By Nanette Wiser
You hear about the famous actors and artists who went to school in Tampa Bay, but rarely do we meet the talented individuals who mentored them. With student artist/acting programs at The Patel Conservatory Straz Center, Ruth Eckerd and American Stage, as well as Eugenie Bondurant’s workshops, we often forget one of Pinellas County’s most illustrious high schools, a performing arts petri dish.
We’d like to introduce you to Patricia “Trish” Donnelly, the chair of the Technical Theatre department at the Pinellas Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School and serves at the Costume and Stage Makeup Designer for the program. In her 23 years with PCCA, Trish has coordinated and overseen costuming, hair and makeup needs of student-designed PCCA productions which include The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime, and Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Nutcracker, She Loves Me and many more.
Donnelly received her Associate of Arts from Florida State University and went on to receive her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. At Arrowmount School of Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn., she completed advanced classes in Fiber Arts. Ms. Donnelly has also completed classes in Stage, TV, Film and Historic Makeup Design at the London College of Fashion in London, England, as the result of receiving a 2003 Surdna Arts Teacher Fellowship Grant.
Trish also taught and designed for the education department of The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center’s Community Arts Ensemble from 1999-2004 prior to it becoming The Straz Center. She has also designed for the education departments of The Palladium, and The Hoffman Institute at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
In addition to teaching at PCCA, Ms. Donnelly has taught and worked in many of the performing arts and visual art venues in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, she is the instructor for Fashion Design at the Dali, a high school fashion design program at The Dali Museum.
“Teaching at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High and Fashion at Dali, the Dali Museum high school fashion program, has allowed me to be part of the creative spark for students that have a passion for fashion, costume design and technical theater in general. Graduates of the programs often go on to Technical Theater, Theater Design, and Fashion Design programs for their post-secondary education. Our graduates include: Fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff; Metropolitan Opera wig designer Susanna Knowles; Cirque du Soleil General Stage Manager Alana Clapp; Oslo Theater Assistant Costume Shop Manager/costume designer Jordan Jeffers; Disney costume designer Cindy Rockwell; Disney On Ice costume designer Alicia Skelton; tour, production and stage manager Brian Schrader; production designer and art director Alexander Whittenberg and costume designer Macy Smith Connor Totten, a current PCCA Theatre Design Technology senior, has been selected as the youngest designer to participate in St. Pete Fashion week for the last two years,” says Donnelly of her students, now leaders in their fields.
She still works professionally as a costume designer, designing productions at the Studio at 620, American Stage Theatre Company and the Palladium. Her most recent costume design was for A Doll’s House, Part 2 at Tampa Repertory Theatre. She was awarded the 2012 Jeff Norton Outstanding Costume Design for her Rocky Horror Show design for American Stage Theatre.