Meet Sara Ryung Clement, Theatre Arts Professor
Assistant Professor Sara Ryung Clement joined the Theatre Arts & Dance faculty this past fall, where she teaches courses on set design.
What are your areas of specialty? How did you become interested in what you study and teach?
I am a set and costume designer for theatre. My first paid theatre job was working as a staff artist with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre as a high school student. I became really interested in the ways in which design can inform performance and the ways in which we tell stories.
What projects are you working on right now?
I am doing the set design for “Go Dog Go” at the Children's Theatre Company, which opens in January. I'm also in fittings for the Off-Broadway production of “The Reservoir” at Atlantic Theater Company. Later this spring and summer, I'll be opening “Dear Jack Dear Louise” at Gulfshore Playhouse (sets), the world premiere of Dear Alien at the Alley Theatre (costumes), and “Henry IV Pt 1” (sets) and “Yellow Face” (costumes) at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
What courses are you currently teaching or looking forward to teaching soon? What's special about them?
I teach several design courses, one oriented towards folks who may have no experience with design and several courses that focus especially on set design. I think that design courses make you better observers of the world.
This story was edited by Avery Vrieze, an undergraduate student in CLA.
Take a Class with Assistant Professor Ryung Clement
This fall 2026 course explores the collaborative process of theatre-making with a focus on theatrical design and is intended for those without experience in theatre design. Students will investigate scenic, costume, lighting, and sound design in an active environment through lectures, discussions, reading assignments, writing exercises, workshops, and experiential projects.
This fall 2026 course teaches students to conceive and communicate scene design in theatre through two-dimensional sketches and three-dimensional models for theatres or venues. Students will build on the skills they learned in the class’s prerequisite, TH 3521: Introduction to Scenic Design for Theatre and Performance.
