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Curtain Call: SOU’s Rosenberg eyes first post-pandemic full season By Jim Flint Nov 11, 2022 04:00 AM A A Students perform a scene in the 2019 Southern Oregon University Theater’s production of “Angels in America, Millennium Approaches.” Deborah Rosenberg teaches costume design and related classes. Photo by Kim Budd Deborah Rosenberg is chair of the theater department at Southern Oregon University. Courtesy photo It was a journey of many twists and turns, including several years learning how to be a chainsaw woodcarver. But Deborah Rosenberg finally found her niche, in the theater department at Southern Oregon University. She fled New York State about 22 years ago to join the faculty at SOU. “My job ended, my marriage fell apart, and both cats died,” she said. “I interviewed for teaching jobs as far away as possible and the SOU job was the perfect fit for me.” She thought the campus was the perfect size for her, and loved the beautiful trees and flowers. “The university was friendly and welcoming. The people in the department liked and respected one another and shared values and standards regarding theater and how to produce excellent work,” she said. Today she is chair of the theater department. She teaches costume design and related classes and is in charge of day-to-day running of the theater department. She also serves as coordinator for SOU’s summer program of master’s in theater studies in production and design. But what about that chainsaw carving thing? In high school, she desperately wanted to perform, but was too timid to audition. “I taught art classes to middle school-aged kids,” she said. “My favorite class was wood carving. We chiseled wood while listening to ‘The Blue Danube’ waltz. Even now, if I hear that piece, I want to smack a chisel with a hammer, in time.” The years studying how to make chainsaw wood carvings followed. “I still owe my brother a carved bear to put beside his front door,” she said. She was born in Queens, New York, and raised mostly on the east coast — New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. The family also lived in Italy and in England. Creativity is in her DNA. Rosenberg’s mother is a painter and her father loved words and music. Her grandmother had been in plays as a young girl and periodically broke into song at unexpected moments. It was her grandparents, in fact, who helped introduce her to the theater. They lived near Lincoln Center and took her to plays and musicals for birthday presents. There she observed the emotional power of theater. “I saw ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ ‘Oklahoma,’ ‘No, No, Nanette,’ and ‘Swan Lake.’ Mysteriously, at ‘No, No, Nanette, when the performers tap danced to ‘Tea for Two,’ my grandfather started to cry.” She went on to earn a BA in anthropology from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, and a BFA in costume design from the North Carolina School of the Arts. By the time she entered college, she had overcome her shyness and participated in numerous theatrical activities. “We had no actual theater department, but produced many plays through the English and philosophy departments,” she said. “I did a lot of acting and costume design and building.” One year, they produced 11 plays with little or no faculty support. “Many of us are friends still,” she said. “Theater brings people together in a unique and powerful way.” She had planned to go to acting school right after university, but life events intervened. Once she decided to pursue costume design, her goal was to get an advanced degree so she could teach. She once confided in a long-time friend of her grandmother about her dream to be an actor and received some good advice from the woman. “She said that she knew it could be a difficult dream to fulfill but added, ‘There is always room for excellence.’” The first “interesting” job she got post-college was as a librarian at an elementary school, “one of my favorite jobs ever.” “I got to help kids choose books, and I got to read aloud to each class, each week. There is a charming book called ‘The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments’ by Arnold Lobel which remains one of my favorite children’s books.” The story is about a wizard who discovers that each color he invents for the colorless world has a different emotional effect on people. He luckily has an accident which results in red apples, green leaves and yellow bananas. She has fond memories of the children’s reaction when she read it to them one day. “After I finished reading the last page and showed the final picture, the entire first grade class applauded wildly,” she said. Rosenberg is in her element now — teaching a theater curriculum. “I love to teach,” she said. “I like helping people find out who they are and who they want to become. Many people who teach talk about the magic moment when the student says, ‘Aha! I get it now!’ That is endlessly inspiring.” She knew about Ashland before she moved to the Rogue Valley to take the SOU job. “I lived in Northern California in the early 1980s and we often came to Ashland to see as many plays as possible,” she said. “See five plays in three days! And eat delicious food!” What do career opportunities look like these days for students in SOU’s program? “It depends on the student’s interests and experience,” she said. “Our technical students can step right into positions with theater companies all over the country. Our design students often go on to graduate school or to assistant positions in companies. Our performance students might work at many different levels of theater, or may go into television or film.” Popular minors for SOU students include Shakespeare studies, musical theater and theater management. Her advice to students pursuing a theater career is to broaden their range of studies. “Learn all you can about theater as a whole — performance, design, and technical theater,” she said. “Stay open to new challenges, unexpected ideas, and surprising adventures.” She says students often come in with one plan and then discover aspects of theater they had not considered. “These often become a student’s true calling and develop into exciting and fulfilling careers.” What about her own dreams of being an actor? “One never knows,” she mused. “I think I am finally the right age to play Lady Bracknell in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’ I regularly practice saying, ‘Prism! Where is that baby?!’” As the pandemic waned, Rosenberg looked forward to the 2022-23 production season. “I like it best when most of the people in the building are happily working, building sets and costumes, creating props, hanging and focusing lights, running sound, directing, rehearsing, practicing their choreography and stage combat, working in the box office, or reading about plays, talking about plays, and writing new plays.” SOU theater students will be very busy in all those areas with six plays and multiple performances scheduled for the Black Box Theatre and Main Stage Theatre this season, October through June. That ought to make theater chair Rosenberg a very happy camper. For information about SOU plays and to purchase tickets, go to sou.edu/academics/theatre/season. Reach writer Jim Flint at [email protected].