Lose Yourself in the Flow

What activities do you lose yourself in? When I am writing or working on making a film, I often experience the phenomenon of missing time, usually associated with alien abduction. (There are those aliens again!) But the one activity I have always lost myself in, while still being acutely aware of (the) time, has beenContinue reading “Lose Yourself in the Flow”

More Equipment1

Where would you go on a shopping spree? A few years back a friend of mine asked: “What would make you truly happy?” And my answer, after only a brief moments reflection, was, “To make films.” I had started that process in high school, ad had put it aside for a career in the theatre.Continue reading “More Equipment1”

Play Post Mortem

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? This post may not quite answer the prompt, but I’ll pretend I’m a politician and answer the question I want to. I’ve often linked my theatre production process to the scientific method. I’d come up with a hypothesis, which is my directorialContinue reading “Play Post Mortem”

My Job…

Do you enjoy your job? I always said, “I love my work but hate my job.” Teaching theatre and directing shows, working with students—this was my life’s work. But navigating the job, which included committee work, assessment (which, I always quipped, “begins with asses”), filling out endless reports (do I really need to do Sarbanes-OxleyContinue reading “My Job…”

Most Ambitious DIY

Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on. I think, after years of refinishing furniture and building and staining bookshelves, my most ambitious DIY project would be creating a costume for a Steampunk Grim Reaper. I started with the base being an Australian drover’s coat, and added a skirt lol mask fronted byContinue reading “Most Ambitious DIY”

Me, Myself, and Aliens

Often, people have asked me: what is it with you and aliens? If you check out this webpage you might think I claim to have been abducted. This is totally untrue— I don’t think I was ever abducted by aliens. BUT! I love conspiracy theories…or at least I did until the whole QAnon nonsense triedContinue reading “Me, Myself, and Aliens”

Faust: Ever Striving

My encounters with literature, whether dramatic or narrative, have been wide-ranging. From the briefest (the poems of Richard Brautigan, as tightly constructed as any haiku) to the epic works of Neal Stephenson and Thomas Pynchon (I read Gravity’s Rainbow three times), my reading list has been extensive. Of course I’ve only scratched the surface ofContinue reading “Faust: Ever Striving”

Concert or Karaoke?

When did live music performances and concerts become sing-along events? A few years back I attended two of the annual ROSfest events. ROSfest is the Rites of Spring progressive rock festival, formerly held in Gettysburg, PA in the excellent Majestic Theater. This was the first time I attended an event where the line for theContinue reading “Concert or Karaoke?”

Can I get a little STEAM?

Not steampunk. Not this time at least, although it has been a recurring theme for me: my theatre production of Birth of Merlin used this aesthetic, and of course, my novel Watchers of the Dawn is aptly subtitled A Steampunk Adventure. Here I am referring to the addition of Art to STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering,Continue reading “Can I get a little STEAM?”

Cleric! Pass the Elixir of Health!

There’s an old quotation, sometimes credited to the movie The Princess Bride, that says, “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.“ I recently had a bit of a health scare. Waking up in the middle of the night, I rose to go to the bathroom. Suddenly I found myself off balance andContinue reading “Cleric! Pass the Elixir of Health!”