father had painted years earlier. At the ages of 10 and 11, before recognizing her true calling did not lie in performance, Sandmaier actually performed in the company’s “Nutcracker” productions. “I was really lousy,” she jokes. “So they put me in the back.”
Sandmaier’s brother worked with her on the project as well. He is a technical director, who works with designers to determine placement and construction. She calls the two of them “co-set designers.”
The weekly Spotlight features faculty and staff members at the university. To nominate a candidate, email the Record staff at [email protected].
She divides her free time between painting and spending time with her husband and 8-year-old son, Jonathan. The time is limited, but she says that when your job is your passion, long hours aren’t so bad.
The most rewarding part of her job is working with U-M students. She says they are the most amazing people she’s met, and the theater students in particular have “passion, drive and talent that I certainly didn’t have at their age. I don’t know how they do it.” She revels in the reward when students come in and don’t think they can paint — and then realize that they can.
For aspiring scenic artists, her advice is simple: “Put yourself out there and don’t be shy. Just work hard, don’t be a jerk and paint well. As with any art, you might have to suffer for a couple of years, live on ramen … before you find steady employment, but it’s more than worth it.
“Theatre is important. Art is important. Ballet is important. Music is important. Make some art everybody — it’s important.”
