February Rush

 Well THAT month rushed by!

Since the New Year, two shows (and a wicked lingering cough)...

Now on stage:  Pompeii!! at Kitchen Dog Theater in our new home!

For this clever and darkly funny musical - written by members of the Company - the set design is a blend of the original 2018 production by David Walsh and new bits by myself... like this crazy Wheel of Misfortune.

And Arsenic and Old Lace at Pocket Sandwich Theatre

Both good and funny shows!  (Pompeii!! ends Sunday).

Cheese Burger

Public Domain Image

Some recent advice I'm trying out: ask yourself in the morning what the best thing was about yesterday.

My yesterday was pretty good, so lots to choose from.  But my fav moment was probably when I was painting and aging planks for decks for the set of Kitchen Dog Theater's upcoming Pompeii!! (opening Feb. 12th!) and I got to hand our TD a cheeseborough.  (In highly technical language, this thingie is a weird, twisty pipe clamp/connector.)

I finally got an answer to a long-nagging question:

"Why are these called cheeseboroughs?" 

Apparently, the word "Cheeseborough" is, or was, often stamped right across the thingie.  And, as it was much easier to ask for it by that moniker than to ask for "a weird, twisty pipe clamp/connector" that became its nickname.  But the nickname also has a nickname... to Americans "cheeseborough" easily morphs to "cheeseburger" then to "burger."

So in a theater you'll occasionally hear a lighting guy call out, "Hand me a burger!"

PS Ha! But why is it stamped "Cheeseborough" you ask?  Apparently that's the name of the area of England and the foundry that makes 'em.

Wooly Hats

 Well, Texas and DFW are bracing for another Snowpocalypse...

Of course my next play is supposed to Load Into the Brand New Building Tomorrow, amid "wintery mix."

But amid all the angst of this little problem in the arts in Dallas...

My God!

The situation in Minneapolis! 

The government - OUR government - are murdering citizens in the street!

And then lying about them.  Blackening their names, lying about the threat they did not pose. Murdering a poet and mother of three who was leaving the scene after only observing.  Murdering a nurse, an ICU nurse who worked at the Veterans' hospital and who was protecting a woman ICE agents had shoved.  There only to witness and observe ICE's doings.

And what are ICE doing?

ICE agents - masked and nameless - grab a two year old baby to deport.  They grab a five year old in a wonderfully cute blue fuzzy hat with puppy dog ears to use him as a hostage to grab more of his family and deport them.  

What are the brave people of Minneapolis doing?  Witnessing.  Documenting on their phones. 

Armored only with fuzzy hats against below zero temperatures and even colder hearts...

ICE indeed.

Protest this.

Busy Fall Behind, Busy Winter and Spring Ahead

 It seems like I've had time for everything but blogging!

This Fall it was finally my chance to design The Phantom of the Opera.  A melodrama version for Pocket Sandwich Theatre.  Popcorn was thrown!

This was a chance to pull out a few foam carvings etc. made for earlier shows, like the grand Water God (8'-0" long) originally designed, years ago, for The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare Dallas.  Here he's to be seen hiding in the lights... just as shy as the Phantom himself.

Designing and building the Phantom's organ was the most fun.  It was mostly of pool noodles for this full-foam show, but incorporated a real keyboard, and its frame was mostly parts of a vantage baby crib.  In this horror-drenched (ha!) tale, the most fearsome sight may have been the stagehands' rear view of this organ case, a 1950's Scary Bunny!

But the BIG deal this Fall was finishing a fantasy novel!

It's a long story...  A friend and I started collaborating on a short story... that got out of hand.  Huge fun!  More news on that story later, when it's closer to public release.  Suffice, for now, to say that writing, editing, revising, illustrating, and designing a cover for this epic took a whiiiile.

What else is Up-Coming?

Theatrically there are four shows: the triumphant opening of Kitchen Dog Theater's new home with the critically acclaimed and member-created show Pompeii!!  Then Arsenic and Old Lace and Home, I'm Honey at Pocket (plus Werewolf of London in the Fall) and then the third and last installment of Stage West's Sherlock Holmes series, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Ghost Machine.