Although it’s been decades since Sydney Roberts taught Chuck Cantrell to sew a button on an outfit and to hem pants, the skills he learned in costuming class in the Department of Theatre and Speech stayed with him through the decades.
But Cantrell’s best memory about the academic exercise is the complaint of a fellow classmate, a woman who had a bachelor’s degree in textiles and made her own wedding dress. She was only making a “B” in the class.
Sydney Roberts“That tells you Sydney has always set high standards for her students,” says Cantrell, now the spokesman at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “That’s what it takes to be successful.”
In a career spanning 31 years and 140 shows at UT C, Roberts’ successful costume designs explore more than one meaning.
There may be something that looks recognizable culturally or psychologically, but a heavy dose of metaphor is mixed into the image.