Rob Eastman-Mullins
Though a native Floridian, I’ve lived all over the United States. The son of a truck driver-turned-teacher and a real estate agent, I was the sole artist in my family. Yet art was far from my focus growing up. Like many, I found the theatre quite by accident and performance design by a much later accident—not until I had returned to finish my undergraduate degree as an older student. Prior to that, I had a hand at a number of varied jobs: electrician, library page, short order cook, actor, middle manager. Occasional hoodlum and regular troublemaker were on the list too, but those were volunteer positions.
When I finally decided to complete my undergraduate degree at Mary Washington College—married and with a very different life experience than my classmates—I actually went to pursue Theatre Management, with the goal of opening a theatre. In fact, my baccalaureate degree is in Theatre Management. While taking as many theatre classes as I could, however, my shady past as an artist reared its head and people assumed I was at school to become a designer. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind. With a department full of strong mentors—designers and non-designers alike—I embarked on a path that ultimately led me here: to Prague, sharing the world stage with some of the best talent my country has to offer.
I worked for a few years as a scenic and lighting designer in Michigan before returning to complete my formal education at the North Carolina School of the Arts. While I had many capable teachers, I identified most with the design aesthetic and kindred irreverence of Franco Colavecchia. While we do not design quite the same way, his influence is clear in that we share an appetite for clean, unencumbered, and fresh compositions; always seeking to make something different and new.
Franco taught me how to design, but Gregg Stull, back at Mary Washington, taught me how to be a mentor. That’s one of the skills I relish most as I have students of widely varying personalities, backgrounds, and talents passing through the halls at Wake Forest University. I maintain contact with many, as they forge their own unexpected path in performance design, and I continue to provide the best guidance I can for those who follow them; just as my twisting path continues, as a performance designer and irreverent troublemaker.
