Kev Kollmann caught the theatre bug early, seeing friends and family members take part in community theatre musicals and from two professional shows, Disney’s Lion King (touring) and Wicked on Broadway. In sixth grade, he played the part of Chip the tea cup in Beauty and the Beast at school, although the experience left him wanting to direct and actively participate in how the story was told, rather than perform. Whenever he saw a show he was curious about how they did some part of the staging or lighting, but he never thought theatre was a viable option for him. In high school he was discouraged from participating, because his mobility issues (Kollmann uses a wheelchair,) seemed to present too many obstacles. Unlike in Disney shows, he gave up on his dreams and instead went to University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh to study chemistry with the idea of being a teacher. After encountering concerns that he would have trouble setting up labs, he switched to music and once again encountered problems physically playing all the required instruments. The moral of that story is, if you have to overcome a lot of obstacles, you might as well do it in pursuit of something you really care about.
After realizing that he really hadn’t let go of his love of the theatre, he went to the director of the theatre program, Jane Purse-Wiedenhoeft, and said, “I’ve had this conversation one too many times, but do you think I can do this?” Instead of getting caught up on the challenges, Purse-Wiedenhoeft replied, “We are creative people, we will figure it out.”
Although Kollmann’s major was focused on directing and stage managing, he says that one particular class was life changing. In Lighting and Sound, he loved the lighting and the next semester got to design his first show, Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid. He says, “I remember thinking if I was ever given the chance to do lighting again I would 100% take it,” but despite that success, he had been rebuffed so many times because of his physical disability he considered going into higher education…