The Artist

Dustin Uhl has quarter century of theatrical experience encompassing over 175 shows in his theatre career. He has designed scenery for over 100 shows. His in the field knowledge and ability far exceeds the standard, mastering the world of scenery.

Dustin Uhl grew up in a creative family of creators and builders. As a child he worked with his father and built 2 original "A" frame homes and worked in the family auto-body shop. He worked with one grandfather who previous owned a road construction company, a developer, and maintained large plots of property. His other grandfather taught him carpentry on many small projects. From a young age Dustin was a creator building various art projects. In high school Dustin excelled at art, tech ed, computers, geometry, and physics. Near the end of high school he started a DJ company for his love of entertaining people, music, and the ability to understand technology.

In college, 1988, Dustin Uhl excelled in a new environment. Realizing he alone had to come up with the finances to pay tuition he expanded his work. With new contacts and sales he expanded his DJ business to include more high schools, colleges, weddings, and special celebrations. He improved the sound, lighting, and effects. Dustin was pursuing a degree in Art at the time, so he took on an open position of set designer for University Theatre. He was immediately thrust into design, construction, and leading student carpenters and painters. He also became involved with Theater for Young Audiences in there founding year as their set designer. One summer he was hired as a carpenter for the John Michaels Kohler Arts center, which taught him much about how scenery and theatre is created in a professional setting.

In 1990 Dustin Uhl went to study art and industrial design at UW-Stout. Immediately as arriving he was hired to supervise the art processes lab. This was the workshop that all the art students used on campus to create sculptural projects from wood and metal. From there he was hired as an assistant to an industrial design professor to assistant in correcting and grading student art. I learned more about art from this one professor than all the other art professors combined. The second year Dustin was one out of two people taken from the industrial design program to work as an industrial designer for a incubator company called Schmidt Prototypes. Dustin designed motorcycle aftermarket products, medical instrument cases and water toys. Finding his work was becoming too repetitive and decided to switch directions. After experimenting in business and theatre, he decided in complete his degree in theatre. Whenever he had the time, Dustin continued to work for UW-Sheboygan's University Theatre and Theatre for Young Audiences.

In 1993 he studied at UW-Whitewater for theatre with a concentration in set design, with a minor in Art. Originally he was offer the position of a theatre technician in the Irving Young Auditorium, but instead took a carpentry position for the campus theatre. He learned more detail the steps to create and manage theatre. He directed, performed, and designed. The second year he was promoted to the house properties master. The summer of 1994 he was hired by University Theatre of UW-Madison to be a properties carpenter. From that position he learned much about shop efficiency and rigging. He also worked for Alpine Valley on a Jimmy Buffet show as a video technician.

Immediately after graduation in 1995 Dustin Uhl worked as a properties master for the professional theatre company, Seaside Music Theatre, in Daytona Beach, Florida. He supervised 2 staff members with budgets in the thousands of dollars. Many props were designed and created by Dustin. He also worked as a sound operator, with a sound designer from Disney.

He returned to Wisconsin to pursue set design. He continued to do set design for UW-Sheboygan, Theatre for Young Audiences, and UW-Manitowoc. To help pay the bills he worked for Times Printing and then started an antique business. He sought antiques and collectables and area rummage sales and resold them in rented mall spaces. My most memorial buy was a French baroque dining room set that was sold to a French couple visiting the American Club, and shipped overseas. The theatre business expanded in the Milwaukee area to include providing props for Next Act Theatre, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, and carpentry work for Bayview Players. My network of connections lead me to be the interim set designer and technical director for Concordia University, at their technical director was recovering from a heart condition.

In 1997 Dustin received a call from a past professor indicating the technical director/designer position opened at The Sheboygan Theatre Company. Dustin applied and was immediately hired for 1 year. The position was reposted and Dustin remained the best candidate. As his hours increased at STC, he decreased other contract work, until eventually eliminating it. Dustin has done all the set design for The Sheboygan Theatre Company, which is one of the primary reasons why I still enjoyed working with the company. Ralph Maffongelli as a director was one of the best he's ever worked with. Ralph had a clear plan early in the process, was consistent with the plan, gave designers flexibility to make decisions, and was wonderful at positively reinforcing all the volunteers. We were the most successful when we were producing shows our audiences wanted to see. When you produce the right show, while pursuing quality, and house is packed, you have succeeded. STC's succeeds also because of its many dedicated volunteers and its partnership with the Sheboygan Area School District.