some simple sewing

I have this thing about recycling Tshirts into dresses for Q...and so I did some. The 73 jersey Quinn had some strange issue with, but we gave it to Tula and I think she likes it.

Crowley's Bag

I never posted this, but made it for Crowley when we were putting up Righteous Money at 3LD.... I had bought the bag with the intent of making something for Jeff, but I was incredibly happy with how this turned out.

Douglas versus the TSA

So I thought I'd direct again..... it went s much smoother this time! I was blessed with an incredibly talented and understanding playwright and actors. We set our rehearsal schedule in stone immediately (and scheduled twice as many hours as we really needed so I never felt bad about canceling rehearsal). The piece was short, and cute, and funny. As it stood within the larger piece it was fine....but when we got t do it on its own last night, the audience was right there with us the whole time, and it felt miraculous. I remembered the long dormant feeling of "always having notes" ...as a designer I am able to get most of my notes done before a show opens, but as a director, at some point I have to admit to myself that they will never do it EXACTLY as it is in my head.....more human error I suppose... But I guess I just had my first 3 week run as a director in NYC. Not bad...for a scenic designer.

Laura's Painting

Hey, I made a painting to hand in Christine's Gallery Show in Chicago. And someone bought it! Yeah, it was my best friend....but still! Here are some pics...I was in the same collage-y mood as I was when I painted the table.

Kids table

we found an IkEA kids table outsde the neighbor's house, and decided we could fix the crappy tabletop by painting it, or something. This is how it turned out. Quinn helped me with the paint technique. She is a born scumbler. I'm very very happy with it.

Drawing

Three drawings in a relaxing afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History with Chris Muller. It was unbelievably nice just to sit and draw, and even better from sharing the afternoon with such a wonderful person. A Protoceratops, an owl and a Bison. It was only on the first drawing of the day, the Protoceratops skull, that I did any preliminary sketches. i wa

s loose and tried to just let myself draw without getting too anal. I did about a page of rough sketches, then settled into the big one. For the other two drawings, I just did big ones.

Troilus and Cressida

One act. Three scenes. Eleven actors, plus one for voice over and five people that dropped. A tent, a six pack, a manilla envelope. A black curtain and four chairs, pulled from the audience.

What I did? Scenes one and three were about a drunk soldier (and his buddy) in a tent, his commander(s), and some other guys....though you honestly weren't sure what they were all about, because their line readings were totally unclear. Suffice it to say, you could tell this guy in the tent was important, was special, was needed by other people...and had no particular desire to comply with anyone's wishes. We made some good choices, and maybe did what we could with it without completely cutting both scenes. Scene two was a long-winded brother, who had maybe also been drinking and three well spoken brothers. And a woman who didn't seem too crazy to me. But they had class. All of them. And took themselves and their position seriously.

What I should have done? NOT told the guys in the tent they could drink the beer. Had someone be Agamemnon live from a phone downstairs. Rehearsed the second scene at least ONE MORE TIME! But maybe more importantly.... not done as much and done what I did do, better. Which is funny. I don't want to say I "should" have done this. But this was another option, and while I don't think I would have done this time differently, I would indeed do it differently next tme. I think for myself I need to have the experience of making my "crazy" (exciting) ideas come alive, and that will take all of our collective energy. SO it requires people who are behind the idea ( which limits the number of people available) and really making sure we land on the idea. What I keep hearing myself saying is that I know I can teach acting, i know I can get people to say the lines right. So if i believe that, its that much MORE important that I be pushing the things that set my directorial work, my holistic ideas, apart from other people.

But I wholeheartedly believe that I made the decisions that led to last night purposefully. And I learned alot about myself and about the piece because of it. And that is what I wanted. I experienced authentic failure, and it felt so good.