When Marilyn Wall and her five roommates graduated from UF, they were living off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
But they still managed to make their own sets and costumes in what is now the Hippodrome State Theatre.
"What drove us was the work and wanting to follow our passions," Wall said.
Forty-three years later, the Florida Theater Conference honored Wall, a founder of the Hippodrome, with an award for outstanding contribution to Florida’s professional theater Saturday night in the Fine Arts auditorium at Santa Fe College. Since being a part of the Hippodrome, Wall has won two Emmy Awards for her costume design on television and film sets.
As she accepted her award in front of about 600 high school and middle school students, Wall said she felt inspired by their energy.
"The one thing I can tell you is choose your work for love, don’t do it for money," Wall said to the audience. "Be honorable and truthful. Somehow, if you do it for love, the universe supports you."
Wall is credited with much of the Hippodrome’s success because of her theater involvement, said Terry Klenk, Wall’s former student and Santa Fe’s theater director.
"I hate to say a person becomes a landmark, but she is a landmark in the regional area of costume here and well-respected all across the nation," Klenk said. "She’s one of the most inventive costume artists I’ve ever encountered in the way in which she creates art from nothing."
Mary Britt, a member of the FTC board of directors and longtime friend of Wall, presented Wall with the award and shared the story of the Hippodrome’s founding. She said many theater students have decided to start theaters.
"What is not the norm is that the artist-driven theater that the six friends founded thrived and became an award-winning regional professional theater with a multimillion-dollar budget which recently celebrated its 42nd season," Britt said.
After founding the Hippodrome with her five friends and putting on productions, Wall worked at the theater for more than 40 years and was the last founder to stop working at the theater.
"What a phenomenal career this woman has had," Klenk said. "She is in and amongst the elite pantheon of people who have achieved this award over the last 6o years."
