One night, in a moment of instrospection, I had this thought: Whoever thought that the child of a single mother raised on welfare would earn a doctorate and later travel around the world? It probably happens more times than I’m aware. (I hope so.) But for me, it seems like an extraordinary thing. When IContinue reading “How Did I Get Here?”
Tag Archives: university
Some Directors…
One of my favorite Berkeley directing stories concerns the professor whom I would later fire from being my dissertation advisor. He was directing a show and my good friend Mike Foster (whom I met as a student in a class I was TA for and who later became a close friend) asked a question ofContinue reading “Some Directors…”
God, Luck, and Planning
Often I hear people claim that, “God put me in the right place at the right time!” I have never heard anyone credit God for delivering them to the wrong place in their lives. Others of course attribute success to luck, which I guess is as mysterious a force as a deity. And I rememberContinue reading “God, Luck, and Planning”
Night of the Burning Posse
This is another of those crazy memories that just pop unbidden into my brain. At Temple University, the theatre majors were a pretty closely knit group. Oh, of course there was gossip and back-biting (I quote myself: “My mother always said, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, or go intoContinue reading “Night of the Burning Posse”
Commence to Begin
I’m always amazed to see kindergarten, middle school, and all other kinds of milestone graduation ceremonies. This never occurred to us when we were kids. We moved straight from grade to high school. Our grade school was grades 1 to 8, and when grade 8 was finished, there was no ceremony. For us there wereContinue reading “Commence to Begin”
To Paraphrase the Alien in Plan Nine from Outer Space:
“All you faculty are stupid!” We often see a dichotomy between an upper and a lower class. And sometimes this division is false, but persists nonetheless. For example, on an academic campus, we may see a prejudice on the part of maintenance workers who look down on the faculty. I never did. My first realContinue reading “To Paraphrase the Alien in Plan Nine from Outer Space:”
What’s Your Passion?
I know a lot of people hate their jobs. And I’m sorry for that. A line I used to say to people was: “I love my work, but I hate my job.” There are times when being a college professor could be very annoying, But the most important thing about that was that I didn’tContinue reading “What’s Your Passion?”
“She Tipped Me A Crystal”
At Berkeley, we had a summer lunchtime theatre series. Each show rehearsed for two weeks (one week in the morning, one week in the afternoon) and then a week of performances. I directed two shows in two summers: Noel Coward’s We Were Dancing (in the Durham Studio Theatre) and Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost—which I cutContinue reading ““She Tipped Me A Crystal””
Hand Me the Whiteboard…
Every time someone starts an in-depth explanation of something, or I need to explain something that requires a variety of steps, I ask for “the whiteboard.” I assume at that point that only a detailed diagram will be able to provide any sensical explanation. I always needed a whiteboard when I covered one of theContinue reading “Hand Me the Whiteboard…”
Don’t Tell Me I Can’t
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? One of the quickest ways to encourage me to do something is to tell me I can’t do it, or to speak the more passive phrase, “it can’t be done.” That’s precisely the motivation I’ve often needed to accomplish a goal. ItContinue reading “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t”
