mwonson.com

Ok my avid readers lets dish.

I am coming to you from the king sized bed in our bed room, wrapped up in a white cabled turtle neck sweater and newspaper leggings, hiding under a pile of blankets and afghans.   The October snow on our porch roof is almost all melted and a soft scented candle from Ikea is burning on the desk.   I have my old laptop sitting next to me on its side playing Lady Gaga’s poker face off of an internet dance station, and I am popping vitamin C like its my job!

In the past few months I have been all over the New England Region, I have become the Resident Lighting Designer For Seacoast Repertory Theatre in Portsmouth Newhampshire, I landed the East Coast Lighting Design position for the Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker, I have designed about 10 weddings and I have programmed my schedule through Dec of 2012, in case you haven’t been following me on twitter https://twitter.com/#!/MichaelCWonson that’s a whole lot of stuff happening to me.  I have been living in Boston, Northampton and NYC, and I am very humbled by the generosity of my partner putting up with my crazy schedule, my friends for giving me beds, kitchens, and everybody’s abundant supply of unending support and love.

I am looking forward to hitting the world class theatres which are in front of me (im told, “some of the best in the nation”) and turning out a mean show every day.   Talking about every day, we are in a new city every day!  That’s two months of tour bus living people!   With that in mind I am looking around my house and thinking about the minimal things I could want to make this new living experience work.  On the list are my special soap, my pillow, popcorn, coffee, computer, headphones, cell charger, poufy jacket, and 7 days worth of clothes.  Feel free to comment and let me know if I should add anything to the list.  I am very excited to set foot on our bus and tweet out to all of you my best Lady Gaga move…

I am also looking forward to Erik Fox taking my paper designs and implementing them in two theatres while I’m on the road.   It’s humbling to know that while I am away entertaining thousands of people a night my name, ideas, and aesthetics will be going up around Boston and New Hampshire.  I am very grateful to Erik’s friendship.  Erik and I met years ago when I decided to leave grad school, and he decided to apply at North Shore Music Theatre.  We both collided and he Master Electricianed 3 of my shows, and from that moment on we have been inseparable helping each other lift to the next level of our design experience.

I am looking forward to vacationing with Clay at the end of the tour, and returning home to continue to fill the small gaps in my production schedule..  I am still trying to branch out in the Five College Region and I would love to land an Opera for next year.

Well kids that’s all he wrote for the moment, I really need to go finish a light plot, some paper work, and mail out color to Erik…

I am looking ahead to sending you weekly updates, so please stay tuned for all the crazy fun…

<3

~anon

ps,

see if i am coming to your city and please come and visit me… or send me trinkets

http://www.nutcracker.com/your-city

I am sitting in the living room, with the sounds of peepers peeping at me as I recline in a towel at my new apartment In Northampton Ma. The cool fall air is whispering through the window as I reflect on where my life and company have gone over the past year. I have set up bases in NYC, Boston, and Western Ma, and have begun to expand my regional grasp. Since last we spoke I decided to end my residency at the company theatre in Norwell MA. I had become artistically stagnant and realized I needed to challenge myself to expand my career. I am grateful to the time I spent there, the relationships I formed, and the lessons I learned. I have done a few shows in NYC and I am looking forward to more in early fall.

I am particularly excited about being considered to tour with a company on a two month North American tour. If this materializes I will tell you more about it. Suffice to say, I am calling in a few favors to try and tip the scales in my favor. I am very excited about the truck and bus aspect, the pay is good, and id be able to use units that are not normally available to me.

Its thrilling to be invited back to Manhattan to work on a festival which I first applied for a few years ago. It seems to me that many of my good friends, myself included are starting to click and find our stride. New works are being written, shows are being produced, and great art is being experienced, for this I am so grateful.

This month I will be opening Cabaret at Sea Coast Repertory Theatre, Ill be lighting a few weddings, and hopefully a fashion show. I hooked up with an amazing scenic designer, and opera director. I am hoping that as the years go on this relationship will strengthen and we will continue to produce stunning breath taking works. I think what I find most exciting and thrilling about the space I am in right now is that I am starting to see so many diamonds in the rough. Diamonds which I want to gently unearth and polish until they are the envy of the artistic world.

That’s all for the moment, it will take me some time to get back into the swing of writing to you, but I hope you stand by me as I come back to the blogosphere.

So my fellow readers, it is now a glorious 2010 and how are you doing? The new decade was ushered in with a traditional kiss which was silhouetted against a sky of fireworks and a horizon line of ocean. Champagne, dinner, groceries, and flurries; I watched as the world moved past me. People trying to shake off 2009 like a wet wool sweater.

I personally have been very thrilled with the past year. I saw my company double its business, I hired two new employees, I diversified my industry, and I networked like a pro. Looking ahead I am thrilled with the designs and positions I have secured for 2010. Going into the New Year I have already signed 8 gigs spanning musicals, rock, and opera.

I have also begun to dip my creative fingers into listening for new music. Over the past year I have been working on a professional connection to the music industry, and when I hear something I like I pass it on. Hopefully something strong can grow out of this relationship which could further my creative and design based process.

Closing up 2009 I invited one of my Grad School class mates to come up to Boston and work with me on the nutcracker. I had a really enjoyable experience and it was wonderful to see her again. We were able to catch up, share work stratagems, have harrowing driving experiences “thanks to me” and invent new cocktails for post work relaxation.

I have begun rock climbing, and all I can say is climbing a cliff is a lot different than climbing truss or a boom. My arms hurt so much, but thankfully my dignity is still secure as I am trying to take to the sport like a duck to water. I am thankful that Boston has so many rock wall options available to the public. It makes my new hobby accessible.

I have met a new interesting individual, a true neuroscientist, and I have been enjoying taking my time and getting to know this person. In the upcoming weeks I will mount Footloose, Spelling Bee, Barber of Seville, and RENT. There will also be a few rock gigs spattered amongst the shows.

I am really excited with the few months ahead, and will have to close this entry with that. I am finding myself pulled in many positive directions, and all of these forces are making it difficult to write at the moment. When I touch ground again I will get in contact with you.

As for tonight I am about to slap on my Aldo’s and rock over to the house of blues foundation room to do a mixer for Adam Ezra. Then I will be whisked off to his concert, and hopefully do a little networking. New York City is on the horizon, and I am looking forward to seeing all of my friends.

Peace Love and Jell-O

M

Well fall has gripped me, with a chill that is unmistakable. Smoking a clove lying out on my back porch looking at the veiled moonlight I feel more and more like Emily Dickenson, save I am not a shut in, and my lap top is my pen and papers. Still I feel somewhat as if I am locked away in a far off attic watching life move around me. The delicious darkness that is winter spreads its Eire blanket over me, and I am ready to open Arsenic and Old lace.

I am having I suppose a moment of weakness. I am very comfortable right now, but I wonder what is ahead of me. Where is my career going? I am thankful for the business I have, and yet, a voice inside me says, Michael what will you be doing in two years. Should I be moving, should I be looking harder, should I relax and travel with what I have?

Also I am pining, I suppose that is all I will say on that matter, but the waters of my life although from the outside appear peaceful and glass like are filled with rouge waves, and uncharted expanses.  I suppose tho, that this is the fun in life’s journey.  The unknowing, the uncertainties, the surprises, and the bouts of survey.

Truly in the end or in a week, I will be peaceful again, happy with the blessings with which I have.

Perhaps I need a week away from New England.

The lovely rainy time that is the change of guards from summer to winner. As the drizzle sets in I unloaded a truck with Erik and Joel. We moved the parts of the beast into the theatre. Hung 55 fixtures, cabled, colored, and wrung out the system in less than seven hours. So we did roughly a light every 7 minutes. My show has loaded into the black box, and I sit and wait to see if the actors will have as smooth a transition as I did. While programming the light console, I stopped to think about the interconnection of the micro processor. We designed a piece of technology which operates as one being, but cannot survive without the sum of its whole. In a way, my electrics team was like the semi conductors in that micro processor.

I also just finished reading Arsenic and Old lace which I will be working next week. The script is adorable, and brings forth a lot of humor which I did not formally give the 1940’s credit for possessing. I have decided to do my own electrics work at this theatre till the end of the quarter to foster a good rainy day fund. The thought does shake me slightly as doing my own electrical work is not my forte’.

I am pleased to say the co-habitation experiment is going well. I have recently discovered a small passion for cooking, and link it to the feeling I get as a designer. I feel that anyone who can create something in this society is like a modern day magician. So the gifts we have, be it singing, cooking, painting, or designing are special and inherently sacred.

I feel that my current life is very fostering of this energy, and I find myself barreling forward and It makes me laugh, as I dance home through the city streets at night with my mp3 player in my hand.

I have made it into my new apartment, along the way there were a lot of things I cast off just like the trees which are shaking the orange flecked plumage that once made them so tall and proud. Moving for me turned into a wonderful game of precious not precious, I was able to part with many items I had been carrying with me for years! Items, images, and thingamabobers strun across the floor, I felt briefly that I was drowning in my own collection of randomness.

Subsequently I have now arrived, a few blocks from the now quiet and dormant townhouse I sit in a cream colored room with my blue bed and full star curtain surround. Human compassion is such a wonderful thing. I have taken a friend in for the time being. We are learning to cohabitate and work around each other, both designing our own secret worlds.

I have been signed to do, Producers, Spelling Bee, and RENT; so im sure you can assume that I am THRILLED!!!!… I also recently thanks to my friend Adam, was able to design at the beautiful Wilbur theatre in boston. I Designed Yo LA Tengo, and it was an amazing experience. The rig was all pars, and I really enjoyed using the seachangers to create color effects…

So whats up next? Fall is in the air..

I will write to you soon when the muse moves me…

Untill then

Be GOOD

Michael

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.

So ding dong merrily not high, and I’m still gay-ly ringing. The holidays have truly descended upon and through us here. To say Florida turns is an understatement. We say in some families that life is like a soap opera, (like as the world turns for instance). So as I stated above we are going at 360rpm’s a min. down here. The rentals are ill with a flu, but the outlook is good. The sister is repainting her house, the outlook is good. Bob and I are scheduled to fly out jan 7^th, the outlook is long! I do have to say, I am thankful for coming down here and spending time with the family. Family always puts things into perspective, and it’s good to have love and warmth; especially when the warmth comes from the 80 degree weather.

Robert and I decided to get engaged, rings and all. Modest rings with a tension set diamond. They are tokens or statements of our choice to be with each other. My opera is fast approaching, and hesitantly I still await contract and footage to help inform my choices. In other news, I was contacted by a company in Boston, who is looking to hire me on for Godspell (can we say THRILLED!!!).

So what advice do I have for you when things get hairy, I guess I would say have a good exit strategy.

Robert and I have a vacation from our vacation. We will be flying out of Orlando early, and darting across the country to San Francisco. Then we will spend two weeks driving to LA, and then Fly to NYC to do interviews. (thanks to his parents as a graduation gift)

In a word we are

Thrilled!

Love light and licorice.

MIKE

Well, well, well.

I have arrived home safely from my duo Nutcracker’s. One was a design, and the other was over hire. Now I am listening to Mama Mia, and packing a suitcase ready to go to Orlando.

I am looking forward to 3 weeks of secluded family vacationing, and pre prep on the Opera. Now all I have to do is find spring and summer work!

Keep your ears to the ground, I will have a holiday post soon…

The seasons are amongst us, and it is quite chilly in the old bean town. After doing a lot of freelancy stage handish gigs I am pleased with the notch I have dug out for myself. It looks like my dream of becoming a regional lighting designer is coming in ahead of schedule. Recently, I found myself on the floor of my bedroom, cleaning off an old computer, while doing so I came across letters I had written almost three years ago. They where letters of intent directed at perspective graduate programs. Filled with my hopes and dreams, those words were intended to carry me into the future.

Now I was scheduled to graduate from Grad School this spring, and it had been my hope to be an international, Broadway, or regional lighting designer. Now as I sit typing to you, I thank myself quietly for unpacking my travel size suit case, for she is going to get a work out. I will be on a plane shortly heading across the continent to design!

Also I have an opera to look forward to, which will be touring New England. Now friends, all of this comes with extreme waves of caution and jubilation. I looked at my partner and said these jobs are both big and small at the same time, i.e. minimal equipment and manipulation for maximum effect.

Now as I emotionally prep for my journeys ahead, I ask the universe for hubris, strength, and wisdom. I will need all of these things, and a dash of luck to keep moving forward.