While completing her undergraduate degree at the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at UT Dallas, graduating senior and student staffer Bonnie Abbott BA’24 emerged as a well-rounded artist, actively contributing to the Dallas art scene and the University’s art community.
Abbott, a multimedia and technical theatre artist, served UTD Theatre in various roles for more than four years and interned at the Dallas-based public arts organization AURORA, all during her course of mastering experimental photography and animation through her studies in the Bass School’s Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communications (ATEC) program.
“I consider myself an artist through and through, but the traditional art forms never appealed to me,” she said. “I enjoyed the combination of physical and traditional processes. While other universities boasted a comprehensive degree plan, I found that the ATEC program had the capability of teaching me the technical skillset I sought.”
Before starting college, Abbott already had a passion for creating digital art using Adobe Photoshop. After graduating high school in May 2020, she chose to pursue a degree that could further her mastery of digital art outside her hometown of El Paso, Texas. Abbott enrolled in UT Dallas in fall 2020 and quickly became involved with the art scene on campus. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she helped UTD Theatre transition into digital video as an online alternative to live performances.
“We had to pivot and do our fall production, in 2020, as a filmed version of Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said Alex Lorrain-Hill, technical director of theatre at UT Dallas and one of Abbott’s mentors for the past four years. “Her skillset fit right in with the fact that we were going to be filming and editing video all fall.”
As she immersed herself in the UTD Theatre community, Abbott gravitated toward managerial roles in the company’s productions.
“I’ve always kind of liked being behind the scenes,” she said. “Stage management especially is a taxing job, but then you get to stay at the center of the hurricane and see everything flying together all at once. It’s just that moment where everything clicks into place.”
Abbott has enjoyed her employment for the last four years. As a student worker, her duties included building sets and staffing events in the theater. After three years working on the productions, Abbott stepped into the role of stage manager in 2023 with the theatre’s production of #VOICED by Janelle Gray. Since then, she has been the stage manager for four more UTD Theater productions, including Winsor and Gertie, and Newsies.
“It’s a lot of managing the actors and letting them know what time they were supposed to be there, but then on the back end, it was making sure that we had all of the technical elements lined up so I could call a show,” Abbott said. “Calling a show is – you’re on the headset, and you’re telling lighting and sound when a certain cue is supposed to happen.”
Outside of her experience at UT Dallas, Abbott interned with AURORA – a public arts organization in Dallas that aims to create a more accessible future for arts and technology by promoting the works of visionary artists. Over her eight months with AURORA, she designed content, helped create budgets, notated meetings, researched artists, and engaged with communities around Dallas.
In November, Abbott showcased the multifaceted artistic skills she honed at UT Dallas through her capstone project, “Follow the Flowers,” a multimedia presentation that embodied the culmination of her educational experience.
Despite heavy thunderstorms on the night of the showcase, friends, family, faculty, and other spectators gathered at the University Theatre to experience Abbott’s capstone project, captivating blend of experimental photography and animation presented through a rich auditory and visual performance.
For “Follow the Flowers,” Abbott developed images using the chemical reaction that occurs when certain plant matter is combined with photographic film. This experimental photography process develops a phytogram, displaying a mark of the plant matter on black-and-white film.
“You take the basic chemical mixture, and then you expose it to natural sunlight because you’re triggering the photosynthesis in the leaves,” she said.
Abbott scanned her phytograms and overlaid them with intertwining pieces of motion design, creating a unified and dynamic composition. Additionally, she programmed the projectors and arranged a small gallery in the theater of the lobby that displayed the film she developed.
ATEC senior Eli Slack was in the audience that filled the University Theatre for Abbott’s capstone. He and Abbott met in 2023 as classmates in a Projection Mapping course and later worked together in a UTD Theatre production.
“It impresses me so much how she’s able to manage so many moving pieces, especially in Newsies — that was insane,” Slack said. “She did an amazing job making that play happen. She’s just mature, and she knows what she’s doing, and I think that’s very respectable.”
After graduating from UT Dallas, Abbott plans to go to Scotland for two months; after that, she will go to a semi-monastic study community in England to study Pre-Renaissance Christian iconography and its relation to Druidic imagery. After returning to the U.S., she aims to project her art on natural land formations to extend her previous explorations on the interaction between humanity and Earth.
“It’s just been great to see someone who I had confidence in – to see her step into those roles and excel at them,” said Lorrain-Hill. “I know that she will go on to do great things when she leaves here.”
Student Assistant
Olivia is a communications assistant who works alongside the creative team to showcase the incredible talent of the Bass School Community. When she’s not photographing events or attending classes—she loves to write sci-fi fantasy fiction stories and play D&D.