Art through lived experiences: Carolyn Dell ’26, a film, television, and theatre major

The original article was written by Hailey Oppenlander for the College of Arts & Letters website.

Carolyn Dell’s career path was ignited by a fireworks show.

As a sophomore in high school, Dell’s father—who worked in theme parks entertainment—gave her the opportunity to program part of a fireworks show at Six Flags.

Dell watched as her art lit up the sky and became the backdrop for a couple’s surprise engagement. That’s when she knew that, no matter what, she needed to continue making art.

“That memory is going to be part of their lives forever,” Dell said. “And I’m always going to be part of their lives through this work.”

What she didn’t know was that live entertainment would turn into the heart of her Notre Dame journey.

Over the last four years, the film, television, and theatre major has brought her skills and passion to stage management and directing roles across campus, including through the Pasquerilla East Musical Company (PEMCo), Shakespeare at Notre Dame, the Not-So-Royal Shakespeare Company (NSR), and the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre itself.

Though it meant long days heading from class to rehearsals, Dell was motivated by that same feeling that gripped her during the fireworks show—becoming part of people’s lives through a unique moment of connection.

“Whether it’s your hometown parade or a professional Broadway show, you’re connecting over a shared experience,” Dell said. “And that’s the important thing—having that shared human experience with other people’s lives in a moment that can’t be recreated.”

Learning to ‘just do the thing’

Born in South Bend but raised in San Antonio, Dell described her return to northern Indiana and Notre Dame’s campus as a homecoming.

“This place is just different, and you can feel it in person,” she said.

Early on as an undergraduate, Dell met with faculty members like television associate teaching professor Michael Kackman, who serves as the department director of undergraduate studies, who encouraged her to follow her passions.

Initially considering a history major, Dell found the FTT major and her liberal arts education satisfied her interests through its interdisciplinary approach.

“You learn the practical, hard skills that you need to be successful in the industry, but you also cultivate your breadth of history with gender studies classes, history classes, math classes,” she said. “So that you’re able to more successfully interact with the art you’re making.”

From her very first semester, Dell was encouraged by her professors to “do the thing,” a phrase that Matt Hawkins, director of theatre and musical theatre and associate professor of the practice, is known for saying.

In her first year, Dell served as assistant stage manager for the department’s Steel Magnolias production. Though Dell was among the youngest members of the crew, she said, everyone was eager to share advice and help her discover her place.

“I never expected to have that level of responsibility in the department already,” she said. “But the professors were just so accommodating to my interests and my drive to want to be involved, to want to learn more.”

Dell was immediately drawn to the stage manager position because it allowed her to combine her self-described “type A” personality with her passion for art.

Stage managers handle everything from calling cast members to rehearsals and fittings, making sure props are in the right place, and even solving emergencies the day of the show—all in service of a smooth production.

“You’re helping people create what they love,” she said.

Soon, Dell wasn’t just helping others create—she was taking on a lead creative role. Dell was selected as the student director for the department’s fall show in her junior year. She pitched and directed The Game’s Afoot; or Holmes for the Holiday, a comedic murder-mystery.

“In stage management, I always say your creative process is making everyone else’s art cohesive into one vision for a live audience at the same time,” she said. “While directing is standing back and telling everyone, ‘this is our goal and our direction, let’s see what you make.’”

Dell enjoyed the process so much that she also directed Little Shop of Horrors for PEMCo the following fall. She even added a minor in musical theatre to better understand how to give meaningful directions and feedback for singers.

Though Dell’s time in theatre has been predominantly behind the scenes, her capstone project for the minor, advised by Hawkins, brought her own perspective to the stage. In a one-act performance, Dell recalled sequences from the campus productions she participated in, with footage from those productions playing behind her.

Dell said Hawkins gave her the encouragement and support to tell her own story and connect directly with the audience in a new way.

“That’s something that’s really special about this department—all the faculty, all of the staff as well, and all of the students are so excited to create and make new things,” she said. “And they are willing to help each other out to do those things.”

Gaining real-world experience

Though summer breaks could have been an intermission from Dell’s busy campus life, she stayed engaged with internships and gained real-world experience across themed entertainment and equity theatre productions.

Inspired by her family’s work, Dell spent a summer as a stage manager for musical shows and live entertainment attractions at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, and the next summer, she served as assistant stage manager of a union theatre production through the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival.

“It gives students the opportunity to participate in this professional environment with professional standards as a summer internship,” Dell said.

In 2025, Dell interned at cruise line Royal Caribbean—a role she continued remotely, part-time, through her senior year. She applied her project management skills to a corporate live entertainment by consolidating wardrobe inventory, coordinating booking needs for auditions, and more.

“Notre Dame really set me up to get all those internships, and to also be able to have the ability to access a lot of opportunities postgrad,” Dell said.

After graduation, Dell will begin a project management internship at Electronic Theater Controls, a company that designs and manufactures lighting equipment for live entertainment venues across the country.

Long-term, she sees herself staying in project or stage management, perhaps even going on tour with productions. And one day, she hopes to create her own productions—an idea that excited her in assistant professor Sarah Gitenstein’s class, Acting and Directing New Work for the Stage.

“Theater is always changing and evolving, and collaborating with playwrights is how you move the industry forward,” she said. “I’m excited to be able to collaborate on something that no one else has ever done.”

As the curtain closes on Dell’s time at Notre Dame, she can’t help but reminisce on all her favorite memories: dancing backstage with PEMCo before every performance, listening for a crewmate’s “Let’s go, girls” as their cue to move a 15-foot puppet across a stage, and even coming back to her residence hall after long rehearsals to chat her first-year roommate, who became one of her closest friends.

Though she’ll always feel a fondness for the people and productions that filled her time here, Dell said, she also feels prepared to start the next act of her life.

“Notre Dame really sets up arts majors to have a point of view on a subject,” she said. “And I think that’s going to serve me very, very well going into the workforce.”

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Students’ explorations of their interdisciplinary interests and experiential learning are hallmarks of a Notre Dame education, supported in large part by the Notre Dame Fund. Thank you for creating invaluable opportunities for students like Carolyn Rogers to pursue their passions while developing as whole people.