I mentioned last week that one of the designs I'm building this summer incorporates a Murphy bed, and I've spent the last week working out how to make it happen. What's a Murphy bed, you ask? You've seen them; they were a staple of physical comedy for a while. A Murphy bed is simple a bed that folds down put of a wall of a cabinet.



Here's some footage of the great Charlie Chaplin wrestling with a Murphy bed from the film, "One A.M.":…

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As we work along in our careers we move from venue-to-venue, work with various supervisors, many different Performers, Stage Managers, Directors, and show support personnel. With each comes a ‘reputation’, a ‘history’, and your own personal experience with that person. Sometimes the place / person’s history is interesting and worthy of asking questions about, some have reputations of being prima-donnas and being…

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The words "Summer Camp" invoke images of tents or cabins and canoes, roasting marshmallows over a fire - but the summer camps I'm talking about don't involve the woods or the outdoors except for maybe lunch on the lawn - instead kids of various ages come to ASF for day camps and are learning about acting, singing, dancing, and various types of stage craft.…

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Ready to test your knowledge of musical theatre lyrics, and win two USB thumb drives in the shape of ETC Selador fixtures? Keep reading to find out how to win!

Recently I was asked to officiate the wedding of two good friends. They're both musicians here in Las Vegas, often gigging with shows on the…

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I just finished watching the season (and series) finale for Smash on NBC. My wife Myra and I have been faithful viewers for both years it’s been on, loving both the music and the behind-the-scenes drama of what it takes to put on a Broadway show. Although I have never been a part of theater at that level, I have for…

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10 days ago, I graduated from my MFA acting program.

It was an exciting day filled with gravitas and appreciation for the serious and studious undertaking I had just completed.

...or maybe I walked across the stage to receive my diploma from CalArts in a Where the Wild Things Are wolf suit.

I'm a grown up with an advanced degree!

As…

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It's that time of year again: I've been organizing and packing my life into a summer-sized, fit-in-the-car packages as I prepare to head off once more into the time-honored tradition of summer theatre. This year, I'll be headed back to beautiful Vermont to work as the technical director at Dorset Theatre Festival for about twelve weeks.



Summer theatre, for me, invokes both excitement and dread. Dread? Yep, I said it: I sometimes dread the summer theatre scene. Those are some long… Continue

I've discovered a little secret to doing great work:

TRY to do bad work.

When I first started writing, I would often obsess about each specific scene. I wanted to make sure everything was perfect. I wanted to make sure the story or the play I was working on was really great, that it was strong and interesting and would change the landscape of American theater... or at least that it would impress my playwriting 101 class.

When I was in…

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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…

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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. …

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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…

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So I was getting my hair cut yesterday, and the place where I go I sport-themed, with a half-dozen televisions showing ESPN. (Don't judge! I like the hot towel wrap!) Now, while I enjoy watching a good football game or a day at the diamond, I'm not one of those people who avidly follows particular teams, players, coaches, or the like. It's just not something I've ever spent time on. So as the young woman was cutting my hair, I found myself listening to SportsCenter, marveling that there are… Continue

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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.…

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