The scene shop of Kirkpatrick Fine Arts Center has one less artist this year.
Debra Elizabeth Hicks, scenic charge artist, retired from OCU in May. Hicks worked with OCU for about 10 years as a scenic charge artist, scenic artist and scenic designer. She worked as faculty at OCU and received her Master of Public Administration in Technical Theatre from OCU in 1995.
“After I graduated, I taught in Louisiana for three years, and then I came back here,” she said. “I did a bunch of different union work. I then worked in the Alley Theatre in Houston for about 10 years and thought I was going to retire after that. Then they called me up and asked me if I wanted to come home.”
Hicks has memories of working with Alumna Kristin Chenoweth.
“She would come to strike in heels,” she said. “It’s because she was so used to dressing up for her lessons. We would just give her a broom. She was just lost, but she was a sweet girl.”
Hicks said, after all this time, her favorite thing about OCU was the students.
“The students have enlarged my life,” she said. “I have a hard time in social situations with people my age because I’m so used to being around people who are younger. You talk about different things. You’re interested in different things. I don’t feel I’m in a box. I’m not crazy about the music, though.”
Her post-retirement plans include heading to New Orleans to work in film.
“I have an agent,” she said. “I’m planning on acting and doing extra work. My family is there, so that’s the best place for me to go. I’ve been on film sets. I know what’s going on, so they don’t have to teach me how to go and when to go.”
Hicks said she plans to move this month. She also recently spent three months in New Orleans recovering from back surgery.
“I was learning how to walk again,” she said. “I came up in theater when there weren’t a lot of women, and it’s a different culture. You’re trying to outdo the men, and you’re trying to prove that you can lift as much as they can. Everyone I came up with now has their bodies shot because they didn’t ask for help.”
Hicks said she hopes to impart life lessons to OCU students.
“I want them to remember me as ‘Mama Deb,’” she said. “I hope they learn to take care of themselves. Theater is such a collaborative effort. You have to have an ego big enough to believe that you can do it, but also an ego small enough to collaborate. You can’t have any fear.”
Onnika Hanson, acting senior, worked in the scene shop with Hicks for two years and said she remembers her fondly.
“I love Deb. She was incredibly helpful,” Hanson said. “She taught me a lot about scene painting and was incredibly fun to work with.”
Carleigh Wagner, design and production senior, said Hicks played a large role in her artistic life.
“I think Deb has made a huge impact in my life just as basically my adopted grandma,” Wagner said. “We take care of each other, and she has been the best mentor.”
Wagner said Hicks helped her last summer when she worked with Creede Repertory Theatre in Colorado.
“She helped me get ready and always answered her phone the times I called this summer with the ‘Deb, I don’t know what I’m doing’ speech,” she said. “I could have never done it without what all Deb had taught me.”
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