Destructive set design and the joy in creating with Derek Smith

Written by Julia Lane. Photos courtesy of Barter Theatre.

During fall quarter, I had the pleasure of sitting down (via Zoom) with SCAD alum Derek Smith, who attended the university in the early 2000s. Smith works as a scenic designer, creating worlds for the stage and breathing life into each environment from the page. Smith’s journey was inspiring to hear about, especially as a current senior, as you never know where your creative voyage may take you. 

When Smith was a student at SCAD, he was studying painting with “no thoughts or dreams of theatre.” Though there was a fondness for the medium, stemming from trips to theatrical shows in Virginia from Kingsport, Tennessee, Smith hadn’t pictured himself working in theatre until he began a summer internship in the scene shop at Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. 21 years later, Smith is a scenic designer at the same theatre, responsible for an average of ten different sets a year. 

His most recent production when we spoke was a design for “The Play That Goes Wrong” (which I became fascinated with after seeing the SCAD production of the same show not too long ago!). “The Play That Goes Wrong” follows a theatre company as their production of a murder mystery experiences mishap after mishap. What makes this production so captivating is that for the audience, it becomes difficult to tell what is real and what is a planned part of the play. “It’s a beast of a show,” Smith said when asked about the design process. With the main action rooted in the set falling apart, “The Play That Goes Wrong” is a technically charged show, filled with carefully planned tricks and effects. Smith shared that his favorite part of this experience is the “frightened laughter” of the audience, as theatre-goers try to separate the illusion of the show from reality.

Derek Smith’s favorite part of the design process is building scale models, a chance for design visualization and an opportunity to exercise his studio artist background. He changes up his process all the time to keep it “fresh and selfishly fun.” Bouncing around processes allows Smith to keep his work vibrant. Smith had plenty of wisdom to share regarding tools for the young SCAD designer. He spoke about the importance of being self-critical when it comes to reflecting on one’s creative process, weeding through to find what’s working and not working.  What he emphasized the most, however, was embracing the journey and the steps it took to get there. Smith shared that the true joy in making art is rooted in the crafting of it, not necessarily the final outcome. 

 “The process is where the joy lies,” Smith said, a handful of words that have stuck with me as I begin to round out my time here at SCAD. Applicable to both the projects we take on and our college careers, take a page from Smith’s book and soak in the creative energy that buzzes around us.

Photo courtesy of Barter Theatre