End of the School Year

I would have to say that my Spring semester was pretty packed and I am relieved that it is over for the time being. It is nice to have two years of grad school under my belt. I haven't blogged much, because I really haven't been around. As a quick recap here are some of the exciting things I got to do this semester:

In January school started back up and I got to design a series of 6 new One Act plays downtown in LA. February rolled around and I got whisked off to NYC to go assist on the new off-broadway musical Happiness at Lincoln Center. Upon returning I had to get right back into school work and catch up on the 2 weeks I missed. Then Spring break happened, and believe it or not I actually got to go on vacation. Then in April I got assigned very late to be the ALD on the Opera at CalArts which was shortly followed by a 30-hour round trip lighting designer extravaganza to Las Vegas so all of the MFA lighting students could get a backstage tour and see Lion King that opened up at Mandalay Bay. We also managed to see KA later that night over at the MGM if you wanted to get a sense of how busy we were. Then the real fun started in May where I designed a new play/musical called Setup & Punch in Hollywood, as well as designing two MFA dance pieces, finishing up a final paper project for class, and attending a bunch of production meetings for my show next year at school. And now that school is out for the summer I've had a bit of free time to do some things I enjoy like biking, swimming, hanging out with friends and even seeing some plays in LA. If you get a chance, go check out the Mark Taper's production of Mamet's Oleanna, starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles. The production was really strong and Neil Patel's set design is damn awesome and totally worked with the show. So now I am on a well deserved vacation for another two weeks and then I head to Vermont for my standard summer theatre gig, which I have been looking forward to for months.