Sometimes a New Adventure!

A little more than two years ago I helped co-found a production company that produces community theatre productions in South Jordan, Utah.  I have either built or designed and built 11 consecutive sets and technical directed every show.  For me this has been a dream come true.  I interrupted my college education to work and to raise a family.  I attended the University of Utah as a production and design major and had dreams of making theatre a full time career.  25 years later I made a career out of law enforcement.... how did that happen?

The other co-founder of our production company is a jr. high school theatre teacher at a local charter school.  She left for a two week vacation and needed a substitute teacher for her crew class.  So today I took a half day off and taught her technical theatre class.  Today's lesson was on set modeling.  I spent a couple of hours over the last couple of days putting together materials for the lesson and was very excited to share with 13 and 14 year-olds the process that I go through to design a set.  Many of them have seen my sets and had a point of reference for the discussion.   Over the next 6 periods we will build models based upon their concepts for the production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  

I was kind of struck by the fact that several of the kids seemed to be less excited about the subject matter and seemed to be just taking up space.  It is my challenge to get them all excited about this unit and to find the designer inside.  

As a whole the class was successful and I am looking forward to teaching again.