Most of my teaching responsibilities since coming to Purdue have been at the graduate level. There are a lot of reasons for this, but suffice it to say that I have--much to my own chagrin, quite frankly--found my curricular development efforts directed at the MFA degree program, rather than at undergraduate course work. Recently, I received a bit of a promotion--from lecturer to assistant professor!--and with this change comes the opportunity to shift my focus to include undergraduate course…

At the end of last week, a long going minor sinus irritation decided to settle in and become a full on sinus infection - and with the beginning of a low grade fever I decided it was time to go see a doctor. Much to my surprise, the infection had not only taken over my nose, but had moved on into my lungs - a mild case of Walking Pneumonia. …

In undergrad, I had a brilliant English professor for my advanced creative writing courses: TM McNally.

www.tmmcnally.com

My first impression of Professor McNally was him being over 40 minutes late, bursting in the room, looking about, and declaring in a short staccato: "Am I…

When I find myself working on electronic racks, motorcycles, or even fixing the washer-dryer, it can quickly become evident to me if some bozo had worked on the device before me.  Here’s the dead giveaway:  the screw and bolt heads are buggered-up.  Some fastener types are quicker to give-up their story than others, due to softer metal or simpler ways to damage them.  Regardless, the results are the same – the…

Last week, I wrote about getting ready to brush up a pair of shows that been on hiatus. Our productions of  Macbeth and To Kill a Mockingbird go into rep this week, and last week we got them out, dusted them off (in the case of the sets literally) and made sure we were ready to present them for an audience. Here's a…

In 2011 Waiting for Godot should have become public domain. Apparently it didn't.  Did the estate reissue a version of it with barely noticeable changes?  In one used the original text would it be Public Domain?  Does anyone know about this sort of thing?

Years ago when we did Arms and the Man at Lamb's Players we had the original version and it was public domain.  There was a slighting modified version that the publisher would provide (I think it was French) that…

I realized the other day that I've become that guy.

That guy that you go to for computer help. You know, the "technology guy," the "computer guy." I'm that guy grandma calls when she can't figure out why the internets isn't working, that guy that classmates ask when their projectors don't hook up right in class, that guy the professor always calls up front when the speakers aren't playing the video's…

It is important to me that the final projects on my upper-tier classes do a few things as the culminating work in the class. They should:

• Incorporate as many concepts, procedures, techniques, and processes as possible
• Require students to integrate these concepts in ways similar to the ways they would need to be integrated in "the real world"
• Present as close to a "real world" technical design process as possible, including a client/director/designer/producer…

Electrical Hazards abound in most theatres, and one of the most common items seen are the frayed ends of wire jackets that leave exposed conductors.  This problem develops for several reasons:

• Yanking on the cord rather than grasping the connector to extract it from the socket.…

This week I have two "brush-up" rehearsals - tech runs of two shows we opened earlier in the year, and that have been on hiatus. Wednesday and Thursdays, they are getting back on their feet to get ready to run in a three show rep.  

In January, we staged and opened Macbeth. In late February, it went on hiatus, and we staged…

I'm in a good place.

I've had lots of exciting things happen for me this year. I'm about to graduate with my masters degree. I won a few accolades for my playwriting. I am working on some very exciting creative projects. I got to work for some really cool…

It's that time of the year again: end of semester evaluations. At the end of each semester, my design and production colleagues and I all get together for a couple of hours and take time to share our experiences with each others' graduate students over the last 16 weeks. Ideally, this is an opportunity to celebrate the many good experiences while discussing those times when we've perceived opportunities for growth and development.

I'll confess that I approach these meetings…

Note that if you have a High-Def screen, this is available in High-Def!

Every year we advance the sustainability of our world by planting more trees.  We can also advance our personal sustainability by making sure that we don’t get annihilated by flying rigging parts.  Use Arbor Day as a calendar reminder to inspect your arbors.  In the US, Arbor Day is officially the…

Earlier this month, I went to see all the plays at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville.  (Happily, they’re only forty minutes from my house, so this is not out of the ordinary.)  I’m not going to talk about the plays per se, as I’m not a critic and never wanted to be--maybe if we meet and you buy me a beer, I might talk more about that.  But I do want to talk about one of the plays in particular.

Each year,…

The bulk of my professional career has been spent at Shakespeare Festivals, which are also (as a whole or in part) repertory companies. That means designing doesn’t just take in to account the needs of a single show, but all those that will be performed in repertory -- usually two or three shows, every now and then more. 

This may or…

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

I just got back from a week at the Kennedy Center's American Colleges Theater Festival. It was my second year attending as an award recipient for playwriting, and it was an amazing week of workshops and meeting fantastic writers and other theater artists.

But that's not why I'm overwhelmed. 

I…

We've had an explosion of student-driven workshops over the past year at Purdue. It has been truly amazing to see so many young theatre artists exploring their craft, trying out new things, and generally being excited about our art, and I'm proud to say we've been fairly successful at making room for these projects that are not part of our main production season.

However, as one might imagine, these workshops create inevitable tensions; the greatest of these center around…

You know the phrase: “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.”  It’s a catch-all for our frustrations in life.  Most people focus on the "will go wrong" implying that we are helpless against it.  Maybe we should reconsider the implications.  What we believe to be true, consciously or unconsciously, can become what we live.…