Daney Brookover (right) onstage to receive the Bernhard R. Works Master Crafts Award from Kimb Williamson (center) at the 2026 USITT conference in Long Beach, California.
WVU Theatre Design and Technology major Daney Brookover ended her final year at West Virginia University on a high note. The Ripley, West Virginia, native received multiple awards from the College of Creative Arts and Media in her final semester. Even more impressive, Brookover won the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) Bernhard R. Works Master Crafts Award.
The Bernhard R. Works Master Crafts Award is one of USITT’s 12 prestigious Young Designers, Managers and Technicians (YDMT) Awards. As part of Brookover’s prize, all the fees for the USITT Annual Conference and Stage Expo in Long Beach, California, were waived and she received $1,000.
Brookover attended the 2025 USITT conference in Columbus, Ohio, and enjoyed the experience. However, when she heard the 2026 conference was all the way on the West Coast, she determined it wasn’t feasible for her to go.
Her mentor, Professor of Scene Design Tammy Honesty, who is also active with USITT, suggested Brookover apply for one of the YDMT awards. The Bernhard R. Works Master Crafts Award rotates among several disciplines, including costumes, props and scenic painting. This year, the award was focused on scenic painters.
“I mostly applied to make Tammy happy,” said Brookover. “I’m confident that I can paint things, but I didn’t really know where everybody else was sitting in the nation. It was nice to have someone like Tammy, who I look up to so much, encourage me to apply and tell me I had a shot at winning.”
Brookover submitted samples of her scenic design and artist work from West Virginia Public Theatre’s production of “Clue” and WVU’s productions of “9 to 5,” “A Christmas Carol” and “Dracula: A feminist revenge fantasy, really.” She also submitted a project from her scenic painting class: a large painting of a neon sign that, when frontlit, looked like a sign in daytime, and when backlit, looked like it was glowing at dusk.
“Daney is one of the most exceptional undergraduate students I have encountered in my teaching career, and I thought she would be a strong contender for the award,” said Honesty. “There are a lot of universities with strong scene painting programs that have several formal courses. We only have one course in our BFA Design and Technology program. But Daney’s natural talent and art classes positioned her to excel in the mentored hands-on-learning environment we have at WVU. I looked at her neon sign translucency project and thought, ‘could I have been as successful at this project—either as an undergraduate student or now with 30-plus years of experience?’”
Brookover was shocked but thrilled to find out she won the award.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, now I actually have to go to California. OK,’” she said.
“I was thrilled that Daney won the award and that she had the opportunity to attend the USITT conference,” Honesty said. “The confidence she gained by winning this award is truly palpable. I am excited to see how her career develops as she soars into the industry.”
WVU and the School of Theatre and Dance helped Brookover cover the cost of her flights and accommodations, and she was able to attend the conference to accept her award in person.
The awards ceremony was an all-day affair. Brookover was one of the last to be called up to the stage to be recognized, so she spent a lot of time in the green room with other awardees and presenters.
“That was so fun, meeting people who are successful in whatever field they’re pursuing,” she said.
She spent quite a while with her award presenter, Kimb Williamson, a professional scenic artist and instructor at Cobalt Studios. Brookover had such a good time talking to Williamson that she forgot to be nervous when it was finally her turn to walk out on stage.
Daney Brookover and Kimb Williamson at the 2026 USITT awards ceremony.
“I’m not one for public speaking, but I have never been so relaxed in an environment where I usually wouldn’t be,” Brookover said. “They announced my name, and in this cinematic moment, I come out on stage and hear all this cheering. Then Kimb gives this beautiful speech with quotes from people who know me, and photos of my work are on the big projector screen behind us. There was all this positive energy.”
After the awards ceremony, Brookover was stopped several times as she walked around the conference and stage expo because people recognized her as one of the winners.
“That was interesting, to be briefly recognized for a second,” she said.
Brookover turned every interaction into a chance to make a connection. She loved seeing people she had met at the USITT conference in Columbus the year before and reconnecting with former colleagues from the Texas Shakespeare Festival.
“USITT is really good for making connections, especially for people who want to pursue theatre,” she said. “Once you have all of these connections, USITT conferences are a nice place to meet back up, catch up, see what everybody’s doing, then meet people those people know. Then the whole networking train starts.”
It started with a brick
When Brookover was a sophomore in high school, her art teacher asked her to help paint the set for the upcoming theatre production.
She was already a fixture in her school’s art department, and she’d contemplated trying theatre, but she had no interest in acting. What else was there to do in theatre?
“My teacher was like, ‘Hey, you’re really good at painting. Can you go over there and make some bricks for them?’ I said, ‘yeah, sure,’ and then I never left.”
She had found a home on the technical side of theatre, but she wasn’t sure if it was something she could continue past high school.
“I like drawing and painting and analyzing why something would look a certain way based on the script or what the director has in mind,” she said.
During a West Virginia Thespian Festival, a scenic design adjudicator insisted on putting her in touch with Steven Neuenschwander, WVU Theatre’s Head of Design and Technology.
“So I sent Steven an email and then checked out the website, and I realized you can actually do this for a job,” Brookover said.
She toured the WVU campus and the Canady Creative Arts Center and fell in love.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I think I’m going to have to do this for real.’ I think I’ve touched paint for almost all, if not all, productions that WVU Theatre has done since I’ve been here,” she said. “It’s so fun to be able to do this, to constantly learn and evolve. I think the things I paint now look a lot different than what I painted my freshman year, and I love to see that journey.”
In addition to her USITT award, Brookover rounded out her final year at WVU by earning first place in the CCAM Exhibit of Mentored Student Research and Creative Activity. Her winning entry, “Theatrical Scenic Artistry: The Power of the Paintbrush,” covered much of the theoretical and practical scenic art work that earned her the Bernhard R. Works Master Crafts Award.
“I’m really proud of the work I’ve done, but it’s still nice to get acknowledgement that I really am good at this before I go out into the world and everything gets real,” she said. “When you’re so busy, you don’t have time to step back and admire what you’ve done. Now, in the quietness, after the dust of the production season has settled, I can reap the rewards of my blood, sweat and tears.”
This summer, Brookover will be the charge artist at the Weston Theater Company in Vermont.
“I’m thankful for my education at WVU, and I’m really grateful to all the people who I’ve learned from and who have helped me on my journey,” said Brookover. “This work is a beautiful, collaborative art form, and I love being a piece in the machine.”
Learn more about the WVU School of Theatre and Dance at theatre.wvu.edu and follow @WVUTheatreDance on social media.