Second Birthdays...And Some Contemplations

It's funny. I am uncertain as to how to start this entry.

There are so many emotions occurring within me at the moment. Why is that, I hear you ask? Well...let us start with something that always comes to mind for me this time of year, and on this day especially.

47 years ago - December 18th, 1968 - I was struck by a car. I was a slender little eight year old. According to those who saw it, I flew diagonally over the car, from the right front bumper to the left rear. In the family car on the way to the hospital - this was out on a farm and well before 911 and paramedics - I stopped breathing several times. When I reached the ER I had no blood pressure. No pulse.

I was in hospitals - both in Lake County, IL and down in Chicago - from that morning till early in  February, 1969. As for my injuries, the simple list includes: a pelvis broken in multiple places, fractured ribs whose jagged ends tore at my left lung, misc internal hemorrhages, and my left kidney being torn off from the main artery. When I left the hospital, I was minus the lower portion of my left lung, as well as my left kidney. My physical therapy at home consisted - mainly - of "crab walking"  from where my bed was to various other rooms in the house to get items, or to do things. And I learned how to be pretty quick on my crutches.

I have some other stories about that adventure. But I shan't fill this entry up with them. That really isn't the point of today.

The point is: I was given, through whatever means you might choose to attribute it to, 47 years more than I might have had. So on December 18th, I tend to get reflective. And grateful.

Every day is a gift.

And, on top of all of those sorts of reflections....Yesterday I took what was - if all things work as I have planned - my last final examination at the undergraduate level. Yep. Physics 175 - Introduction to Astronomy. The second of two science courses (with labs) that are part of the core degree requirements here at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Which leaves just 3 credits in performance to complete my concentration within my major. And for that, I submitted - and have received departmental approval of - a credit for prior learning portfolio in substitution for Theatre 221 - Acting II. That paperwork is at the deans office. And once it gets signed there, it moves on to the academic advising office, then the business office/registrar. And then....well, as long as the dean and the academic advising office sign off, I will have all my credit hours. Actually, with the 3 hours from the CPL portfolio included, I will have 168 hours. 120 hours are required for the BA. Shrug.

So. While there are still some i's to cross and some t's to dot, it looks as if I am done with my undergraduate scholastic career. I won't get my degree till graduation in the spring. And I still have projects here on campus - eg: the scenic design for the mainstage production of Closer, my poster presentation for Antigone at Research Day in April, etc. But no classes. Sigh. I admit, I will - in some ways - miss such things. Especially the various studio classes. Lord, I do love those.

I started undergraduate classes at a community college in January, 1979. And now, ~36 years later, I have come to an end of that portion of my education.

Even so...I intend that this blog will remain active, as I head towards new adventures. And I think that, even though those adventures will (hopefully) be grad school ones, I shall stick with the name: Not Quite The Worlds Oldest Undergrad. 

Well...that is all for the moment. More soon.

 

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The Countdown To February And The URTA NUAI's Now Begins In Earnest

Well.

I've registered for the NUAI's in Chicago. And I made the choice that the roster will show me as a scenic design candidate. That is because the computerized system that URTA uses lists areas of emphasis alphabetically, even if you enter things in your order of preference.

Sigh. If only they had a heading for scenography. But that would be too much to ask.

So to play it safe, I defaulted to just scenic design. No inclusion of properties. Nor technical direction. Or lighting design.

Even though there will be portions of each in my presentation portfolio. And some costume design items too. In part because at least one of the schools I am looking at requires evidence of work in at least two areas. And another states: "While you may choose an area of emphasis, the intensive three-year program requires you to demonstrate competencies in all areas of design and technology. ...". So I think it is worthwhile to include such items.

Because I am hungry for a graduate program.

Sigh yet again.

The email reply says that processing takes about two weeks. Then I'll be getting my scheduling email, and can arrange for airfare and accommodations. 

I know that patience is also a weapon. I do. However, I fear that until I can get my accommodations and all arranged I shall have difficulty wielding that armament.

In other news, the process with Antigone is moving ahead. I have a cast. Rehearsals are underway. And a separate update on all of that will follow in due time.

More later.

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"Oh The Wells Fargo Wagon Is-a Comin' Down The Street..."

So...for all my musical theatre contacts, I admit that this post will not be expressly about receiving a package. Though it is about receiving an anticipated communication. So I still feel somewhat justified by the reference in the subject line.

As I have mentioned previously - here and here - I submitted a proposal for a project grant from the URSA (Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity) office here at UAF. The funds would be being used for my production of Antigone this Fall and my travel to the URTA portfolio and interview session in Chicago in February.

I submitted my proposal. And I waited. And waited. radio silence from the URSA committee. Today was the deadline. I admit that I was rather forlorn and anxious this morning. I even put off leaving my house for as long as possible to allow for the committee to send out its emails, since I knew it would just be worse if I got online and found nothing in the mailbox. I had mentally given the folks at the URSA office till 1700 hours local time, since that is when offices generally close on campus. If I had not heard from them by then...well, I would have my answer.

So I left the house and got to the city transit center, where they have an open wifi node. And while I waited for my bus I went ahead and signed on with my tablet to check email. And the first email in the queue was from the URSA committee....To quote:


"... Congratulations! You have received an URSA Fall Project Award. Please read the attached award memo ​for details. ..."


WOOOOOOOT!!!!!

I admit that I wanted this pretty badly for a number of reasons, ranging from the way this will help with the quality of the production to the simple fact that most of these grants go to folks in the various sciences. Not to mention - thinking tactically here - that there is potentially something worthwhile in being able to say to potential grad schools that I wrote a grant proposal that got a production funded.....

So....yeah.

---Antigone: Dramaturgy, Design, and Performance---

WOOOOOOOOOT yet again!

Lots to do between now and auditions on September 12th. And then the show opens in early December. And URTA's in February. And a poster to present at the universities research day in April...

Yep. I'm excited.


More later.




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An Interlude-ette -- 06/29/15

This will be a brief follow-up on my adventures with my grant proposal and my moments of anxiety in that regard.

So, after having some significant anxiety about all things proposal and such ( see my prior entry for details ) I decided to touch base with the folks at URSA in person. After all, I was already on campus and such so....shrug.

Well, the folks there were very nice and understood, given my issue with the online form not taking the application the first time, how I might be anxious about stuff. So the lady pulled out a file folder and verified that yes, my proposal came through fine. So did the letter of support from my primary mentor on the project. So that alleviated my angst somewhat.

I also have to say that, while I only got a glimpse of the collected proposals in the folder, it seemed to me as though there were not that many of them. My ballpark guess would have been about 8-12 total...maybe? Which might well aid my chances of being selected. Or not. I do not want to put any carts in improper positions in relation to their equine partners.

But I do want to keep a positive mental attitude. So...yeah.

Have I said in this missive how much I really, really want this? Truth. I do. Partly due to the project and partly due to the fact that the grant might also cover my costs for the URTA portfolio session next February.

Now, all that said, I have also been working on some back up ideas in case I don't get selected. Mostly back up ideas for the project...still not certain about the URTA situation.

These back up ideas are kind of intriguing to me, and a part of that is how I keep thinking about the phrase/concept that one of my professors used in my Collaborative Process class: Enabling Constraints. That is a situation where you find yourself locked within certain boundaries that initially seem problematic, but by facing them you are forced into ideas that you might never have previously considered. And it's possible that those ideas might be better in some ways than what you had initially intended.

On a different note....I am, as of a few days ago, going to be serving as scenic designer for one of the mainstage shows this coming academic year. The show is Closer. It's a thesis project for a directing major. An interesting tidbit is that the URTA sessions in Chicago are taking place the during the tech rehearsals for the show. So I will definitely need to have all ducks in all rows on that production, since I - hopefully - will be out of town for a couple of days.

Also, some somewhat frustrating news: two of the four faculty members in the theatre department here at UAF are leaving. One to take a gig at a college in New York state and the other to take a gig at UAA down in Anchorage. And one of them was my academic adviser, as well as being the faculty adviser for the Student Drama Association. Heavy sigh. Of course, I do understand that they need to take advantage of various artistic and academic opportunities. And given the fact that the department was faced with possible elimination - and truth be told it still has some things that have to be worked out to stay in business - it makes sense for them to have been looking elsewhere. But I have to be candid, it still makes me frown a bit though.

Well. I had not intended to ramble so. But perhaps my doing so is a good thing, since I really need to keep providing fresh content to this blog. However, it is nearing time for me to board the bus to head home so...

More later.





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An Interlude...Now Enhanced With Anxiety!

I realize that anxiety is, potentially, a waste of emotional energy. That said, I still find the need to vent pressing in on me a bit at the moment. As such please pardon this potentially self-indulgent tangent....

While I believe that I had yet to mention it here, a while ago I discovered that there was a grant opportunity for undergraduate student research at my school, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, for this Fall. And it had a deadline of today. So, over the last few weeks - roughly the 20 odd days or so since I discovered the opportunity - I plotted and worked and figured and planned and came up with a proposal. I'll be candid, the whole anxiety I have at the moment prevents me from going into details about it but the short version is that the grant would be used for the production of Antigone that I plan to direct and design this coming Fall. And I really, really, really want to do it right. So grant funding would be a tremendous help.

So I got all my ducks in a row and entered things onto the online form and clicked the 'submit' button. And I get an error message that said problems were highlighted in red. For some reason the PDF of my presentation had not shown up as attached, and the system didn't like my giving a range of probable hours worked per week. I fixed those and then clicked 'submit' again. And I got a confirmation message and a confirmation email. But...

...My brain has decided that now it wants to work over my self-confidence, and has me questioning if things went through the way that they needed to. Especially since the form says that you can only submit it once, and I got the error message so I clicked the 'submit' button a second time. And now I cannot clearly recall if I rechecked all the other required fields prior to the second click.

Yes, logic tells me that since I got the response email AND I didn't get the red flagging on any of my other fields that such worries are nonsense. And I also know that, as of the roughly 45 minutes ago that I submitted the form there is nothing I can do now but wait, no matter what errors may or may not have occurred. It's just...

It's just that the idea that I might miss out on a potential golden opportunity because of stupid glitches, or clumsy errors, has me stressed. Add that atop the inherent generalized anxiety that occurs when one submits a resume, or a proposal, or such and...well, the result is my current state.

I've wanted a great many things in my artistic and academic careers. And I've been disappointed any number of previous times. So by rights I should be able to deal with these feelings. And I will....eventually.

I just want this. Badly. Really, really badly. In part because it has aspects that apply to the next phase of my academic career, my efforts toward graduate school. And in part because this project will, basically, be my last big "hurrah" as an undergraduate. And I'm honest enough about my ego to admit that I want to go out on top.

So now it is just a waiting game until the recipients of the grants are announced on July 17th.

..........Is it July yet?

More soon.





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              A portfolio of my various work and projects, both theatrical and otherwise. 

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                                                     Semi-Random Shavings


                                              My school related fundraising site:
                                   Help Me Continue My Educational Momentum

Graduate Schools - The Tactical And The Practical (Part 1 of ??)

In the newest of the variety of developments regarding my ongoing plotting and planning towards my MFA I have to report that I have come across a new program that might be a good fit for my goals and talents.

First, some backstory:

As some of you reading this are aware, I consider myself a scenographer - for reference, here is the Wikipedia entry regarding scenography: Wikipedia - Scenography and another description from a now sadly unmaintained website that specifically covered the subject: Theatre Design - Scenography ....So, with those facts in mind, I have been looking for a program that will allow for artistic and academic explorations in multiple design areas, as opposed to more narrowly specializing in just one.

Now, those sorts of programs seemed to be in surprisingly short supply. I had, through a somewhat random contact during an event that I was working a couple of years back learned about the program at the University of Kansas, which is explicitly an MFA in scenography. It even uses the word on that snazzy piece of paper that you work for three years to obtain. So it went to the top of my short list. Here's a link to that programs web page: University of Kansas - MFA in Scenography

For the longest time I thought that it was the only program that might truly fit my plans. Then I somehow - I honestly forget exactly why or how - came across the program at the University of Iowa. And while they don't specifically express their program as a scenographic one, they do make frequent reference to degree candidates having a second area of specialization. In addition, one of the primary focuses of the program there is new plays, which has some appeal. And one my favorite scenic technology textbook was written by faculty there. So that program also joined my short list. Here's a link to that programs web page: University of Iowa - MFA in Design

Admittedly, I also still have a soft spot for the University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign. I spent a few really pleasant years in that town during my initial undergraduate experience during the early 1980's, and I love the facilities that the department has available, including one of my all time favorite experimental venues the Armory Free Theatre. And there seems to be some sort of transition occuring that might make what had been a highly focused conservatory program into a slightly more scenographically oriented one...though admittedly, such a change is still somewhat unclear. So I have that program on my list as well. Here's a link to that programs web page: University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign - MFA in Design / Production

So that was, excluding such wild hair extreme possibilities as Yale - where one of my professors at one point suggested that I look into their technical direction program - and NYU - because doing theatrical design school in Manhattan would rock - the basic list.

Now, only two of the schools specified above are members of the URTA interview program. Those are University of Iowa, and University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign. But I am working on my planning for a trip to the URTA portfolio review and interview session this coming February in Chicago, so yesterday I decided to start nosing through all the various member program, page by page. And I stumbled on a surprise...

The University of Minnesota.

They are an URTA member school. They have an impressive, four theatre complex that houses the department. They specifically state that, though dependent on state funding, they generally offer assistantships to all students that are accepted into the program - generally three to five students a year - and that would include a tuition waiver as well as a stipend and health benefits. And they make the following statement:

"It is expected that each student would have, upon entry, a primary area of design emphasis (in either scenery/properties, costumes, lighting, or sound technical production). This design/tech emphasis is the main focus of the coursework. A secondary area of interest would be developed through coursework and design assignments. The final creative project is to design a supported production demonstrating ability in these two areas." (Emphasis added by yours truly.)

That last line certainly sounds like the program has a strong leaning towards having a scenographically based approach. Almost like the statement from the University of Kansas when it says:

"Scenography classes are at the core of the curriculum. While in the program, students will design at least four realized productions in the University Theatre. They will do at least one lighting, one costume and one scenic design, and preferably a combination of two or all design areas for one production."(Again, emphasis added by yours truly.)

So yeah....I am adding the University of Minnesota to my short list. Here's a link to that programs web page: University of Minnesota - MFA in Design and Technology

Which makes the short list - as of today - as follows:

#1 or #2 - The University of Minnesota

#2 or #1 - The University of Kansas

#3 - The University of Iowa

#4 - The University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign

And yes, I am still uncertain as to the rankings for the top two slots. Kansas has the program specifically structured as one in sceneography BUT Minnesota offers the potential to be funded almost automatically if I am accepted into the program.

Of course, I'd still love to go to school somewhere near to Manhattan...perhaps Temple, since Philadelphia is a short bus or train ride away. But as the subject of this entry says, I need to think tactically and practically. And looking at my skills, my talents, my portfolio, and my finances I think that the schools on this list are my best bets.

Well, that is the update for today. I'll ramble some more later on such subjects as my ongoing scenographic work on Antigone, which the Student Drama Association here will be producing in the Fall, some various other design projects that seem to be coming together, my classes this Summer, and my continuing planning for URTA.

Till then....



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              A portfolio of my various work and projects, both theatrical and otherwise. 

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                                                     Semi-Random Shavings


                                              My school related fundraising site:
                                   Help Me Continue My Educational Momentum

An Epiphinal Moment Or Such - 05/21/15

So.

It is May. The time of graduations.

Tonight, after a rehearsal for a show that I am working deck crew for, I went to get some food before heading back to the University to use the net access here for various things, including some prep work on a show I am directing/designing this Fall (additional details on that project will be in a separate post). And I had a somewhat stark realization.

I have, for all intents and purposes and in one form or another, been doing theatre for - roughly - forty years.

Forty. Years.

And just the other day I came across a button that I picked up a couple of years ago at the local comic book shop here in Fairbanks. It says: "I haven't learned the secret of anything. I'm just old." And in an interesting bit of synchronicity, I just happened to stick that button onto my school backpack this morning...it is staring me in the nose as I type this.

Forty.

The fact that I hit my 'double nickle birthday' in a few weeks has probably also played a role in this reflectiveness and nostalgia. And while I have yet to receive my B.A. - just 12 more months, give or take - I can't help but look back and be grateful. Consider....

*I've been able to work for the Mouse Factory (East Coast Branch), and be a part of the crew for the opening of a new live show attraction...

*I've worked in the shadow of one of the greatest theatre cities in the world (New York) more than once...

*I've toured with educational touring shows that brought live performance into towns whose children had never consider that such a thing might exist...

*I've had the privilege of working with various theatrical artists whose skills have taught me much, no matter their age...

So. Being reflective and all, the song above seemed rather appropriate. Especially since I 1) wore out my cassette of the cast recording of this show back in high school and 2) this was the first show I ever saw in New York. Summer. 1977. So even if parts of the show have not aged well, it still holds a special place in my heart.

Sigh.

The intent of this was not to be maudlin. Just...nostalgic. And grateful.

More soon.



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              A portfolio of my various work and projects, both theatrical and otherwise. 

                                             My general, rather eclectic, Tumblr:
                                                     Semi-Random Shavings


                                              My school related fundraising site:
                                   Help Me Continue My Educational Momentum