Charlotte’s Madison King Is One Cool Collaborator
The first time Madison King worked with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), it was for one of the biggest shows of the decade. More than 52,000 fans filled Bank of America Stadium in August 2023 to see Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, and when “Queen Bey” left the stage, King was there to help load the spectacle up and out.
“That was a wild experience,” King reflected recently, describing the many boxes that she filled and pushed to the loading dock. “It was a long night.”
King graduates this month with degrees in theatre and marketing, and since that starry debut, she’s added other headliners to her resume – like Megan Thee Stallion at PNC Arena and the touring Broadway production of Hamilton at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. She has also been the head electrician for corporate events and even worked an All Elite Wrestling show at Bojangles Coliseum.
“Those gigs pay really good money,” she said.
A Charlotte native, King started her artistic journey at University Park Creative Arts School, a magnet elementary school where she “was able to be part of every arts discipline,” she said. In those days, she was often found on stage – performing as an orphan in Annie or playing her cello in the orchestra – but later she began working behind the scenes at Northwest School of the Arts, where she was a runner for the annual fashion show.
King entered UNC Charlotte as a business major, but in the spring of her freshman year, she was hired as a costume lab intern and assisted in building costumes for the Department of Theatre’s production of Pippin. By the time the musical had closed, she was adding a B.A. in Theatre, with a design/tech concentration.
The coursework has built her skills across the full spectrum of theatre production. In addition to her contributions in the costume shop, King has served as the stage manager for several shows, designed the lighting for dance performances, and designed the sound for the play Clybourne Park, a project she presented this spring at the Southeastern Theatre Conference.
The cooperative nature of theatre, in which many hands join to create a show, has provided a valuable education, she said.
Hali Hutchison-Houk, production manager for the College of Arts + Architecture, first hired King in the costume lab and has remained a close mentor. Beyond her impressive artistic achievements, King “is a remarkable collaborator,” Hutchison-Houk said.
“She is a person who not only excels in her own craft but also elevates those around her. Her ability to see the larger scope of any project while attending to the smallest details makes her an invaluable team member.”
While a student, King has also had a campus job with Production Arts and Operations as a lighting lab technician, working alongside Senior Lecturer and Production Electrician Rick Moll ’94 to hang and focus lights for the College of Arts + Architecture’s dozens of performances in Robinson Hall.
Moll, who is an officer for IATSE Local 322 and works regularly at the Knight Theater and Charlotte Ballet, has been the conduit for King and many other design/tech students to work professionally across Charlotte.
“Rick has made a huge difference in my career,” King said. “Being able to work with him at Charlotte Ballet, I’ve moved from a deck hand to a light board capacity and have even done sound. His exposure to a lot of different people in the industry has helped as well.”
Through Moll’s connections, for example, King worked at the International Black Theatre Festival last summer, where she met theatre professionals from across the country.
“Madison did not come to Charlotte to study lighting or stage management, she came to study theatre,” Moll said. “She has not limited herself. She has studied the breadth of the production arts.”
Shortly after graduation, King will head to the North Carolina mountains, where she will be on the production staff at the Brevard Music Center Summer Festival. As part of the electrical team, she will hang and program lights for their concerts and operas through the end of July. She then returns to Charlotte to design lights for her third production for Three Bone Theatre. Lighting design is at the top of her aspirations, King said, and she credits Lighting Design Lecturer Gordon Olson with connecting her to the local professional theatre company.
“I count it as a major blessing to be able to work with them,” she said of Three Bone. “Every show has been an amazing experience.”
From faculty like Moll, Olson and Hutchison-Houk – who has supported “every single crazy idea I’ve had” – to her theatre peers, with whom she has traveled to conferences and produced shows on campus and off, King praises the positive, energetic community.