The director with nine lives

By Sydney Homerstad

Michelle Ferrier has been the tech director at Crockett for seven years. To many, she may seem like an ordinary teacher, but she has years of experience and countless stories hidden up her sleeve.

Her students often rumor that she has nine lives…

Ferrier first began her career in high school, playing a waitress in a movie, as well as partaking in a Subaru commercial in 1987 during their “going places in the south” era.

Upon graduating, she went to the University of Memphis for three years as a vocal performance major. She decided college was “not her thing,” so she got married and went overseas with her husband to study voice with a private tutor in Germany, where he was stationed. That is how she got involved in military community theater.

Ferrier would go on to stay in Germany for four years, directing and performing with members of the military and German nationals alike.

Then she and her husband returned to the United States, and she was hired to run community theater at Fort Irwin in California for two and a half years, which is actually where she first directed this year’s musical, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

This is where she participated in her first competition against about fifty other military base community theaters from all around the world. They swept the competition with the musical, winning awards like Best Direction, Best Overall Group, Best Set, and Best Actor, Actress and Supporting Character.

From there, she went to New York to get a degree in theater and English literature. She started at Rockland community college. There, she would take around 24 credit hours a semester, and during the summer she would perform with their Shakespeare company.

She graduated with an Associate’s degree, then went to SUNY New Paltz. Ferrier ended up with enough credits to have a minor in English literature, studio art, German language and voice, and a double-major in theater direction and theater design. In addition to that, she worked for her undergraduate professor for two years as his scenic charge and assistant designer, and professionally as a designer for three years.

That’s when she became an after-school director for a middle school for three years before moving to Austin to go to graduate school at UT for design. To add to her list of accomplishments, Ferrier is also a member of The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which means that she can work professionally as a stagehand, and in the past, she has.

Then in 2009, her son began attending Crockett as a cross-country runner and theatre tech. Ferrier says the first time he came home from school, he told her, “Mom… Tech needs help.”

Ferrier decided that she would come to see a show, and described a choir concert where the stage lights cut off at the heads of the performers. Then upon seeing Crockett’s production of Greater Tuna, she decided to step in.

“The lights were hitting the walls, the stage, they were everywhere,” she said, laughing. “We came home, and I looked at my son, and I said, ‘Okay, we’ll come help.’”

Volunteering at Crockett made Ferrier see that other schools had similar shortages in theatre; even schools like Covington and Bowie. As a result, Ferrier partnered with another UT student to start a small company called Doghouse Productions.

“We wanted the students to have access to … the same level of technology that places like Westlake have,” she said.

“The idea of Doghouse Productions was for us to come in and either augment what [technology] was needed, give feedback, teach, train the teachers, train the students, and then to create a company where students … that go through the [Crockett] tech program can jump off of here and go to work at the Union downtown, the Bass Concert Hall downtown, the Erwin Center downtown, or the Convention Center downtown… And they do. They leave here and are trained enough to go to work, and they have.”

When she interviewed to become the official tech director at Crockett in 2011, she was quickly hired.

Her first year, she had nine varsity techs, and only thirty other students dispersed between three other classes. By 2020, she had thirty-six varsity technicians, and every one of her introductory tech classes was full.

Last year, the program took a massive hit.

“Because of the pandemic, we lost a lot of varsity technicians, both with graduation and because we didn’t have anything last year.”

However, this year, every one of her tech classes is full again, and she is back up to 13 varsity technicians.

On top of that, Ferrier has been running the acting side of the program as well after her counterpart stepped down this year. Her business partner, Katy Hallee, is a long-time volunteer of the program and the permanent substitute for the rest of the year.

Ferrier won teacher of the month in January, and she ran two shows just after recovering from surgery.

“Even though we’re trying to do two shows at once — and that makes my life like…nuts — it’s fun. It’s fun, and yes it’s exhausting. It is mentally and physically exhausting and probably not what I should be doing after surgery, but I wouldn’t have changed it, not for the world.”

The first production was a musical that was nominated for Best Scenic Design and Best Supporting Actress in the annual Heller Awards for Young Artists. Then the annual UIL One Act Play made second place in Zone, third in District, and competed in Bi-District on March 23rd but unfortunately did not advance.

Seven of her actors won highly-esteemed acting awards. Senior Chase Collins was awarded Best Actor out of the four schools that competed at the Zone level.

Additionally, two of Ferrier’s technicians won awards. The third was unable to compete at the Bi-District level due to being sick, so an actor had to learn how to do lighting overnight and won an award for it.

Ferrier is always looking for new varsity members.

“I don’t mind moving people over to varsity if they are willing to work. The Tech 1 class is great for people who just want to come in and try things out, see what they like because it’s basically an overview class. You get to see every single area — a little bit of each one … whereas varsity, you go in and you go, ‘Okay, we’re working on this production for the next month.’”

Reflecting back on this year, Ferrier said, “The biggest issue for me was … our lives have been so…literally separated from each other. My goal wasn’t so much about getting the musical together as it was getting this department together and getting you all thinking together.”

Ferrier and her students both agree that they have exceeded this goal and cannot wait to see what happens next year.

To stay updated on Crockett Varsity Theatre, follow them on Instagram @crockett.theatre!