William Andrew Young
 
Draper / Designer / Freelance Artist
 

     I am a 32 year-old who grew up in East Tennessee with loves of nature, music, and making

my own Halloween costumes. I was always design/construction minded, and majored in

Landscape Design at the University of Tennessee with the full intention of going on to

become a landscape architect specializing in reclaimed green space in cities. In tandem

with that major, however, I also majored in Theatre. At the start of my senior year at UT, I

decided on a career 180 and went the theatre route. I've been working professionally in

the industry since then (2015), with a brief hiatus for grad school and the global

pandemic.
 

     By the time of my acceptance to Penn State University's Costume Technology MFA

program

in the fall of 2017, I had spent several seasons at Utah Shakespeare Festival as a crafts

artisan and dresser, interned at Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock (where I was

fortunate to be the primary crafts artisan for a gorgeous production of T

he Little Mermaid), and returned to do costume crafts at The Clarence Brown Theatre at

the University of Tennessee. During my three years at Penn State, I worked a summer at the

Great River Shakespeare Festival as their crafts artisan and also interned with Mio Design

in NYC. In my final year at PSU I won two USITT national awards: The Barbara Matera Award

for Costume Making and also the Bernhard R. Works Master Crafts Award for excellence

in costume crafts.
 

     I survived the better part 2020 and 2021 by producing and selling custom-fit cloth masks, returned to Utah Shakes the summer of 2021, then moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to step into the position of Cutter/Draper & Costume Shop Supervisor at Trinity Repertory Company. Four years later, I still hold the position and am fortunate to have met my other half in company member, Taavon Gamble. Providence is home! 

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     Outside the work I do professionally for Trinity, I regularly drape for other regional theatres and have had work Off-Broadway and even featured by ZAZ10 TS on a Times Square billboard. Creation isn't something I can turn off each day at 5-- I am always designing things for myself, in the middle of private commissions, and looking for ways to advance my craft and my ability to share it.