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Hello and how are you?

A little over two weeks later and I find myself sitting in the theater again, waiting for the carpenters to finish up on the stage. As clouds of sawdust and waves of spray paint accost my nostrils I breathe in and smile. “This is the true high of theater” I think to myself. There is an orchestration of the Dresden dolls playing softly in the background, as my fingers dance across the key board typing my past days to you.

Grease opened and closed with a successful attendance and pleased patrons. I hustled up the coast of New England to have lobster, family relations, and to relax. Only when you are riding your bicycle down the street at 11 o’clock guided only by moon light do you realize how quiet and peaceful this planet can be. Also the magnificence of open space allows thoughts to pour out and be dealt with on their own time. There are less walls and wave lengths to trap the mental chatter in your body.

Speaking of walls, we have found the perfect ones to shelter us through this up coming year. A four floor brown stone on mission hill. Bob and I will be residing on the fourth floor with a Mansard roof made of glass and lounging in a whirl pool tub. I am speechless and quite happy. The neighborhood is a little rough, but we all suffer to make greatness in this life.

I have begun the job search process. It looks like I am signed onto a documentary for august, and the freelancing will pick up again in September. I am awaiting news on a fashion show, and I hopefully will be getting a few regional theatre gigs before I ship off to NYC.

Well that is all for now, leave me your love, and I will shout out to ya in my next post!

Leave comments to if you have any…

Focus was a smash hit, the team and I focused about 170 lights in 10 hours, which is roughly 17 an hour. I was rather pleased with the whole process, very quiet, intimate, just what grad school had prepared me for.  Not to say there weren’t any snags along the way. When you have a 10+ hour day in a dark theatre with tiny little hieroglyphic focus sheets and people looking to you for guidance you can get run down. Thankfully, the day was full of coffee breaks, and snacks. I prepped the tech table with an assortment of candies to keep blood sugar and moral up through the day.

Post focus a designer usually writes a wish list of things they would like added and house work which needs to get done. As part of this wish list, I had to deal with one let down which, all together was a good character building exercise. I had to show the directors the foot lights, which are large clonking instruments that look as awkward as the dinosaur. As I sat with them in the theatre house I realized that I needed to say goodbye to my beloved front wash. I quietly remind myself there is a silver lining to this experience; I am learning how to make compromises. So I have cut the fat from my design, much like the fat I am cutting from my body.

Robert and I had a wonderful day yesterday followed by a whole foods excursion. Many brands of Tea’s where purchased; so hopefully as I warm my body and mind I can also warm up to the idea of staying healthy. I think it is important to stay moving as an artist. We can be a moody breed, full of dark rooms, and lots of sitting. So it is helpful to get up and shake around once in a while, remove the mental cobwebs from the dark corners of a creatively rich brain. On the note of creativity I still have the bed to look forward too.

Our bed will hopefully be arriving this weekend. Now like a freshly hatched sea turtle I scramble to gather the elements that make up a bed room, the perfect sheets, pillow tops, memory foams, and other accoutrement. What are your favorite bed room items? Perhaps I will feature them in my upcoming bedroom design.

I have a doctor’s appointment coming up, so I will let you know what the bill of health is.

Coming up is designer run through of GREASE, then I will be in my fortress of a theatre designing all weekend.

Looking forward to talking to you again.

Michael

!!!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

The mechanized whirr of camera booms and the unmistakable crackle of an array speaker system in the air, Yes as I sit in the oval surrounded by strangers I am analog recording today’s blog; and the country keeps barreling forward. I am decked out in jeans, a fabulous 80’s Red and White fractal shirt, a blue gingham button-down, and a white macramé fedora. I am America!

Writing on a blanket which was left at the apartment by a friend moving to San Fransisco, I sit waiting for my partner to arrive. I look around at my neighbors and invite people whom I don’t know to sit with me. Secretly I just want to shift over five feet so I am no longer obstructed by scaffolding.

I look up and I am surrounded by my old friends. Theatrical Lighting equipment hung on truss like tiny black birds on a power line. I wonder to myself if all this pomp and technology is really necessary. What would the birds think? A gorgeous wood band shell is ringed with moving lights and color blast led wash units. It looks almost like a tacky tiara. I am sure that the final effect will be stunning. Making that warm wood glow like a cyc.

As I take in the inventory I notice that all the elements are here. There are two wash’s on either side of the stage crossing each other somewhere in space to light us! the audience! Each panel on the shell is lit to reminisce an easier “I Love Lucy” era.

I look across the field and my heart drops into my stomach. I see in front of me my first ex. A shutter runs through me, like being thrown off of your raft while going white water ridding. God you got fat I want to exclaim. But time heals almost everything, and I tilt my fedora clad head down and return to my writing, thanking god that I am still thin and I have grown my hair out.

Twenty minutes ago I finished writing out my magic sheets. I wonder to myself how much more I can add to the show. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and know that it is all going to work out.
Clap of thunder and a pa announcement… Time to find a tarp…

talk soon!

Michael

Hello all,

So the 4th of July holiday is quickly approaching, you can almost smell it in the air.  The scent of super sized beef deals at the local super chain grocery, and the stale yet electric smoke scent that is gunpowder in the air.  I say that “in Boston at least” this holiday begins 3 weeks before the actual day.  Fireworks jump and sprout like flowers throughout the intercity suburbs blasting light and sound into the midnight air…  It is an interesting sound which i am sure would be fearful in any other setting.  The sirens from the police are a constant hum in the air as they illusively try to put a stop to the merriment. Bang the roomates look at each other, “was that a gunshot” someone says, “no this time it was a fire work”…  “We celebrate the independence of our country by blowing up a small portion of it.”

Soon the decision will come, which type of light do i want to be surrounded in.  Should i bask in a field by the charles river all day surrounded by friends and sunlight, waiting for a classical concert and fireworks display?  Should I trek up the coast of Maine to Blue Hill to see a homemade display and taste fresh shellfish? Or should i go home, and enjoy one of the largest bonfires this side of burning man?

I will let you know what choice i make later.  Right now I am faced with the task of reading and cueing my script for Grease, and making magic sheets.  Magic sheets are little maps that let me know what lights are coming from what direction.  Essential papers which help dull the mental chatter of numbers in my head.  I love that fact that math is not my strong suit, but when i am thinking about channel numbers and voltage drops i can remember and do anything quickly and with accuracy.

I am looking forward to this job in particular because.  This is my first large company job, I had a budget, and I am working in repertory.  This basically means that i had to make a lot of choices to both constrain and free my creativity and the final design.  Repertory means that 3 shows run a day, and that we swap the shows out after each one completes.  The lighting rig is fixed, so i had to come up with a pallet that i felt would work for Grease, Cabaret, and West Side Story.

All of this being said I think I have successfully achieved the tasks at hand, and I am excited to see what it will actually look like in the air.. I find this out of the 5th.

The cat is next to me in bed, he is under both blankets, and nuzzled against my left leg, as i sit proped up on pillows trying to understand this thing called the internet and networking.   NET-web: construct or form a web, as if by weaving.  WORK-exert oneself by doing mental or physical work for a purpose or out of necessity; “I will work hard to improve my grades”; “she worked hard for .  Interesting one must exert quite a large amount of force to ripple the pond.  We both may take a little cat nap, as I count the days remaining before my feet stop hanging off the edge.

So remember be safe and well on this long weekend.  I will continue to post, but if we dont speak till then, have fun…  AND DON’T FORGET TO HAND JIVE!!!!

Namaste

Mikey

I have never felt like this for once Im lost for words, life has really thrown me…

So the little learning electrician thing i was doing turned into quite an egg which i am now sitting on. Using my training from my masters program, i walked right up to the designers and presented them my card, chated with them for a while and asked if i could sit behind them. This is where it gets interesting, one must remain quiet and respectful. Stay aware of the process that is unfolding before you, and like a biologist in the field, gain the trust of what you are observing.

That being said, I was invited to observe the designers as they load in and design a major Broadway production in NYNY, show name will come at a later date (aka when it opens) “ask me what it is, and maybe I will tell you”

I guess it goes to prove that the little engine mentality is tried and true. If you think you can, then you know you can, and you will!

I am preparing to bring in a Queen sized bed into my life which will greatly effect how my partner and i sleep, currently our feet hang of the ends of the bed. Little feet dangling so that the cat can get the toes.

More to come on this post,

Light

Mike