Furnishing Your Backdrop

Susan Crabtree is scenic artist, scenic designer, and the co-author of Scenic Art for the Theatre: History, Tools, and Techniques. Crabtree received an M.A. in Theatre with a technical emphasis at the University of Northern Colorado. She studied painting and history for 3 months at the Italian Fine Arts Conservatory La Poggerina.

Susan has worked as Scenic Artist for over 40 years, including Denver Center Theatre, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Indiana Repertory, Tobins Lake Studios, Wichita Music Theatre, University of Michigan, Indiana Starlight Theatre, Kenmark, Inc..

In 1987 Susan began teaching Scenic Painting at the University of Michigan, adding the responsibility of Paint Shop Manager in 1991 to her teaching responsibilities. It was during her tenure in Michigan that Susan and Peter Beudert agreed to co-author Scenic Art for the Theatre. Susan relocated back to Denver in 1998 to devote herself fulltime to her business, Crabtree Scenic and Specialty Painting. That business is now located in Susan’s 7000 sq. ft. shop in northwest Arkansas. Currently during the academic year, Susan is faculty at the University of North Carolina School for the Arts. She took over as Director of the Scenic Art Program from Howard Jones. In 2025 the position of Director will pass to her colleague Rebecca Pancoast.

Fascinated with the history of scenic art, Susan has done research into 18th and 19th century backdrop design and painting. The goal of this research is to find caches of images and a means of making scenic art history accessible others while helping to piece together the story of our profession. To this end, Susan has viewed and studied collections at the Lee Lash Institute in Columbus Ohio, The Museum of the City of New York, the library archives at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities, Theatre of the Fraternity), the Lyric Opera Collection, the Theatre Museum in Covent Gardens, the Victoria Albert Museum, the Uffizi in Florence Italy, The Museum Archives of the Teatro Olympico and the Pinacoteca in Vecenza Italy.”