Fall Semester

So Fall semester is coming to a close (eventually). It's been a pretty good semester though, as usual, busy.

Classes are going fine, it's the other stuff that's been occupying most of my time this semester. Both of my third year grad students did their thesis shows on the mainstage this fall. So I kept track of those projects, and my second year grad student's second season project, as well as directed a smaller project of my own.

For years (ten or more according to my colleagues who've been working here longer than I have) we've been promised a second performance space in an old auditorium in the basement of a dorm on campus. Two years ago we started to make plans to at least use the space for classes, but those were thwarted when the engineering department got a big gift to upgrade their facilities, and they took over the space to use it for temporary office space while their building was being worked on. The bad news is we lost the space for 2 more years, the good news is that the University had to make some changes to the space (including "separating" it from the rest of the dorm with a secured door) that we would have needed to do anyway. So the engineers moved out this last spring, and we started to move into the space this fall.

Since I wasn't directing a mainstage show this fall we decided I'd direct a smaller show in the new space. We knew going in things were going to be unpredictable, and we were right. When we were finally "given" the space, we didn't get the entire space, so first they had to build walls inside the auditorium to create a 40'x40' room for the theater space. This took some time, and kept us from rehearsing in there early on. The show I chose to do had a minimal set requirements, so that was ok, and the lighting requirements were pretty much lights up/lights down.

When we finally did get to move into the space (a couple of days before our opening) we started at noon on a Monday with an empty room. By 6 the set was in, the lights (included rented equipment) were up, the sound equipment (borrowed from University Media Services) was up and we were ready to go. We used the light board from the mainstage space to run the lights and my laptop to run the sound.

The show went well. We had about 30-40 people for the Thursday and Saturday night performances. On Friday we filled the place to capacity (the way it was set up) with 94.

A couple of more weeks this semester, and then it's on to spring.

Promoted

As some of you know I've been waiting for a couple of months to find out if I was going to get promoted to a regular Assistant Professor at UP. The handshake deal when I was hired as a Visiting Assistant (for budget reasons) was that I'd be promoted in 2-3 years. Well I just finished year 2, so we were at that time. Although, as many of you are no doubt aware, the economy isn't so great at the moment, so with budgets being held tight I wasn't sure it was going to happen. And if it didn't happen this year, I wasn't sure how long I'd eventually have to wait.

But it happened. As of June 1 I'll be a regular Assistant Professor, which means, among other things, I'm on the tenure track now. And, they gave me 2 years credit towards tenure (so as far as the tenure clock is concerned it's as if they hired me in a tenure-track position in the first place). So that puts me 2 years closer to tenure and my next promotion than I could have been. I'm very happy, and somewhat relieved, to be on more solid footing at UP.

That's the big news. Otherwise we're done with our regular school year (and I'm not teaching in the summer) so I'm on summer break. On deck for the summer: Ultimate Spring League (which is going well, my team is a good group of folks); Ultimate Summer League; Dad, Nate, and Mike coming out here in a few weeks; a trip to MN somewhere; a workshop project through Portland Theatre Works; preparing my tenure file (oy); prepping for my classes for next year; prepping for my directing projects for next year; etc. So I won't be bored, certainly.

Oh, in Portland Theatre Works news, we had an article about us in the Oregonian fairly recently. You can see it here (http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/04/portland_theatre_works_looks_t.html). Although in the picture I look a little like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons, Bob Hicks did make me sound both intelligent and clever, which is nice.

Spring has sprung!

Finally it actually looks and feels like spring on Oregon today. Mid 70's, sunny. So I'm sitting outside, alternately grading papers and avoiding grading papers (like right now for instance). Ahhhhh...

Reached the point in the semester where the amount of work I have to do does not seem to be decreasing at as fast a rate as the time within which I have to do it. But such is every semester. It all gets done. Eventually.

Final week of rehearsal pre-tech for Marat/Sade this week, so I'll be there a bit. And then this weekend and next week I'll be at the tech and dress rehearsals. The show's going well (it is a *big* show) and the grad student directing is doing a nice job. Now we just have to see if it all comes together. Following that, end of the year reviews, projects, finalizing the season for next year, and so on. A 3 week sprint, then finals week, then it's summer break.

Also making offers to prospective grad students for next year. Writing recommendation letters, gearing up for the end of year stuff, and waiting to hear on my possible promotion (which I now know I won't hear about until mid-May...everyone's holding their breath to see how many incoming frosh may deposits on May 1 for next year, which is what the projected budget is based on).

I also got into Portland Ultimate Spring League this year (last year I didn't get in, there's a lottery for the spots for men), which starts in a couple of weeks. So now I also need to worry about getting in shape (although I feel pretty good with the regular commuting by bike I've been doing). Plus I'm old, so...

Anyway, back to work. These things won't grade themselves.

Now Spring is half over

Seriously: I will get better at this and post a little more often.

So now I'm halfway through spring and almost at the end of my second year of teaching. I have a theory: the second year of anything is usually a hard year. Mostly because the "newness" is gone, but one still doesn't have things figured out yet. That and I think year one the expectations are lower, by year two one tends to think things will get easier faster than they do (or at least I do).

The fall ended pretty well. One of my graduate students directed Much Ado about Nothing for his thesis project and did a really nice job. The production was chosen as an alternate for the regional Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival, which is an honor.

This spring I've had my usual complement of classes: Intro to Fine Arts, undergraduate directing, and graduate directing. Added to that this semester has been advising the writing of the MFA thesis (I have 2 grads finishing this year). That takes up a fair amount of time I've found. I'm working through the Much Ado thesis right now.

I'm not directing this spring, which is kinda nice since it gives me time to do some grad program stuff (as well as getting the thesis writing advising somewhat figured out).

I got to go to Idaho for this year's Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival. We go every February for a week and take most of our students, many of whom compete in various things. The exciting news this year was that one of our students won the regional acting competition and is going to D.C. at the end of April for the national conference. It's a very exciting thing, and great for our program.

So school is fine. It looks like I will be promoted for next year, but we're still waiting for final budget numbers before anything actually happens. All reports are that it will happen. It certainly will be great if it does.

I'll try to keep this a little more updated from here out. We'll see.

Fall is half over

Hey all,

As the headline says, fall semester is half over. But being half over, I'm currently in my week long fall break (UP does a week break mid-semester both semesters, which is nice). September is a bit of a blur, but I'll try to remember what happened and catch you all up.

First week of school and classes start as well as auditions. We did auditions for all the fall plays Wed, Thu, and Fri; met on Saturday morning to cast all 4 plays; and I started rehearsals on Sunday night. Bang and we're off. Blithe Spirit went well. Things were looking tough about as we were getting towards the end of rehearsals and we couldn't get through the show in 3 and a half hours, but we got past that (show ran two hours, plus intermissions, once we opened). The play is about a man and wife who host a seance (so he can collect material for his new book) and the ghost of his first wife appears (only to him, but she's there and can move stuff). Hilarity ensues. It's a 1940 comedy, British, very much clever wit and fast thinking. Once the actors caught on to the style they did really well.

The show was also written to end scenes with the curtain dropping with characters on stage, and we don't have a curtain. So I decided to give myself the extra challenge of avoiding having actors and props come and go in view of the audience without it being part of the action. Mostly this just involved adding bits of business to the beginning and ends of scenes (including a fun minute long bit where the ghost messes with the maid...while one of the other actors is off stage making a quick costume change). But the third act scene break was a problem: the same 4 actors on stage at the end of scene one and beginning of scene two, with props coming on and a few hours of time elapsed. So for that I created a fast-forward montage sequence that I worried would seem really out of place in the show, but the audience, and the gentlemen who came to respond/critique the show for ACTF (American College Theater Festival), enjoyed it, so no worries. The ACTF respondents also liked the fact that I made the medium, Madame Arcati (40s-60s in the script), a 30ish year old woman (all the actors were 18-22). I'm glad they appreciated that decision, she's the most genuine character in the play even if she is a bit crazy.

After Blithe Spirit closed one of my second year grad students had his 2nd year show (and I mean right after, we struck the Blithe Spirit set Sunday and I was back in the theater Monday for his tech rehearsal...he opened Wednesday). That show also went well.

Then my theater company had a fundraiser this past weekend (basically this is all happening over the last 2 weeks). On Friday we presented 6 short plays/scenes by local playwrights, rehearsed by local directors and actors--including me, to the audience. At intermission we brought on about 10 props and asked the audience to choose 3. After the 6 plays we brought each playwright to the stage one at a time to be auctioned off. The winning bidders instantly "commissioned" the playwrights to write a new play/scene using the 3 props the audience chose (an oversized ladle, a stuffed/fake black bird, and a gas mask). The winning bidder also gave their playwright the first and last lines of dialog for the scene. Then we met with the 6 playwrights and gave them the number of actors they needed to use and they had until 6:30 a.m. to write. The directors met at 9 a.m. and were handed the scripts the playwrights had written, we cast actors at 9:30 and started rehearsing. At 6:30 we met back at the theater and the 6 plays went up at 7:30. Pretty much all of our Friday night audience came back (and brought folks) anxious to see how things worked out. The plays were funny and serious, with some biting satire. All in all everyone had a blast, though many of us lost some sleep, and we raised over $1000 for the company.

That's pretty much been the fall. Classes are going well, I feel like everything's well in hand. It's still a pretty busy job, but this year there are much fewer surprises (so far no "wait...that's my job?" moments, unlike last year). I also got a tentative promotion. I was hired as a visiting assistant professor (due to budgetary constraints) with the promise of promotion after 2 or 3 years. They've approved my promotion to regular assistant professor for next year, if they can fund the position which they won't know until the budget is approved late winter/early spring. So I may be promoted. We'll see. Even so, it's a nice gesture on their part to show that they want to keep me around.

Looking ahead, I've got a thesis student doing Much Ado about Nothing (set in Hawaii a little before the bombing of Pearl Harbor) and a 2nd year grad doing Eleemosynary, so I'll still be sitting in rehearsals, just not mine and not so often. This week I basically took Sunday and yesterday off (watched television!) and now I'm working through my to do list, grading, and catch-up projects.

Tonight I'm off to Portland Center Stage to see R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE. So it's not all work and no play.

Sigh. Back to School

Summertime...and the living is easy...

I have enjoyed my summer. Though I've been off from school since May it has been busy (multiple theatre projects, trips to Minnesota including my sister's wedding), still...many days I've been able to work whenever and wherever I've wanted. I've spent many an afternoon in, or outside of, a coffeehouse doing this and that (which is where I am at the moment). And while I've had plenty to keep me busy, I've not had a great deal of deadlines.

That ends 7 days hence. School is all about deadlines: finishing & copying syllabi, planning lessons, grading, preparing for rehearsals and meetings, advising, and so on and so forth. I'm happy to go back to teaching and such, it's a job I enjoy, but I will miss being a man of leisure (mostly).

Should be a good semester. I'm directing Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward as the first show of the year (as well as supervising a second year grad project at the same time), so I'll be hitting the ground running. Blithe Spirit is a fun play, well written, and should be fairly straight forward with a few fun challenges (such as getting objects to move by themselves). Teaching-wise it's shaping up to be a busy semester, though a bit easier than last fall. Generally speaking I'll always be teaching the same classes in the Fall (at least as things are currently laid out): the intro to Arts class (FA207) that I've been teaching for years now (so it's pretty well solid); the first year grad directing course, which this year has 1 student since we only have one incoming grad; and the Shakespeare class which focuses on Shakespeare acting with the undergrads (it's their advanced acting course) and additionally addresses some directing issues with the 2nd year grad students who also take it. The latter class is where I've been, and will be, doing the most work since last year was the first year I taught it (so I have some things I won't do again), and I'll have the grad directors in there for the first time, so I'm figuring out how to integrate them. Also, this year, a junior honors student needs to do a project within the class as well-so it's officially 3 classes rolled into one. And in addition, I'm doing a directed study on preparing to teach with a couple of grad students (it's extra work, but with 1 student in the grad directing class I can handle the "extra" load).

In the second half I'm not directing, just supervising a second year grad project and a thesis project.

I'm pretty well prepared, although I still have a lot of i-dotting and t-crossing to do on syllabi and such. And some stuff I really wanted to be done before school started, so I'm working hard this week in an attempt to not start the school year already behind. Wish me luck.

In other news, spent Saturday at the Adult Soapbox Derby. Held on the winding road coming down Mount Tabor park (a park on top of an extinct volcano), it's a great Portland experience. Racers fall into 2 general categories: fun/creative and fast. The fast racers are impressive, but the creative are more fun. One of my favorites this year was a picnic table (2 picnickers sitting and picnicking while the driver was somewhat hidden under the table). We hung out at the bottom of the course near the finish (our party was heavily bechildrened, so we didn't want to walk too far). It was HOT that day (I think we hit 100 again that day), but we had shade, beer, and entertainment, so what more could we ask for.

A Job

The other big thing that's happened in the last year is I got myself a bona fide teaching job. Which is good, since I spent 3 years in grad school in order to make myself qualified for such a thing.

Spring of 2007. I'm living in Portland, temping at Freightliner, and adjunct teaching (meaning part time, not paid well) at the University of Portland. One of the professors at UP has decided to go into phased retirement and they do a national search to replace him. Many times when a school does a national search they are reluctant to hire from inside (otherwise why do a national search, which is expensive). I figured I had a chance, but it wasn't too great (since I'd not had a full time teaching position, though I had years of part-time going back to grad school), so I was happy with each step I continued to survive through the process. Once I was named one of the 3 finalists, I figured my chances had improved (I was in the "devil you know" category). The interview lasted 21 hours over 2 days (this is moderate for academic interviews, I've heard of longer). It was intense (and then I had to wait a week while they interviewed the other 2 finalists), but in the end they offered me the job. I was quite happy, since it meant staying in Portland (which I wanted to do, but I wasn't going to temp & adjunct forever). Also, in addition to teaching undergrad drama classes, the job entails running the graduate directing program (one of 40-50 in the country). The grad program makes the job more interesting (and harder too). And now I have health insurance again, which is nice (I had health insurance, but it had a $10K deductible and everything up to the deductible was out of pocket, so it wasn't useful unless I got hit by a truck).

The first year was like any first year of a job: more work than one expects. I knew it was going to be a lot of work (teaching a few classes for the first time, and the first time you teach a class is the most work you're going to put into it...the second time you're fixing and, for me at least, by the third time the structure is there and sound, so the prep work starts to drop off considerably). I was also directing 2 shows, and supervising the director on 4 more. So I was busy with all this expected stuff. But then comes the unexpected stuff, the little things that are part of the job but were either completely unexpected (coordinating publicity for all the shows) or take more time than you plan on (meetings).

So I didn't have much of a life off campus, but I knew that was going to happen to an extent. The shows both went well, and the classes too (for the most part). The main thing is I survived and didn't make any huge mistakes.

Now I start thinking about next year. In the fall I'm teaching FA207 (the intro the arts class I started teaching as an adjunct, so it's pretty well set as a class), the 1st year grad directing class (with 1 student this year, so I'll have to see what kind of adjustments I'd like to make because of that), and the Shakespeare Acting class (which I taught last fall, and I've got a pretty decent list of changes to make; plus the grad directors take it this year--so I've got to figure out what they're going to do--and I've got an honors student in it so I need to add additional components for her). I'm also directing Blithe Spirit to start the year. In some ways it will be easier (since I'm mostly treading previously explored territory) and in some ways harder (since it's the second time around for most of this, the bar is a little higher than "getting through it"). And I need to carve out a social life too (try get get a bit of a work/life balance). So there are goals.

So that pretty much catches you all up on the highlights of the last year or so, and pretty much brings you all up to date. I still need to cover June (Reunion!) and July (JAW!), and then we'll be all caught up to now.