How to go
What: “Jekyll and Hyde,” by Leslie Bricusse and Frank Wildhorn
When: Jan. 20-30
Where: Creative Arts Center, Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Fairborn
Cost: $17-$19
More information: (937) 775-2500 or www.wright.edu/tdmp
FAIRBORN — Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde she’s not.
Kelly Green is often close to cracking a smile, except during “tech week.”
“I tend to get a little agitated” during the last few days before a theatrical opening, she said.
The 22-year-old Wright State University senior does lead a double life, however.
She’s a student and soldier.
As theater design and technology major, she drafted and created the set for WSU’s production of the musical “Jekyll and Hyde,” which opens Thursday, Jan. 20.
As soldier, she’s a senior airman in the Ohio Air National Guard.
“I’m hoping for a promotion to staff sergeant soon,” said the native of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., and graduate of Medina High School in northeast Ohio.
Theater department chair W. Stuart McDowell can’t remember ever having another student major who might someday be a major.
“I’ve never seen anyone in camouflage fatigues on set before, unless it was a costume,” he said.
Green said she is unaware of “anyone else in my unit who’s studying theater. One is definitely a 180-degree turn from the other,” she said. “One very structured. The other requires total creativity.”
She’s naturally suited to the back and forth, which is a whole lot less trying for her and society than the Dr. Henry Jekyll’s recurring transformation to nasty, sometimes deadly Edward Hyde in a Broadway musical based on the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Her father was a Coast Guard officer. “We must have moved eight times when I was a kid, but I actually loved that,” said Green, who rents a Fairborn house with other students.
Her mother is an artist — a painter, to be precise.
Green also loves to paint. “I absolutely love it,” she said. But for her that means a 40 by 25-foot scenic drop, detailing or faux work on a set, not an original canvas.
“My name sort of screams painter,” Green said. “I was destined to do this, I guess.”
She appeared on stage a couple of times in high school, but quickly learned that she preferred life backstage.
“The people are so accepting and this job is so diverse,” said Green, who doesn’t plan to stay in live theater. “I’d like to go into film, interior design, or maybe start my own faux-painting company.”
She considers her military commitment a good deal. It requires one weekend most months, with more extended exercises occasionally. She received a signing bonus, her tuition is paid in full and a monthly check from the GI Bill helps pay her room and board.
The “Jekyll and Hyde” project is “kind of like a senior thesis.”
She was happy to get the assignment because “I’m a big fan of dark musicals. I’m using a lot of blood red, black and gold.”
Her vision for the set incorporates “a Victorian industrial look,” she said.
To put that another way: “It’s an industrial steam punk look with gothic touches.”
Her invention has had to incorporate necessity. The budget required recycling portions of other WSU sets. “I also combed through some stuff at La Comedia Dinner Theatre and other places,” she said.
Green serves out of the Mansfield post of the Air National Guard. Her unit specializes in “preparing for natural disasters or major accidents — hazmat events like chemical, nuclear or biological attacks,” she said.
A few technical glitches or backstage surprises aren’t the end of her world.
Even at its most strenuous, “this is no boot camp,” she said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2377 or tmorris@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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