Theatre Company of Bryan-College Station
Director: Adrienne Dobson
Asst Director: Savannah Barrera
Set Design: Tyler Lewis
Asst Set Design: Kathryn Thomas
Costume Design: Shannon Van Zandt & Allie Byrd-Turner
Scenic Charge: Maleah Miller
Puppet Team: Tony Upton, Jay Figueroa, Maleah Miller, & Shannon Van Zandt
Production photos by Vivian Vu
Dragon is one of my favorite theatrical projects I've ever gotten my little paintbrushes on. She is 100% bespoke, designed and built in-house by a talented team of local artists: Tony Upton built the puppet mechanism and operated her onstage, Shannon Van Zandt sewed her wings and tail, and Jay Figueroa and I served as her glam/paints team. My specific responsibilities included building out her form with carved spray foam and paper mache and painting her scales. Some of her scales are 3D cardboard and the rest are completely flat, and I am proud to say it's quite difficult to tell from a distance which are which. That said, undoubtedly my favorite part of Dragon is her novelty-car-headlight eyelashes, carefully trimmed, shaped, and applied by yours truly.
Cardboard shell built by Tony Upton
Sculpting spray foam
Adding eyes, eyelids, and paper mache
Base coat done!
Painting scales and adding foam horns and ears
Shrek @ TTC 2026
