Brandon PT Davis: Invisible Design.
Skene Staff
Brandon PT Davis is a scenic designer whose research-driven practice builds spaces that dissolve into story and earn their invisibility.
Brandon PT Davis is a scenic designer whose research-driven practice builds spaces that dissolve into story and earn their invisibility.
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Theatre has always been a space for connection, transformation, and shared experience, and few understand this better than Estefanía Pérez-Vera. As a scenic designer and scenic artist, she has dedicated her career to crafting immersive environments that bring stories to life, creating spaces where audiences can collectively experience the power of performance. From an early age, she was captivated by the way theatre, dance, music, and film could unite strangers in a singular moment of connection. The realization that storytelling could be a profession was a defining moment—one that set her on an unwavering path toward the world of scenic design.
Her journey, however, has been filled with challenges. Facing gender stereotypes, economic obstacles, and industry competition, Pérez-Vera forged her own way, driven by a deep belief in the impact of her work. Her creative process is fluid and ever-evolving, rooted in research, experimentation, and a constant openness to inspiration. Guided by mentors and a keen awareness of theatre’s role in reflecting society, she approaches each project with both artistic and social responsibility.
In this interview, Estefanía Pérez-Vera shares her insights on overcoming obstacles, finding inspiration in unexpected places, and staying true to her artistic vision in the ever-evolving world of scenic design.
The spark that made me want to work in the performing arts started from a very early age for me. I’ve always thought there is something very special about experiences such as seeing a play, a dance, attending a music concert, and even watching a film at a movie theatre on the big screen. It is not only an individual connection between you and the performance, but between you and the rest of the audiences members in the room with you. The communal experience there can be very powerful. The fact that a group of complete strangers could share, for a moment of time, a connection to both the message of the performance and to each is something quite unique. Outside the theatre, all these people have their own ideologies, their different beliefs and even contrasting ways of being. But inside that performing space, when having that moment of connection with the work and with one another, for such a brief instant, none of that mattered. A long as I can remember, I felt drawn to the performing arts for that reason. The moment I learned that one could work in the performing arts as a profession –that being a storyteller could be an actual job I could do for a living– , that changed everything for me. Since then, every single decision I’ve made in my life has been to accomplish that dream of working for the theatre.
I would love to say that I have cracked the creative process! That somehow, following a certain routine or doing specific things at a specific time will make the muse come to me at will. Unfortunately, that is not my case. Every project I’ve worked on has had a different creative approach, and has demanded very different steps for me to follow before yelling “Eureka!” If I had to pinpoint some constants in the process, I would say there is always a lot of research, and a ton of trial and error. My first conceptual response to a new project or my first iteration of a floor plan hardly ever resemble the final outcome for the design. And by now, I’ve come to terms with that. It is actually quite liberating. I know I just need to rip the bandage and start researching, sketching, scratching, and do it all over and over again. The muse will come, but it always needs to find me working
My biggest challenge has been managing to make my way through towards my dream. In my journey, I’ve had to fight against gender stereotypes, socio-economic struggles, prejudice, and high competition versus little opportunities. I think many people will understand what I’m talking about. The many voices yelling at you “art is not a real job,” “you’re gonna starve/you’re gonna be broke if you go down that path,” “you don’t have any connections in the industry,” “you are not strong enough, they are gonna chew you up and spit you out alive;” those voices are all around us and they never stop. Very early, I understood that this career path I had chosen wouldn’t be easy –at some points, it didn’t even seem possible,– and that I would have to either surrender to the exhaustion and the frustration, or pick it all up and keep going anyway. I always had it very clear in my mind why I was doing all that effort, a strong belief of why I wanted to work in the performing arts. I worked with what I had in order to forge my own path. And what I had was of no little value. My parents, for example, always took my dream seriously and taught me to think outside the box in order to find ways to align what I had at hand with what I wanted to achieve. I think that their love and support gave me a lot of strength during the darkest hours. It still does.
As my mentor, Randy Ward, always tells me, inspiration is all around us. Inspiration can be found anywhere: in the good, in the bad, in nature, in a dirty alley, on top of a mountain or during a bus ride. It just depends on how aware you are of your surroundings. I keep that in mind all the time. To me, inspiration is not a thing I can turn on and off, like a switch. The way I constantly get inspired is by keeping my eyes, mind, and heart always open, never turning that switch off.
One of the most fundamental characteristics of theatre is how it is, and has always been, deeply connected to the social, economic, and political environment it is conceived within. As such, theatre has not only the opportunity, but the responsibility to make a statement about what is happening around us in all of those aspects. Some say that if you really want to know what’s going on, the theatre will give you better answers than any news article. In that regard, I am excited to see what our theatre makers and storytellers have to say about our current global environment.
My advice to any aspiring artist or anyone who wishes to dedicate themselves to a creative discipline would be to have a very clear sense of purpose. Ask yourselves why you want to do it, be as honest as possible. That reason must be powerful enough for you to keep *you* going. There will be hardships. You will often be questioned, criticized, and judged for your decision by others and sometimes even by yourself. But if you believe that what you’re choosing to do, that working in the arts is where you are meant to be, then keep going. If that is where your happiness lies, keep going. Whatever you do, do it in complete alignment and honesty towards yourself. And if no one has told you this before, I believe in you and I believe you can do it.
My hope is that my work can do for someone, anyone, what others’ work has done for me. Inside the theatre, I experienced the voices of many who seemed to scream in unison from the stage “you are not alone. You might be strange, but so are we, and we understand what you feel.” If anything I do can speak to one person the way these works spoke to me before, then I would consider my work worth it and meaningful.
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