USITT is excited to announce our USITT25 Student Ambassadors.

The Student Ambassador Program is co-sponsored by the Fellows and the International Activities Committee. The program pairs Student Members with our international presenters each year at our Annual Conference & Stage Expo. They then have the opportunity for individual conversations about understanding and working in theatre abroad. This year’s winners will meet the international guests in person for discussions about theatre design, training, and opportunities in Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and Mexico.

Sebastian Zavalza

Sebastian Zavalza from Mexico is an MFA candidate in Scenic Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He has also studied in Italy and had a design included in the exhibition in the recent OISTAT confluence in Bucharest, Romania. He believes art transcends language barriers and is seeking a career designing internationally. He will be meeting with Chris Van Goetham, a technical theatre consultant from Belgium who has compiled the Canon Project, a timeline of the 100 most significant practices, technologies, people, places, artifacts, and buildings in technical theatre history. The Canon is a representation of the history of theatre technology as European cultural heritage in a dynamic, engaging, and varied way using modern technologies.

Emi Cerro

Emi Cerro is a BFA student at University of Montana. With a high-level of curiosity and passion, her focus is on costume crafts and puppetry, including stop motion animation. She is going to Japan this summer for additional training and to determine where to go for her next degree. Emi is paired with Palestinian Lebanese visual designer, Lina Younes. Lina has explored puppetry and stop-motion animation in the Gulf, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Her work is about freezing moments, replaying them, changing scenarios, playing out consequences, and then repeating. She creates worlds with one eye shut and an index finger as her wand.

Mallory Furgal

Mallory Furgal is an undergraduate at Allegheny College with a double major in theatre/scenic design/stage management, and environmental science. She plans to combine those two fields to make a difference in sustainability in theatre and has already shown her strength for leadership. Mallory will spend time with Aris Pretelin-Esteves, a Mexican vegan scenographer, costume designer, and scenic artist who cares deeply about animals, plants, insects, humans, objects, and places. She creates open scenographic actions that promote opportunities for humans and nature to connect with one another and participate in the recovery of public spaces.

Daniel Ruiz Bustos

Daniel Ruiz Bustos is a proud Mexican designer in the MFA program at University of Texas Austin. He already has developed cross-cultural connections with the National Circus School in Montreal. His thesis, entitled Esceneographia Viva (Live Scenography), envisions design that transforms through projections, kinetic structures, and the body in motion to shape stories as they unfold. Daniel will meet with Dr. Tanja Beer, an ecological designer, community artist, and Senior Lecturer in Design at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Australia. Tanja’s latest projects seek to re-think traditional design practices and re-interpret materials to embrace the possibilities of ‘ecoscenography’ – a movement that integrates ecological principles into all stages of scenographic thinking and production.

The Student Ambassador Program is held annually at the USITT Conference & Stage Expo with its application period closing in January of each conference year. All Student Members are invited to apply with a statement, resume, examples of their work, and a recommendation from a mentor. Students selected receive complimentary Conference registration.