I was recently asked to write a blog post for Northlight Theatre, Chicago. I'm currently designing their spring 2012 production of Jeffrey Hatcher's TEN CHIMNEYS. You can check out that post here....
http://northlight.mighty-site.com/blog/designing-from-life#more-926
It made me think about one thing I've not covered yet in these posts... the fact that I'm always at work on multiple projects, not one at a time, the way the blog posts might suggest.
At this very moment, I'm sitting in the basement of the Chopin Theatre in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, watching re-staging/re- teching of The Hypcorites' production of THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE. Earlier today I was at a run of American Theatre Company's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE : a live radio play. After I get home late this evening, I'm going to be working on the model for SHAKESPEARE ABRIDGED for Milwaukee Rep (opening in January), and in the morning will be dropping off the preliminary drafting for Northwestern University Opera's DIE FLEDERMAUS (opening in February), and I'll have a week before needing to have a preliminary draft of TEN CHIMNEYS for Northlight (which goes up in March). That same day, I'll be receiving the script for one of the projects I'm doing at Actors Theatre Louisville in early April for the Humana Festival of New American Plays (the ANTHOLOGY play, titled, OH GASTRONOMY!) The following afternoon, we'll be having the first design meeting for AN ACTOR PREPARES, the professionally-directed show we're mounting at University of Chicago to open the new Logan Arts Center (late-April), and for which I'll be designing set and lights.
.... and all of this is on top of my regular day-job teaching and advising students at University of Chicago.
It can all seem a little overwhelming at times, (and a little sleep-deprived too) but honestly I wouldn't be happy otherwise. I've found over the course of teaching there these past 6+ years, that these two halves of my professional self feed and support each other in both direct and indirect ways. By continuing to work as a professional-- I can demonstrate, first hand, the concepts, and points of process that I'm trying to instill in my students, and by showing them some of the cool things I'm up to outside the classroom, I've found that the students respect my input more (i.e. that I don't fall into that frustrating category of "...those who can't .. teach"... an adage I find utterly loathsome). My professional design work also gives me an artistic outlet that the school can't easily support.
what can I say, I'm a lucky guy.... now if I could just get more sleep....
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