Third-Year Alivia Cross Creates Sustainable Set For Penn State ‘Sweeney Todd’ Musical

The Penn State School of Theatre, renowned for its lively performances and student-led productions, puts on a variety of musicals for the Penn State community to enjoy each semester. From modern Broadway shows to golden-age classics, the students, faculty, and staff diligently work to transform the Playhouse Theatre into a new, dynamic setting for each unique story.
This past fall, third-year master in fine arts student and scenic designer Alivia Cross spearheaded an initiative to create a set using entirely recycled and reused items for the school’s production of “Sweeney Todd.” Her efforts to produce art in an eco-friendly fashion demonstrated any industry, including theater and performance, can reduce its ecological footprint.
Cross’s background in theater began at Wheaton College, where she graduated with a specialty in technical theater, and then went on to work as a freelance designer across the East Coast. Wanting the chance to expand and sharpen her skills, she applied to Penn State’s Theatre Scenic Design MFA program. Since arriving at University Park three years ago, Cross has been a designer for every student-led main stage production, including musicals such as “Urinetown,” “Falsettos,” and, most recently, “Sweeney Todd.”
Despite her extensive theater background, Cross also has a deep-rooted passion for the environment and the natural world. She explained how her experience farming from an early age granted her the perspective that the planet is not something to exploit, but rather something to nurture, respect, and preserve for future generations.
“Where I grew up, one of my dad’s many jobs was being a farmer, and so we’ve always had livestock and vegetable gardens. I think growing up in that environment with such care for the living world. And then also tending to those things that we plant helped develop in me a sense of caring for the natural world so it’s here for the next generations,” Cross explained. “It really fostered in me that sustainability is not just in terms of responsible consumption, but also about sustainability for the next generation.”
Her passion for the environment began to intersect with her theater work when Cross slowly began to notice the excessive number of props and set pieces that would end up in landfills after a show’s close. Once she recognized how much was being thrown away instead of being reused, she began brainstorming how scenic design could do more to incorporate recycled materials and cut back on waste.
Upon further research, Cross found a term already exists to describe the intersection of scenic design with concern for the natural world: ecoscenography. Throughout her many freelance design projects post-graduation, Cross began to incorporate this mindset bit by bit, starting with using theaters’ preexisting inventory to design a set.
“Going into the theater, one of the biggest things that I kept seeing over and over is when you design a show, a lot of that material ends up in the dumpster and landfills. Traditional theaters have a large inventory, or stock of walls, doors, stairs, and things that can be reused. And so I started looking at that and exploring how can we expand that,” Cross said. “I started to really hone it in graduate school, where I began to evolve it and think about sustainability as a holistic approach.”
Arriving at Penn State, Cross amplified her practice of ecoscenography on her first scenic design project with the musical “Urinetown.” She used the show as a starting baseline to see how feasible building a recycled set would be at Penn State, recording how much was bought for the set versus what could be pulled from inventory. By the time the show opened, the set was made of around 30% reused and recycled materials, showcasing to Cross the feasibility and longevity of continuing her sustainable design work at Penn State.
However, for the production of “Sweeney Todd,” which ran from Tuesday, November 12, to Friday, November 22, Cross wanted to set a new goal to increase this percentage of recycled materials. She wanted to create a more sustainable set because the story of Sweeney Todd intersects with the same pillars of ecoscenography.
“Understanding ‘Sweeney Todd’ and knowing the time period that it takes place in, just post-industrial revolution, was a time of making use of what we have during the class divide that happens in the text of ‘Sweeney Todd,’” Cross said. “For example, when thinking about painting and creating new textures, I asked myself, how can we use things that we already have? So, a lot of the texture for ‘Sweeney Todd’ is actually sawdust from the scene shop mixed into paints and treatments of things that we already owned.”


Cross created a detailed, historically accurate, and sustainable set with the help of her student-led creative team. From reusing old faux bricks, repurposing pipes, and creating new textures from existing materials, she successfully constructed a set without the need for excessive purchases.
For example, when Cross’s team was in a pinch for some spare tubing for the stage, Cross immediately tapped into one of the pillars of ecoscenography: co-creation and reaching out to the community. She called a State College carpet company and asked if she could take any spare tubing they send to the landfill, to which the company gladly agreed. Through her collaboration with this local company, Cross creatively exemplified the importance of using one’s resources, and how working with others can widen the impact of sustainable action.

When a new piece of technology needed to be built to allow the stage to rotate for the show, Cross borrowed from another university, and the entire design staff was extremely intentional in determining if this purchase was needed. With sustainability’s focus on future generations, Cross said even though this piece of technology was not reused or recycled, it will be a resource for students at Penn State for years to come.
Cross not only ensured sustainability in terms of reusing old props and utilizing community connections but also ensured a safe environment on set. Viewing human health as a vital branch of sustainability, Cross conscientiously worked to improve the safety of the paints used on the “Sweeney Todd” set to benefit both the environment and the health of her design team.
“Thinking about sustainability in terms of human health, we looked at paints that were a low VOC, so they didn’t put off as much odor and chemicals that then could be absorbed into the human body,” Cross said. “So, taking sustainability not only in terms of material consumption but also care of us as stewards of sustainability. We have to take care of our bodies to be able to advocate and do the work in a broader sense.”

After nine months of hard work and collaboration, Cross shared that the set for “Sweeney Todd” was made of around 70% recycled and reused materials. This number was over double the percentage she accomplished with “Urinetown.”
Cross said receiving positive feedback from audience members, donors, and fellow cast mates about the set’s sustainable nature reassured her hopes that Penn State will continue this work even after she graduates this upcoming spring.

Beyond Penn State, Cross plans to be an educator in scenic design. She hopes to use her role in academics to curate a curriculum that no longer makes sustainability an afterthought in the design process, but a standard that designers should be held accountable to.
“I think that education is one of the best places to advocate for things like sustainability. On the educational aspect of it, we can begin to train designers and technicians to think about sustainability integrated into how they learn how to design,” Cross said. “For me, it is so entangled in who I am and what I believe in that is unavoidable for me to continue to do this work.”
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