Program: SCENIC DESIGN

Antonio Troy Ferron

BFA SCENIC DESIGN, 2020

Antonio Troy Ferron has had a successful, award-winning career as a set designer and art director in television, film and live theatre. Shortly after graduating from CMU School of Drama, Antonio won the Black Theatre Network’s Judy Dearing Student Design Competition for Scenic Design, for which he submitted his undergrad work on the School of Drama productions of “Pilgrims” and “Desdemona’s Child.”

Antonio is currently the Assistant Art Director for the television series “Bel-Air”, starring fellow CMU alum Simone Joy Jones. Additional television credits include “Archive 81” (Netflix), The “Last Thing He Told Me” (Apple TV+), and “Disco Inferno” (Netflix). In addition to his film work he maintains an active theatrical design career, designing sets for regional theatres across the country, including Asolo Repertory Theatre and Ocala Civic Theatre. 

Jessica Kender

BHA THEATER DESIGN & MARKETING, 1997

Jessica Kender has had a busy career on stage and screen since graduating from CMU’s BHA Theater Design/Marketing program in 1997. She began her career as a scenic artist, painting for shows on and Off-Broadway. She then moved to Los Angeles, where for the last 19 years she has worked as a production designer and set decorator in film and television. 

Some of Jessica’s notable credits include Amazon’s “Daisy Jones & the Six”, for which she earned Emmy and Art Directors Guild nominations, Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Future Man” (Art Directors Guild nominees), HBO’s “The Brink”, Showtime’s “Dexter”, Shondaland’s “The Catch” and “Station 19”, NBC’s “Medium” and FOX’s “Life in Pieces”, along with feature film “Soaked in Bleach”. For her work on “Daisy Jones…” she won the 2023 Set Decorators Society of America Award for Best Achievement in Decor/Design of a Television Movie or Limited Series. 

Alana Billingsley

BFA SCENIC DESIGN, 2004

A 2004 graduate of the School of Drama’s BFA Scenic Design program, Alana Billingsley has extensive experience as a television and live event art director. Her work has been featured on several awards shows over the years, including the Grammys, Golden Globes and Oscars. She, alongside Misty Buckley, co-designed the Oscars stage at the Dolby Theatre in 2023. It was the first time that two women had been commissioned to create the stage design, which was inspired by the Golden Age of Hollywood and classic American movie theaters. 

Alana is a four-time Emmy Award winner and has been nominated 11 times.

Bryce Cutler

BFA SCENIC DESIGN, 2013

Bryce Cutler is a scenic and media designer based out of Pittsburgh. His work has been seen on Broadway, at The Public Theater, The Guthrie Theater, Seattle Rep, New York Stage and Film, Pioneer Theater Company, Westport Country Playhouse, The Pittsburgh Public Theater, Drury Lane Theater and Pittsburgh CLO, among others. He has designed world premieres by John Patrick Shanley, Dael Orlandersmith, Matt Aucoin and Grammy Award Winner Steven Mackey, as well as served as the art director for Comedy Central’s @Midnight NYC. 

Bryce is the recipient of the USITT Rising Star Award (2017), a 2019 Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase Finalist, winner of the Lloyd Weinger Award for Stage Design and his design for “The Lady In Red…” was selected for international exhibition at the 2015 Prague Quadrennial. His work has also been published in the Contemporary Performance Almanac.

He is a co-founder of Third Space, a political theater collective creating experiential performances in community spaces, and he has served as a special visiting faculty in the School of Drama’s scenic design program.

Vivienne Liu

MFA SCENIC DESIGN, 2018

Vivienne Liu has had an incredibly busy career as a stage set designer, art director and production designer since graduating from the School of Drama’s MFA Scenic Design program in 2018. She has several notable NYC credits as a set design associate, including “Skeleton Crew” at Manhattan Theatre Club (which received a Tony Award nomination), “Hercules” at Paper Mill Playhouse, and the upcoming Broadway premiere of “Yellow Face” at Roundabout Theatre Company, written by Tony winner and three-time Pulitzer finalist David Henry Hwang (“M. Butterfly”). 

Vivienne has several production design and art direction credits in the world of film, television and commercials as well, including seasons 2 and 3 of Netflix’s “The Night Agent” and upcoming feature films “Worlds Within Worlds” and “Chinese School.”

Paul Molina

MFA SCENIC DESIGN, 2024

A 2024 graduate of the MFA Scenic Design program, Paul Molina is a Salvadoran artist and designer who combines his experience in scenic design and interior architecture to create narrative spaces of childhood play. 

During his time at CMU, Molina designed the sets for productions including “A Little Night Music” and “Babel” in the School of Drama and the opera “Looking at You” in the School of Music. He is also the recipient of the 2024 Cody Renard Richard Scholarship, which supports the next generation of theater-makers of color working behind the scenes.

He recently received a Fulbright research grant, which he will use to spend nine months in Mexico City to work on a public art installation responding to the family displacement and gentrification caused by recent Airbnb rentals to digital nomads. 

Chen-Wei Liao

MFA SCENIC DESIGN, 2018

Chen-Wei Liao is a New York City based scenic designer originating from Taipei, Taiwan who received her MFA in Scenic Design from CMU in 2018. 

A designer with experience across theatre, film and exhibition, Chen-Wei’s theatre credits include the world premiere of “Islands of Contentment”, produced by The Tank and The Hypokrit Theatre Company; the world premiere of “Three Musketeers 1941”, produced by Project Y Theatre and featured by the Woman in Theatre Festival (WIT); “The Skin Of Our Teeth” and “The Importance of Being Earnest” with the Phoenix Festival, the NYT critic’s picks “A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing” with the Irish Rep; “Murder on the Orient Express” with the Cape Playhouse; “Jersey Boys” with the Maltz Jupiter Theatre and more. Her credits as a production designer for film include “Lovers” (YiFei He), “Exchange” (Coca-Cola Regal Films), and “Freedom Shadow”, a 2020 Tribeca Film Festival selection directed by Ria Tabaccowala. 

Nate Bertone

BFA SCENIC DESIGN, 2016

Nate’s concentration in the School of Drama was scenic design, and that training has helped him create a multifaceted career in the arts. 

As a director, writer, set designer, and producer, Nate has built an internationally acclaimed career bringing stories to the stage. In 2024, he directed and designed the Australian tour of a brand-new “Alice in Wonderland” adaptation, and a production of the new musical “Finding Nemo” for The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati. His work has been seen on world premieres of new musicals such as “Mystic Pizza,” based on the MGM film and Florida Georgia Line’s “May We All.” He works with companies including Disney Theatrical, Sony Masterworks and Google and on stages across the country.

On Broadway, he recently produced “How to Dance in Ohio,” a story of seven young adults with autism navigating adulthood. He is also a longtime collaborator of Tony Award-winning scenic designer Beowulf Boritt, serving as his associate on “Be More Chill” (West End/Japan), “Crazy for You” (LCT), “Superhero” (2ST), and assistant for “New York, New York,” “Freestyle Love Supreme,” and “A Bronx Tale,” all on Broadway. 

He has also written a new children’s book “Nana, Nana” which aims to help families open a dialogue about aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and loss through the lens of a child’s imagination. 

Nate’s new play, “The SeaView Nursing Home for the Newly Deceased,” is in development with Broadway producers attached ahead of an upcoming out-of-town tryout. His musical “Letters from War,” which began at Carnegie Mellon in Playground, will receive an industry presentation in New York City this year.

Nate was celebrated by CMU as one of the 2024 Tartans on the Rise.