Lincoln, Neb.--Caroline Nowak, a third-year Master of Fine Arts graduate student in lighting design, is one of two students nationally to be selected for the prestigious Hemsley Internship for 2025.
Nowak was selected following a portfolio review in New York City at Alvin Ailey Studios in March. This summer she will intern at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera as the assistant lighting designer, working with lighting designer Paul Miller.
“I was over the moon,” Nowak said of her reaction to learning she had earned the internship. “I was shocked and so excited. I’ve been working towards this program for three years, since I got to grad school, so I was overjoyed.”
Michelle Harvey, assistant professor of theatre (lighting design), said the Hemsley Lighting Program is the most prestigious national event in the theatrical world of lighting design.
“The Hemsley Internship is the pinnacle of this event,” she said. “Many students are nominated to attend the program event, but only two are accepted for the internship. I was thrilled to nominate Caroline for the Hemsley Program and beyond proud of her Hemsley internship acceptance. She is not only a lovely designer, but a confident, astute and courteous person, which makes her an exceptional artistic colleague.”
Harvey said Nowak makes the most of every opportunity she is given, including this internship.
“The commitment she has to her craft is beyond commendable,” Harvey said. “Caroline is a thoughtful and intelligent artist, telling dramatic and ambitious stories with her lighting design.”
Nowak said the portfolio review at Alvin Ailey Studios in New York worked similarly to the ones held in the Carson School.
“It was just a big room with all the student tables lined up, and we just hung out at our tables, and people came up and talked to us,” she said. “And it was amazing. I had a lot of really great conversations about design process and how to do clean paperwork and ways that I can improve myself. I think transitioning from student to professional is a really great way to meet people and feel a little more comfortable talking with people.”
Nowak doesn’t know yet specifically what shows she will be doing at her internship with Miller.
“I know that I’m doing a few musicals and a gala with him. I’ll be his assistant lighting designer,” she said. “I know that one of the shows is going on tour so I will go with the first two tour stops to put the show with them, which is really exciting. I’ve never done that before.”
She is looking forward to the experience of working with Miller.
“I’m most looking forward to working with Paul and getting a glimpse into his design process and how his brain works,” she said. “His work is so beautiful, and he’s a really wonderful human, so I’m just excited to work with him and get a poke into the brain of somebody who’s a very successful industry professional and to make those connections. I’ve also never been to Pittsburgh, so that will be fun. I love going to new spaces and new places for theater and working with all new people. It’s so fun.”
Nowak knows she is in select company securing this internship.
“The program itself is a prestigious thing. Gilbert Hemsley was a big deal, and he touched a lot of people’s lives and is one of the modern forefathers of lighting design and lighting education,” she said. “It’s a tight-knit family. There’s a very select few humans who get the opportunity to do it. Going to the portfolio review, I got to meet so many people, and now I have their contact information. When I inevitably move to New York after Pittsburgh, I can say, ‘I met you at Hemsley.’ It just gives me an inherent connection.”
Nowak said designing on Broadway is the ultimate goal.
“I don’t necessarily think that Broadway is a success indicator,” she said. “But to work at that scope and scale is, I think, the goal. A lot of the people I’ve met who work there, love it. It’s so satisfying to be able to reach so many people with theater, which is I think why I’m drawn to growing in scope and scale because I want to reach more people.”
Nowak said she has been doing theatre since she was five years old and started exploring lighting design in high school. She took a stagecraft class, where they did “Little Mermaid.”
“We had talked about all the tech disciplines except lighting design in the class, so I asked about it,” she said. “I asked the teacher, ‘Who is doing the lighting?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, well, you are now that you asked.’ I had no knowledge or experience or anything. Then, once I did that first show, my core memory of why I flipped was we had a DMX-controlled bubble machine, so I could press a button on the console, and the bubbles would go out over the audience, and the kids’ joy and happiness really struck my heart as a teenager. And I was like, ‘I think I want to do this for the rest of my life.’ You get the applause when you’re an actor. But there was just something different about being able to hear that in a different way that I quite literally pressed a button, and they screamed. I knew I wanted to continue with lighting after that.”
Nowak said light is the purest form of energy, in her opinion.
“When we are born, that’s the first thing we respond to is the light,” she said. “There’s this really innate connection that humans have with light, and we are very perceptive to just slight changes in light. And so in a theater world, I am able to , and not in a bad way, but manipulate people’s emotions to try to get them to feel what we’re going for, and I get to enhance the whole stage picture. You could do a show under a work light, and that’s fine. But where’s the artistic quality of that? I get to be a painter. I get to be kind of like a therapist with emotions. I get to do all these different things. I get to direct, in a way, to direct people to look at different things, and so that’s what I love about light. And there are so many options, especially with technology ever-evolving. There’s so many cool things you can do with it.”
Nowak is currently lighting designing the Nebraska Repertory Theatre’s “Urinetown” as her thesis show.
“In my career, I haven’t lit that many musicals, so I was a little nervous about doing ‘Urinetown’ as my thesis, but I trust the powers that be who give me the show assignments to think that I’m ready, and I think I am. I’ve really enjoyed the process.”
While on the Hemsley trip, Nowak attended her first Broadway show, “Boop! The Musical,” which is based on the animated character Betty Boop.
“I saw the Betty Boop musical, which was very much a spectacle, very New York Broadway, which is what I was looking for to fill in the gaps of my knowledge,” she said.
Nowak encourages future lighting students to participate in the Hemsley internship process and portfolio review.
“It is so worth it to apply,” she said. “I am very grateful to the school for sending me. Having that support from the school is paramount for students to have access to be able to show their work. Theater is all about connections. If we aren’t putting ourselves in the room, then you’re not going anywhere. Having that opportunity was just invaluable.”
