There's been a lot in the news and (ironically) on social media about what's appropriate to share on social media regarding the work place, fueled by individuals who have posted comments or photos that they're employers found inappropriate on Facebook accounts, blogs, Twitter, etc.. In many cases, those individuals have lost their jobs as a result. Several folks have gone to court over these situations, with…

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One time, I was watching a stand up comic whose name I can't remember. He told one joke, randomly said, "you know, I've always been terrible at transitions." Then he proceeded to tell a complete non-sequitur story.



That story would've been a lot funnier if I remembered any of the details about his set. Or who it was. But, uh, trust me, it was funny. And it totally worked.



Banana.



===



Here's the thing I find funny about working in theater, and getting… Continue

Last weekend, during the load in of our production of Barefoot in the Park at Dorset Theatre Festival, the costume designer came up to the theatre and asked if she could slap some shoes down onto the stage floor to see how they sounded. The actors had been wearing their costume shoes in rehearsal, and as they sounded very load on the hardwood floor of the rehearsal room, there was some concern they'd be loud on stage as well. If they were going to be, this would probably mean a trip to the… Continue

Last week we looked out across our workspace and realized how many different shades of 'white' there are, and how it messes with our perception of colors as we pass design ideas through the work flow. This week, we'll look at how we might make adjustments to the lighting so that we have a more consistent illumination as we move from space to space. To move forward, you must move backwards through the work…

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Hello, my name is Michael Yichao, and I have a problem.



I'm celebrity-blind.







Er, celebrity-blind, not a blind-celebrity.



I can barely remember a handful of celebrity names, and almost never recognize any of them in the street. I once apparently stood in line next to Miranda Cosgrove at the movie theaters and completely missed it. ("Who's Miranda Cosgrove?" asks everyone over the age of 14.) If I walked by Ryan Gosling on the street, I'd… Continue

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We are days away from our third changeover here at Dorset Theatre Festival, and after weeks of rain impeding our build progress (we have a pretty small shop, so we rely on the ability to build outside), we've suffered through a week of near-100-degree temps and daily heat advisories. Our only vehicle capable of picking up material of any size from the lumber yard is in the shop. We just finished a changeover not two weeks ago. And, people are getting tired, and cranky, and generally…

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Michael's posts lately about his transition into practitioner from student have got me…

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Rich Dion's blog post last week struck a chord with me. The older you get, the worse your eyesight becomes. For painters, their vision is key to plying their craft. You can’t paint what you can’t see. And if you can’t see what you just painted, you are really in a bind.…

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Getting Ring of Fire ready to open was an amazing ride... and here are some of the things we worked out.

If you read the first installment - Adventures in Wireless - you may remember that two of question marks for me were the…

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It's a familiar image: that of a ladder or staircase leading upwards towards success. We see it in classroom inspirational posters as kids, in articles about advancement and "climbing the corporate ladder" as adults. We are taught and trained that the march towards progress is just that - a forward march in which you should ever be…

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I was driving to the store with our scenic charge, Jes, yesterday to pick up some vinyl tile for our upcoming production of Barefoot in the Park, and lamenting that I had no idea what I was going to write this week. As a joke, she said, "well, you should just write about me!" Of course, she meant it as a joke, but it got me to thinking...

Any time I start working with a new shop, I lay down a few ground rules. Most are the basics: correct is better than quick, but…

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In the days after my graduation from CalArts, I remember feeling a familiar creeping onset of worry and fear - old worries and fears about what would happen next, how I would move towards my big goals, how impossible it seemed to build a career in theater and writing that paid a living wage.

Luckily, I have confronted these fears before. I faced them heading into undergrad, faced them heading into the National…

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I have written many times about how to build machines or how to put together control systems for various effects; I can't recall a time when I wrote about how to construct a particular visual effect. We have had a really cool element to tackle the last week at Dorset Theatre Festival that I really wanted to share. The set designer has called for a full ceiling in our production of The Whipping Man (yes, the backwards ceiling from last week!); she also has called for a chunk of that…

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Root Cause Failure Analysis, also known as “The Blame Game”, getting down to the basics of what caused an equipment and/or operations failure can get messy. It involves looking at the motivations behind the decisions.

NASA’s Apollo 11 Flight Controller, Christopher Craft, is famous for saying: “Failure is not an option.”…

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Last week I wrote about the idea of biography play, inspired by my next production - Ring of Fire. Today, I'm writing the impeding…

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I am pretty lucky.



I just got back from working with TBA theater, an amazing theater company in Anchorage, AK for two weeks. I had a wonderful time and absolutely fell in love with the staff and creative leaders at the theater. They embodied so many things that I love in a creative organization: artistic excellence, a dedication to education, unbridled passion, and endless compassion.



They are also some of the most genuinely generous and kind people I have gotten to work… Continue