Wardrobe Assistant for Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway
New York, New York
Theatre major 2007
With an extensive background in theater, Prather is now a wardrobe assistant for Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway in New York City. Not all swanky opening nights and rubbing elbows with celebrities (though there have been several of those), Prather says there are also day-to-day piles of sweaty actor socks and underwear. In between working, she spends time abroad, she says, “seeing the vast world that God clearly delighted in creating all the fun little details.”
How does your time at SPU connect to the work you’re doing today?
What I most appreciated about my time at SPU in the Theater program is that we hit the ground running. The first week, you find a groove within one of the many departments putting together the fall show and the year is constant motion toward putting the show up — while learning countless skills in the process. Everything was related to a practical skill and the Theater Department is both big enough to put on really spectacular shows and small enough to allow you to expand your horizons. At SPU, we put on so many professional-quality productions a year that I learned quickly how to have a professional attitude, how to work long hours, how to make work fun, and how to get a really amazingly large amount of work done.
Who made a difference in your SPU education?
Don Yanik was, in my time, the Theatre chair, the Costume Shop overseer, did most of the designing, and was — and remains — my most beloved mentor. He had a truly gifted eye to look at a costume and see what little piece was missing to make it complete, as well as a phenomenal eye to suss-up wobbly little freshmen and see their true potential. He pushed me every day of my time at SPU, demanding my hardest work and teaching me to be unsatisfied with “good enough.”
What advice do you have for students about life after graduation?
God has some truly phenomenal things in store for you. You’ve just had some amazing training and education in your field, your brain is full of information and skills it’s dying to use, and the whole vast world is out there just screaming out for you like fangirls at a Justin Bieber concert.
