Monday, May 31, 2010

University of Michigan, Fall 1978

So the end of summer came and my job at Lycian was over, I packed up I flew to Ann Arbor to start Graduate School.
Many details are lost to time, but I took a cab from the airport into town, somehow got my things from my friends place and moved into my new house.
The renovations were almost done, with just a few small things yet to be done, but the house looked nice and looking back I had a good time and enjoyed the guys who I lived with.

The first “Official” event of the school year was a BBQ and softball game with all the grad students and teachers.
There were a few new faces but I had already knew most of the people from my two previous visits.
At Michigan they followed the long Theatre ritual of work hard/play hard and there would be many more parties, poker nights and softball games ahead, but so was a great deal of hard work in the classrooms and Theatres.

When I started college I felt a bit unsure of myself and now I wondered if I was ready for Graduate School and would I be able to do the work?
I was eager to do well in all of my classes but Costume History and Design was new to me and I was not sure how well I would do, but I jumped right in, worked hard and tried not to get behind.
Non-Costume Design students were not expected to do the same level of work as Costume Design majors.
Lighting Designers, Directors and Actors could take the class as “Sketchers” and just do simple costumes design plates, but that was not good enough for me.
I have always tried my best at everything I have done, but my first Costume Plates were just plain bad.
It was easy to see how bad my first few projects were and I knew I had to get better.
Each week I got a little bit better and once I reached a certain level the teacher would not let me go back and would push me to do better.


The Jew of Malta, Costume Designs, 1980

I always appreciated the teachers who gave that extra push and have tried to do that with my students when I began to teach.
Having students who want to learn is always a joy and I have always gone out of my way to help them if I could.

Painting the costume plates were at first hard for me, but I enjoyed the challenge of learning how to research, adapt the design and paint the plates.
There were many nights I was up late working on my projects to get them just right.
I am very happy when I look at the progression of my designs from my first projects through my Thesis designs and I will have to scan some of them and post them here.

Unlike some my fellow students, my drafting skills were already very good when I got to Ann Arbor but I still had to learn a few new lighting design conventions.
Sometimes I miss hand drafting, but I do not miss long hours of working late into the light to get something done.
I can now do a basic light plot or set of working drawing in one tenth of the time it used to take, plus they are done more accurately, but there is still something about using your own hands to draw and paint your ideas.

There would be plenty of assignments to draw, paint and draft while at Michigan and I enjoyed the challenges of each project given to me.
I have kept most of the work I did at both UB and Michigan and often use them as examples in the classes I teach.
In addition to class work there was always design work on the stage and the first play of the year, and my first design in grad school was quickly coming up.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

House Hunting in Michigan

In the middle of the summer I took a week or so off to drive to Ann Arbor to find a place to live in the fall.
On the way to and from Michigan I stopped in Buffalo and got to see some of my friends.
I drove through Canada to Detroit and then on to Ann Arbor.
I had never driven so far alone before and had a scare when one of the tires on the car started to come apart sending bits of rubber slamming into to wheel well.
It was “Fun” changing a tire on the side of the road in Canada with little shoulder space and cars zipping by at 80 miles an hour.

I stayed with a friend from Buffalo that had gone to Michigan and was getting ready to graduate.
While I was there I got to see all four shows in their summer repertory plus a dance concert.
Madonna was still a dance student at Michigan at the time but I have no way of knowing if she was in the concert or was at home packing and getting ready to take the bus to NYC and on to fame and fortune, but I like to think that I saw her last dance concert in college.

There was a party one night when I got to meet some of the students who would be back in the fall as well as those who were getting ready to graduate.
I am always telling my students my Theatre “War” stories, many of which make up this blog, and bits of sage-like advice.
I tell them about the old adage of Theatre being a small world and that you will never know who knows who and that you will always keep running into people that you already know.
I also tell them to look around the room as they may be working with some of their classmates when they graduate and go out into the “Real” world and I have talked about this in some of my earlier blogs.

One of those who I meet that summer and who was getting graduate was C. T. Oakes and although we did not take classes at the same time at Michigan, I would run into him many times over the years.
C. T. was teaching at SUNY Geneseo when I started at SUNY Brockport in 1982 and I worked with him several times when he came to Brockport to design the lighting for Garth Fagan Dance.
http://garthfagandance.org/

C. T. left Educational Theatre and entered the business end of lighting but I would run into him many times at the USITT conferences and other trade shows.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/c-t-oakes/14/40b/8aa
(I just found out that C. T. now lives here in Brockport, just a few blocks away, again a small world)

After a few days of looking I found a place to live but I was taking a chance as it was old house that was still under major renovations.
I saw an ad on campus and met several guys who had found the house and needed a few more roommates.
We met in a local bar and found that we were a mixed bag of students; both graduate and undergraduate students, majors from English to Theatre to History and even Chinese.
A couple of us were from Long Island, a farm boy from Illinois, a pot head, a book worm and the son of a Venezuelan Diplomat.
I returned in the fall and moved in with the six other guys to the upper two floors of a nice old house just a few blocks from campus, we all got along well and had a good time that year.

Before I left Ann Arbor I met with the Lighting Design Teacher and was told that they were short a designer and he asked me if I would design lights for a play that fall.
Normally they would not have new students design their first semester but I jumped at the chance, not really thinking too clearly as it was the first show I the year and my design skills would be given a big test.
So before I even took one class at Michigan I had seen 5 department plays, a dance concert, a rehearsal for an Opera, attended several parties and attended my first production meeting for a play I was about to design.

I was excited and could not wait for the summer to be over and to start on my newest adventure.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

More Summer of 1978

I greatly enjoyed working at Lycian that summer in 1978.
The owner Richard was a good story teller, who liked to talk and I was eager to hear his “War Stories”.
It seems that all us who work backstage in Theatre like to tell tales, like fishermen who tell of “The Big One That Got Away”.
Richard talked about people, theatres and the various shows that he worked on in the New York City area as well as Rock and Roll concerts.
He supplied some of the equipment for the Grateful Dead Europe ’72 tour and to this now aging Dead Head who was only 22 at the time that was very cool.




When I started working I was the only one there besides Richard and his wife.
He took pride in his products and really took the time to show me the right way to build the different units.
I quickly learned what to do and did not have too rejected parts.
In addition to the PAR Cans and Color Wheels I also had to refurbish lighting equipment that was part of his rental stock.
I would clean-up, paint and re-wire lights and cables as they came back into the shop before they would go back out on the next rental.

Near the end of the summer another guy was brought in to help after I would leave for Grad School in Michigan.
A rental order came in for some follow spots for a benefit gig for the local Democratic Party out in the Hamptons.
The singer Harry Chapin and his band were playing in some rich lady’s back yard I was put on the comp list.
I drove out to the Hamptons and saw a great concert in somebody’s big back yard.
It was very cool to be on the guest list and get waved in and Harry gave a great concert and played all of his hits.




Working in the shop was very cool that summer with little to complain about except that I did get lots of little cuts and burns all summer long plus a big cut when I almost cut my thumb off .
I got lazy and sloppy trying to rush a job as I was de-burring some holes in sheet metal using the drill press just holding the piece with my hand and not with a pair of pliers.
The drill bit caught on an oval shaped double-punched hole and spun around cutting my thumb.

Ouch!

Nice big cut, I swear I saw bone, but I did not need stitches and it healed fine, although I have a nice little scar right next to the dog bite scar I got when I was about 8.

At some point a fluorescent lamp salesmen stopped in the shop and tried to sell Richard some lamps.
He told some big story about how bright they were and of their color temperature.
Richard said “Really, let’s try them out
So he brought the guy into the shop and put the lights in and brought out his various meters and tested the results.
Wrong, these do not test to what you said” and the guy was soon sent packing.
I thought it was very funny and I am sure the salesman never knew what kind of business he had walked into until it was too late.

I was happy to run into Richard at the USITT conference in Texas in 1996 and sat with him at the closing banquet.
I asked how things were going and if he still got to do any live Theatre.
He asked “Don’t you know? I built my own Theatre”.
When I later visited his nice new big shop and the Theatres that he built across the road he gave me the full tour.


Again I was glad that I got to work in the shop that summer and I have been happy when I have gotten to run into him at the various trade shows over the years.