mwonson.com

!!!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

Here we are the first insert of a young designer thinking about his life, and the effect his choices have on others.

Recently i decided to take some time off from my Graduate studies, Life couldn’t have been more worse, and gotten so better. I moved home planning on living with my pa-rentals, but talked my boyfriend into letting me move in… (very cabaret of me)
So i hit the city with a soul high on emotional baggage, low on body fat, and guided by the fleeting memories and whispers of the design reputation I used to have. I was comforted by knowing that my best friend Mark at http://www.hoveyplayers.com had me booked for my first show. A show that would win me a nod from the EMACT judges.

I spent the end of winter and the thaw into spring warming my soul and nourishing my body, sending out blankets of job query’s. Hoping as i do that the road would rise to meet me. I landed my old stand by, http://www.playwrightsplatform.org and I met new faces at the Huntington Theater Company.

Wonder’s of wonder’s miracles of miracles, I land a show with the designers of Wicked, Hairspray, and Spelling Bee. I am on of the over hire electricians,

and let me tell you i studied hard..

Write more soon, till then

<3

Michael