What do you do when you get stuck in a creative rut? When you feel like you've been making similar work for a while and you need to mix things up? When you just want to feel refreshed or raw or new or (as I often put it) giddily bewildered: like you might learn something and try something new and see the world in a new way?

I've been thinking about this subject ever since I told a fellow playwright that I thought my latest play would "rattle a few cages" and stir things up in people.…

This past weekend, I taught several sound sessions at the Alabama Thespian convention - an organization for high school students and teachers that put on a conference once a year do workshops, put on performances, do improv sessions, network,…

Another week, another blog from the performance side of theater. This week: more stories of moments when things were ****ed.

People watch Nascar for the crashes. Blah blah, technique of the sport, blah blah, skill of the drivers, but really, people like to see the 50 car pile-ups, the smoke, the flying bouncing wheels.

Sometimes live theater feels a little like Nascar.

Here's a couple more stories of when I really messed…

Thought I'd try something a little different this week. I thought this might be an easier way to understand all of the equations and concepts involved in the topics I've been discussing. Let me know what you think!

We take many parts of our lives for granted, and we don’t typically realize how important they are until one of them gets injured or goes missing. When it comes to body parts, our hands tend to fall in that category. How would you cope if one or both of your hands were missing or out of commission? Providing proper PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to guard against injuries can help, however, the selection of PPE for…

In the comments section from my last blog post two provocative questions were raised that I think deserve more investigation:

1. Do plays belong at literary readings?
2. Are plays literature?

These are two very interesting questions and to give each its proper due, I think a two-part blog post is in order. Yes, that means you’ll have to wait until my…

The words "on time and under budget" were the favorite of a former colleague and good friend to give a simple and accurate report that her shop was in good shape, and that she didn't foresee any problems with costumes being ready by first dress or any major emergency or cash hemorrhage on the horizon. I have to say, I really miss hearing those words, as it seems that these days, the time is impossibly short and the money incredibly thin.

And isn't that always our goal as theatre…

Another week, another blog on the performance side of theater. This week: the importance of teaching.

I think every person, regardless of discipline, should at some point have to teach.

I don't mean to say that every person has to be a great (or even good) teacher. I'm not trying to say everyone must teach for their career, or even that they must teach in a formal setting. But even if it's as simple as teaching a small group within an exercise for a…

It has been awhile since I have had the opportunity to blog about my process as my process, school work, and the all needed sleep have filled all the available hours of the day.

I struggled through the concept design phase of the design process for I like most people in our industry suffer from an attitude of “let’s just do it.” I would come up with one solution that I liked and then look for the simplest of reasons not to use any other idea because I wanted to rush and get to the…

One of the things I love the most about our academic program is the emphasis on project work. It's all fine and well to talk about how to calculate the force required to overcome friction, but until you have to apply those equations to a real world problem (to the seventeen places in the system you're designing where friction affects its operation), you can't really understand how to do it.…

There are lots of things I like to tell people who are or want to be sound designers, technicians, and engineers. One thing I've said before, is that you ought to do some music when you get the chance - a band or a concert. What I've decided over the past few days, is you (sound people) NEED to mix some live…

One afternoon a few weeks ago, as I was madly working on a new play that was going into a workshop ten days later, my wife came into the study to say goodbye before she left the house. I looked up at her, and I suddenly realized I had no idea where she was going or what she was about to do, so I asked. She was at first bewildered, then rather annoyed... because we'd just spent a good bit of time discussing exactly what she was going off to do -- and, in fact, it was important to…

My actors are woking on a set (raised platform)covered in artificial grass and the static electricity is a real "pain". What can I do to reduce the shocks?

Carey Kugler

Hopewell Headliners

Another Monday, another blog from the performance side of theater. This week--those things that are funny now but were horrifying at the time.

Everyone loves a (metaphorical) train wreck. The witnesses get to revel in the schadenfreude of the situation, and those involved get to show off their battle scars after. The following are some hilariously hairy hang ups I've had.

Audience Participation

One of the best parts about theater…

Friction is defined as the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces in contact with each other. Friction in scenic motion appears all over the place: in obvious places, such as between the bottom of a pallet and the floor or deck or between the casters on a wagon and the floor or deck; and in less obvious places, such as between ropes and pulleys (and between sheaves and axles or cheek plates within pulley blocks). The friction forces in a system can be insidious: individually,…

If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted. Actors have understudies, and most positions in a production have an assistant or 2^nd. Plan your work environment in a similar manner. Keeping secrets about how things are done…

For what it is worth..... no responses to my raising ticket prices query.....did, however, work out an agreement with Samuel French..... JAKE'S WOMEN leaves rehearsal space and Load-In to performance space is tonight..... Production Staff for A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD has been procured with the rehearsal/show pianist always the last person to get....Our Patron's Campaign (season ticketholders) is going strong this year.....and lastly, so much on this site is not relevant to our small…

When I was a poet (and I was a poet for 10 years before I switched genres) I regularly attended literary readings. Fiction writers, non-fiction writers and poets would stand up—sometimes behind a microphone or a podium, sometimes with nothing but their pages, their paperback books—and read their work aloud in their own voices.

This past weekend I participated in such a literary…

Accuracy in audio takes on a whole new dimension when staging a period work - especially when the period in question is within the memory of some (or all) of the audience.

There's no question when presenting a play set 10, 20, or 30 years ago that it's "period" - in that it's set in a period of time that isn't "now". For the moment let's settle on the 60's. The biggest difference between presenting the 1960's versus the 1860's, is that you're dealing not only with a time period people…

Another week, another blog from the performance side of theater. This week--how to slay the undying.

Being a theater artist (or any kind of artist really) is tough. There's numerous challenges and dangers to the profession, from the difficulty of landing the paying gig, to physically challenging or rigorous schedules and shows, to countless other obstacles and hindrances. But perhaps the greatest danger to artists, moreso than even financial…