If all the world’s a stage, this theater alumna is here to light it

Everyone has a zombie survival plan. For Cedar Cussins, that plan is to avoid the undead by hiding in UAA's Fine Arts Building.

"We're built like a concrete bunker," describes Cussins of how FAB sustained minimal damage during the recent 7.0 magnitude earthquake. "That's why it's hard to make any changes to this building, because it's literally concrete everywhere. The good thing about that is if there's ever a zombie apocalypse, this is the place to go. I can get to places where they could never get me."

Cussins earned her B.A. from UAA's theater program in 2005 and was hired as FAB's building manager in 2007, so she's had a lot of time to evaluate how the building would fare during an end of days scenario. Even without those ties to the university, Cussins is still a lifelong puzzle solver at heart. In fact, her fondness for solving puzzles is what attracted her to a specialty in stage lighting.

"The awesome thing with lighting is that it really goes back to puzzles," she explains. "Storytelling is a challenge because you have to analyze your script and find all the key elements you have to hit and then you have to figure out how you can make all of that happen within the confines of your instruments, your color stock, your dimmers, all of that."

Before finding her niche in lighting, Cussins had already become a jaqueline-of-all-trades in virtually all other aspects of stage production. Her first foray into theater was in middle school when she acted in a play for her 4-H group. That passion seamlessly carried over into high school and again when it came time to declare her college major.

"I remember going onstage and suddenly realizing that I didn't have stage fright. I didn't have jitters. I wasn't scared. I was just like, 'Oh yeah, this is my career, this is what I'm doing for the rest of my life,'" she recalls.

Almost immediately after Cussins started attending UAA, she took on a series of jobs within the Department of Theatre and Dance to supplement her curriculum. Not knowing how to sew, she first took on a position in the department's costume shop. Cussins followed that role with one in the scene shop where she learned the art of set construction. Then, unknowingly saving her favorite for last, Cussins was introduced to stage lighting, and the rest is history.

"There's just something really beautiful about lights," she says. "With costumes you have to spend months working on it and you need a lot of people to help out. Same with set, you spend months and need a lot of labor, and a lot of money goes into set to buy materials. But give me a week and I can light a show with just me and a couple of gels. I don't need a big budget for that."

Since becoming an alumna, Cussins has been able to parlay her unique skill set in stage lighting into professional partnerships with several Anchorage theater companies, including Anchorage Community Theatre, Pulse Dance Company and the Anchorage Theatre of Youth.

Most notable is Cussins' collaboration with the Anchorage Opera, which makes up the bulk of her current stage lighting output. Not only is she the organization's exclusive lighting designer for their 2018-19 season, but her work there sits at the perfect intersection of creative freedom and puzzle solving.

"In dance, you can do anything. You can do funky colors or whatever you want. In theater, you have to be more of a storyteller because you have to reinforce whatever is going on in the script. If it's daytime in Alaska, you can't be doing pink light," explains Cussins. "The awesome thing about opera is that it takes the freedom that's in dance and the puzzle that's in theater and it mashes them together. That's my little sweet spot I found in Anchorage."

In addition to the aforementioned creative freedom and puzzle solving, Cussins reiterates that the less demanding schedule is one of her favorite aspects of light design, and she makes the most out of every minute. You'd think that raising two children and managing a building would stretch the limits of all that extra time, but somehow Cussins is also able to run 49th State Motor Tours - ranked the No. 2 outdoor activity in Anchorage on TripAdvisor - with her husband.

Of course, it helps that the couple's management philosophy takes plenty of inspiration from their theater backgrounds. Cussins' husband also works as an electrician for both stage and film productions.

"Being part of the entertainment industry is part of our edge," she says. "The way we train people who guide for us is we tell them that this is theater. You're not taking people on a tour, this is a theatrical production from the moment they show up to the moment that they leave and we are creating an experience for them.

"One of my mentors told me that theater is the study of everything, and it really is. If you can succeed in theater, you can succeed in anything. It's project management, it's design, it's business, it's everything."

Written by Matt Jardin, UAA Office of University Advancement