Associate theatre professor supports students and the arts

By Danna Bertel and Kayla McGee

Alex Manganello, senior music major, remembers meeting Dan Gelbmann, associate professor of technical theatre and design in the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts, as a senior in high school while attending Shark Preview.

“I was here by myself, traveling alone for the first time to come down here for the interview, and I was really nervous and he made it seem like there was nothing to be nervous about,” Manganello said.

Today, Manganello is the president of Razor’s Edge Shark Talent, a scholarship program for music, theater, dance and art, which he runs alongside Gelbmann.

COURTESY OF DAN GELBMANN Dan Gelbmann is an associate professor of technical theatre and design.

Gelbmann has been running Razor’s Edge Shark Talent for four years. As the president of Razor’s Edge Shark Talent, Manganello feels Gelbmann has added familiarity and unity to the program.

“I think he has added the familial aspect of wanting everyone to work together as a giant arts family,” Manganello said. “I think this year has been the best because we are now working together to bridge all of the disciplines like art, music, dance together into one actual thing instead of everyone being off on their own island.”

Before coming to work at NSU in 2007, Gelbmann studied at the University of Hawaii, earning his master’s degree in theater design.

“It was awesome. I spent three years at the University of Hawaii at Manoa,” Gelbmann said. “I was working at a company in Honolulu that was doing show installs for theaters. We were rigging, we built sets and did stuff all over the Hawaiian Islands.”

Gelbmann’s love for theater design came during his undergraduate studies while designing sets for his college. He describes sets as the perfect canvas he gets to construct.

“To me, it is the perfect canvas because it is all canvases, so it is sculpture, painting, full construction and everything that you build is actually physical and tangible. So everything you get to build, you get to play with and you can sculpt it, paint it, construct it and do all of it,” Gelbmann said.

As the associate professor of technical theatre and design, he wants his students to have hands-on experience and be able to take that experience outside NSU.

“I want them to learn hands-on practical experiences and get actual physical experience doing those designs even if they’re theoretical that they can actually bring into any graduate program or into anywhere,” Gelbmann said. “Technology can be different and so we’re constantly trying to work on that, but I want my students to be able to walk into any of those situations equipped to do the job.”

Emily Bernard, junior chemistry major, took a tech theater course with Gelbmann.

“I can say that he tries to stick up for his students. If anything was going on with us or if we needed something, he would always try and support us in any way possible,” Bernard said.