Alumni Story
Jessica Moretti ‘07
Jessica Moretti ‘07
A Multidisciplinary Approach
Current Location: Portland, Oregon
Hometown: Buffalo, NY
Major: Theater Arts
Minor: Dance
EXTRACURRICULAR AT CATAWBA:
Poetry Club, Blue Masque, Alpha Psi Omega, Choir, lots of theatre things
HOBBIES AND INTERESTS:
Reading, writing fiction and poetry, painting, yoga, working out.
On her experience of Catawba’s Theatre Arts program being a positive one:
It was lovely in that it was rooted in liberal arts and very multidisciplinary. There was always the idea of tying all of the threads of education together; our honors courses and our other educational courses were reflected within the work we did in Theatre Arts. Never did we do a show without knowing the history and the WHY behind it.”
Jessica came to Catawba already in love with musical theatre, having performed in plays and taken voice and dance lessons for years. She learned about Catawba’s Theatre Arts program after her family moved to Charlotte, NC when she was twelve. She liked that Catawba was near home, and she was awarded a scholarship through the Honors Program. She naturally headed for a Theatre Arts major, planning to focus on performing and musical theatre.
As part of the curriculum requirements for the Theatre Arts major, she needed credits in Applied Theatre, so she took a course in set design. That course raised a curtain revealing a fascinating new aspect of stagecraft to Jessica, and after graduation she went on to obtain a master’s degree in set design.
The multidisciplinary approach to teaching in the Theatre Arts program was an advantage in her graduate program, she adds, explaining an instance where her class was instructed to design sets for a play that was “Brechtian.” She knew exactly what that was but many of the other students did not. “I wondered then how you could design a set for a play when you didn’t understand the kind of play it was. That would never happen at Catawba.”
Her design company portfolio reflects the diversity in her work: theatre sets, Macy’s parade balloons and floats, a dress made of flowers, hundreds of faux wood lampshades for a runway for New York fashion week and sets for stop-motion films. “I love theatre. Set design is fun and challenging across a number of industries.”
Stop-motion is a favorite for Jessica. After sending her resume for years to a company known for that genre, she landed a job with them working on the film “Missing Link”. That took her to Portland, she explains, “It’s known as Hollywood North for stop-motion.” Freelancing gave her the opportunity to work with other stop-motion projects, most recently designing forty detailed miniature sets for the film “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”. Between films she works in event design and other mediums for set design.
Jessica encourages students to take a somewhat multidisciplinary approach to college life, “Get to know people from all different areas – sports, music, theatre, etc. – and make as many friends as possible. You never know who is going to be a great connection in the future!”
