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Today was our second day off from the tour, we have played about five shows, and each one has brought its own special experience.  We loaded into Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington Ma, and used a pre focused dance plot, this gave me a chance to make sure I was comfortable calling the show, and it was an opportunity to play with color choices.  After our MA performance the snow began to fall and we pushed off to Albany NY.  In Albany we had a great union crew and I got to spread my wings on the full lighting package.  Naturally we hit most of the technical problems at this venue.  We learned some of the crew hired to build the show was not as skilled résumés led us to believe, and some of the aspects where built incorrectly.  Clay came to see this show, which was the first moving light show, and we danced on the stage after the house was cleared.  I sussed out many of the technical issues made a plan, and then pushed off for Albany.  IT was as Albany we decided that the show needed to be cleaned up, I made a plan with the local at Virginia Beach to help de loom the rig and I went from 4 cable trunks to 1.

Our bus is our own little home, and the people have been great to get along with.  We are all very mindful of personal space and property, and we bring war stories, laughs, songs, and dances to the table.  Every day we try to learn a new word of Russian from our to Ruski Costumer’s

At night the bus pulls out and we usually drive for about 10 hours, right now we are waiting for warren to come back and begin the push to Tulsa OK.  The sound of the engine and the geni lull most of us to sleep and the 10 of us get whisked across state lines.  Two days ago I woke up to a bay, and this morning I woke up to the great Cowpocalypse of 2011…

Luckily we had to pull off the road to fix a headlight and it put us about 5 mins behind a major big rig accident in which cows escaped a trailer and got in the way of trucks…   We passed the flaming wreckage of big rigs and the smoldering carcasses of cows and each of us grew quiet as we contemplated how lucky we had been.   We literally sat in a stand still for 4.5 hours while the crew cleaned the road up.

I have been cooking and going out with the crew and staying up late on our leather couches and I am having a blast.

Seacoast Is moving forward, and I trust that Erik is putting that show in with confidence and expertise.

I look forward to telling you more soon!

Love – me

Three months ago I was heading to NYC to visit with some family, and share the town with a close friend. When I am in the city I also feel super charged, I reinvest in a promise I made to myself as a young child when I first set eyes on central park. I find a new part of the city, quietly look within, and say to myself, yes I will come back here, I will be back. For the first time in a long while I had no agenda and went purely for pleasure. I was able to focus a lot of my researching eye on the lighting and store it away for use in my production of RENT.

I just mounted Spelling Bee and RENT. This experience was so rich for me, as both shows where touchstones for my creative process. Spelling Bee was one of the first shows in which I saw movers used with subtle stunning grace. Rent has always been with me, it helped to define a generation of artists. We all know its melodies, and words.

Rock climbing amazingly has stuck with me. I am hanging tough on over hangs, and learning how to use my body. I feel that this sport has made me more comfortable balancing like a tightrope walker on top of truss and scaffolding.

I am also on the road with Boston Lyric Operas production or The Barber of Seville. It’s a powerful experience bringing opera to so many new ears and eyes. I have to say I had a really smooth process with this production. I was able to take the lessons from last year and apply them to my advantage this season.

I have worked at a host of rock and roll venues in the city, and am dipping my fingers now into event production, and art installation.

All in all a very busy opening to my season.

I look forward to being more creative with you as the spring buds.

<3

Anon

Snow begins to settle into our minds as the first white, wispy, wonders fall through the sky and collect on my door step. The clear, crispy, cadence, a “pit a pat” on the street gently reminds me to pull up my collar and to push my mittens on.

I recently took some time to reflect back on the past two years, and take my show bibles down from their dusty covered exile on the top shelf of the closet. With the rustling of ansi-e sized paper I look back at my designs, plots, and drafting’s. I am looking at my thought process, and hoping for inspiration to spark me into my next throws of creative passion.

I will be lighting my second band in the upcoming weeks, details to follow…

I am really excited to listen to this bands material, and seeing where we might be able to go together. I think I might pass the scenic charge onto a friend and see what his mind is able to come up with.

Things have begun to firm up with the cohabit-tator. Perhaps the seeds of a something are now rooting in the soil of cut up cardboard, rusty exacto blades, and carpet scraps. I have a hopeful body and mind as I move forward into the darkening days to come.  Esp. because i know I will get my life back shortly.  Now that schools have disbursed their fundage’s the cohabit-tator will be able to freely move around and firm up his life.  The experiment in generosity and kindness has not only been humbling and educational, but also enjoyable..  He will be flying back to his home, finding his graduate experience to be too much to handle… I honestly can symphatize with him…

So judging by the costume material I pulled, I might be being some drag queen or madam… “or maybe army theme?”  or perhaps traditional sexy vampire!

More to come soon!

Light

M

First of all, happy national coming out day to all of my GLBTQ friends out in the inter-verse, I do truly believe equality will find itself to America, and a day is dawning where we all can be free to have the same protections and allocations under the law. As a resident of the fine state of Massachusetts I already have seen this change happen. Every day we blaze a trail weather how we interact with a neighbor or a person on a bus, too taking cases of discrimination to the Supreme Court. Our actions are felt around the country. I have always been active in the GLBTQ community and I find its innovation, grace, and stamina to be un-daunting and inspiring. So I wanted to take this moment to not only recommit myself to all of my friends, and those whom I have yet to meet, but also to myself. I commit to seeing a world where hate has no place, and where segregation even from aspects of the law is abolished.

So tonight the frigid fingers of winter will drop a pristine white fluffy blanket of snow on top of Mt Washington in New Hampshire, and in Massachusetts the thermometer will dip down to a balmy 36 degrees, and I will pull my comforter up and over my head in order to soldier on. All the trees have begun to join the earlier prom goers of a few weeks ago, when I open my back door I am inundated with orange’s and yellow’s and green’s and red’s.

I have opened arsenic and old lace at the company, and I am feeling more accomplished than my last update left you hanging. I am evaluating and beginning to formulate a plan to stay residential in the Boston area for the next three to five years. Seeing where my connections and life can take me within this great city, as I have always known I am within stabbing distance of Chicago and NYC so really I have nothing to complain about. While working at the Company I ran into an actor who is going to try to help me out with taking a swing at the next level of my global plans. So in all honesty I need to remind myself that life is fluid, and things which are great can obviously turn bad, and things that seam hopeless can resurrect into the light.

Also cohabitation is still going well for those of you whom are interested. I have no complaints as a hybrid state of styles and concepts are beginning to manifest and swirl themselves around in the room. I feel that I am really able to sit in my stillness now and appreciate it which is a new found comfort. I have Halloween to look forward to. It will mark the date of my two best friends union. Honestly I have to say, how freaking fun is this going to be!!! I will be traversing 93, and route 3, with the cohabiter to pick up some costumes from a graciously giving costume house.

In true theatrical style, almost like miss Lady Gaga, we will be going in formal attire, with garment bags in the back seat, and then costume changing into the festivities outfits. Allowing the final moment to be quite surprising… I am yet to know the final theme but once I do be sure I will inform you all….

In closing I noticed in the past couple of days bee’s hovering around the fall flowers, and I thought to myself whilst I was feeling down. If these bee’s can comeback from the massive hive decolonization that plagued us last year, perhaps my life is not really in that bad of shape. So as I watched the little worker hover around I smiled and realized that I am going to be ok.

I am sitting on the BOLT bus which is a lighting designer’s emblem. A streak of lighting splash’s across the side of the red coach operated out of Dallas. You might be asking me where I am going, or where I have been. I am recently leaving Manhattan, after completing a two week stint on High School Musical II. I was in many ways a refuge in my own skin, a gypsy traversing the wilderness of the urban city. I stayed in Jersey with Erik, and West Village with Patrick, and LIC with Shari.

Now before I go into the generics of my daily life I need to take a moment to talk about my personal life. I would like to say that a few months ago Robert and I ended our relationship. It happened in a very controlled and calculated way. There was very little to discuss and we realized our lives where going in two different directions which no include each other anymore. That being said, I sing a song of forgetting, forgetting the way things where, and I instead choose to remember the way I was. Before, and what made me strong, what I have learned, and what I want to become.

I now look forward, I am booked through march 2010, I have doubled business in a year, and I am a resident designer for a few companies… Although it is not glamorous, I am ok with this. I sit outside an arbys waiting for my bus driver to eat and come back to drive me home.

I will be looking for a new apartment in the next two weeks, moving, and starting over…

LIFE IS GOOD,

~Mike

So clubs, wine, beer, brie, and a ha cha cha. Since we spoke last, bob and I toured the United States, we stopped in Florida, Vegas, San Francisco, san luis, Monterey, LA, NYC, and back to Boston. This was a double graduation, and engagement present made possible by his parents, south west airlines, and our own boot straps. We rented a snazzy car and got under way. It was in SAN FRAN, that I began to sit down with my opera materials, and conceptualize the magic flute. I also got contacted by the Company Theatre, and would later be signed to date for two shows.

We just keep spinning round round right round like a record. NYC allowed me some closure on my graduate experience; I interviewed at a few more schools, was warmly received, and warmly declined. We were able to get awesome tickets to SHREK the musical, and enjoyed the open doors of restaurant week.

Now my designs have gotten more complex, after seeking Shrek and talking with a good friend on Broadway I decided to try Vari Lites on for size. These Movers are bananas. They have vibrant colors, and good wash / spot capabilities, Which means they can practically do whatever I need them to do. I also loaded my opera with CXI’s to get fun color wash’s.

Now a note on touring… SPEED and SMILES… are the two s’s of success..

This is all my brain has for now… My writer brain is not well engaged… as spring comes I will be inspired to write more to you all… Until then hold tight to the idea of tulips rising from the earth like little colored fire birds.

MORE TO COME SOON, I OPEN TWO SHOWS FRIDAY, MAYBE SOME OF MY BEST WORK TO DATE…

MY SISTER GAVE BIRTH TO EMA…

WRITE SOON IN TECH

GOT TO GO!!!!

!!!FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!!

Hello all, 5 hours of sleep, theater at 8am, coffee in hand, and at the tech table…

Ahh focus,

I will tell you all about it when i get home…

Mucho love…

Mike