Local Artist Lends Her Talents to the Community Theater in Shrewsbury

Patty Sheppard has been an artist her entire life.

She said she has always loved creativity and seeing the finished product when your hands make something your mind envisions. She began lending her talents to the Shrewsbury Community Theater about one year ago.

"I'm a jack-of-all-trades kind of person," she said. "I was really interested in the theater painting because it's a totally different thing for me."

As an artist, Sheppard said she does ceramics and photography. She has been and art instructor at St. Louis Community College-Meramec for almost two decades teaching drawing and design.

"Drawing and design are close to heart," she said of how she began painting the sets for theater plays. Sheppard said her 12-year-old son, Sam,  was also a factor in why she began volunteering her time and talent.

"He's had a couple of roles in the plays," she said. "So I started by painting just one flat while he would rehearse and it continued from there."

A scenery flat, is a flat piece of theatrical scenery, which is painted and positioned on a theater stage. It gives the appearance of buildings or other background. Patty said the flats are the largest pieces she has ever painted or drawn.

"There is a whole team that works on the set so it's not just me," she said. "The director comes up with an idea and he tells me what he wants painted and I execute his ideas."

Since she decided to volunteer to be the artist on record for the theater, she has painted sets for Sound of Music, Peter Pan, Snow White and Seussical.

When asked one thing that's different about the process for her, she said in theater the set flats are reused, so all of the work is hidden in the end.

"You know all the old paintings are under there you just won't ever see them again," she said.

Sheppard said she would encourage any artist to volunteer their time for a community purpose as such.

"I think it's a great opportunity," she said. "It's something artist don't have the opportunity, space or facilities to do and I get to do a lot of that.

"I love getting to paint really big."