USITT & an award

Yesterday, after a long half-week of exhaustion and many months of planning, the USITT conference wrapped up in Long Beach, CA.  USITT presents an annual conference for theatre designers and technicians, and the Sound Commission is a subgroup that I'm particularly involved with.  This year, in addition to helping to plan parts of the conference, I also chaired a panel on intermediate/advanced applications of multi-channel audio.  Brad Berridge and Davin Huston worked with me as a group called Push The Button, and director/dancer/artist Maya Gurantz helped out as well.  We created two new dance pieces, one of which used data from two wii remotes to control the sound, and the other of which used an xBox kinect to control the sound. The dance pieces were accompanied by a short lecture about some of the techniques used to harness the sound delivery system of the room. The presentation went well, I thought. A little short, with a few bugs, but overall, a nice start down a new path of research.

In other news, my recent design for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's production of Tigers Be Still won a League of Cincinnati Theatres Award for outstanding sound design. You can read about it here!

This week has been exhausting. I'm taking today off. Mostly.

Took this this morning. Love the colors.

Catalina!

Three years ago, my folks gave S and I some money to take a little trip to Catalina Island, off the coast of LA. We booked a trip, but at the last minute, we had to cancel b/c S got a job.  I was able to get credit at the hotel, and this last weekend, three years later, we finally made the trip out.  We were just gone a few nights, but it was good to get away for a few days.


The iconic casino stands over town.


We took a raft trip out into the water to try to see some whales. We saw no whales, but we did see some sea lions.


And some dolphins!


Sunset over town.


Yea, buoy!

The depth of winter...

Okay, so I suppose I can't really talk about the 'depth of winter' when I'm living in LA (today, sunny, high in the mid 60s), but there is less sun, more clouds, and I've been being pulled in many different directions.

Here are some projects I've been working on (in order of completion):

* Mounting HIGH in Florida for the second leg of its national tour.

* Designing TIGERS BE STILL for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

* Chairing a panel at USITT on Multi-Channel Sound.  I'm bringing in the Push The Button gang, and we'll be creating a few pieces to demonstrate some concepts.

* Writing a score for MOTHER COURAGE at UCI.  Six-piece band, plus singers!

* Designing JITNEY at South Coast Rep.

* Creating, designing, and scoring WAR OF THE CLOWNS for The National Theater of Romania.


That'll take me through mid-June.  In addition, I'm teaching a full load, researching and prepping a new class for next year, interviewing candidates for our MFA program, and trying to be a good husband.

Sunrise on Mars