Noel Fielding of the sketch duo “The Mighty Boosh” responded to the question above with this: “We talk about what we’re going to do for weeks, but we don’t actually do anything. You have to drink lots of different sorts of drinks. You drink lots of coffees, then you’re going to need juice, then you need some water, then you need some tea. … You go through the whole gamut of drinks. Anything to not do any actual work until you have to.”

I understand that process.

“Hi I am David Miller. I am a reviewer and a Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings officianado. My other interests include law and poetry. I also love fencing. That’s right, poking people with sharp swords!”

Every time I visit with David Robinson, I am inspired.  When I returned from Seattle, I had to paint again.  And so I did.

In my Theatre Appreciation course, I assigned three projects over the course of the semester. The first was “You are a Playwright: Write a 5 to 7 page play”. The second was “You are a Reviewer: Review a professional production”. The third was “You are an Artistic Director: Select a Season”. In addition to selecting a 5 play season (which included certain parameters such as cast a “star” in one of the shows, one should be a musical, one should be a Theatre for Young Audiences play, etc), students were asked to name their theater, their season and define the demographics of their company’s audience. There were many highlights. One of the interesting play combinations was this season:

1. The Persians
2. Timon of Athens
3. Orestes
4. Agammemnon
5. Jersey Boys

Thanks to Frank’s Wild Lunch for this.

There are a tremendous number of musicians whose work I love, truly love.  And there are a tremendous number of playwrights whose work I love, truly love. And I love when they come together in sound design for a theatrical production.

I think of this today because while listening to a “party shuffle” (though the party is me, working), “River Rise” by Mark Lanegan plays and I am transported to “The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek” by Naomi Wallace, a play that I directed while at Rutgers. After a search for authentic Depression era music I found that there was a dated sound that was not always right for the very contemporary, immediate resonances of the play in production. I rediscovered Mark Lanegan’s music, formerly of the Screaming Trees, as contemporary but so very rooted in the same music I was listening to from the 1930s (such as Ralph Stanley).

It is the first day of my classes at Wagner. I am pleased to already be in conversation with my Theatre Appreciation class that will lead to the article “What Can’t Theatre Be More Like Hockey?”

We visited the stage to explore the question, “What is theatre?” and saw the stage-in-progress for Three Penny Opera. The stage is bare save for a turntable that covers 3/4 of the stage.

Every time I see a turntable I think, “That’s going to be a problem in tech.”