Not coincidentally, I am also getting off of social media, for a wide variety of reasons I may or may not elaborate on in a future post. Anything I used to post there I will now start sharing here, and this includes shots of the playbills for each show I attend. 

This past weekend, I saw two: Kate Robin's What They Have, produced by the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem, and Bonnie Antosh's Lemuria from Creative Greensboro.

I started this blog eleven years ago as a way to promote my design work and share updates on the local theatre community. The last time I posted in it was almost nine. Every year I resolve to pick it back up again and somehow manage not to.

I'm trying to make it stick this time, starting with my annual attendance update.  I'm very lucky to live in an area with a lot of theatre companies, both professional and volunteer, and a couple of years ago I made the decision to attend as many productions as possible. Last year, 2024, I saw a total of eighty-three shows, four more than I saw the previous year.

Out of those eighty-three, I worked on eighteen in some capacity. Twelve of those seventeen were for the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem, my full-time employer, while the other six were produced by Kernersville Little Theatre, Creative Greensboro, Spring Theatre, and Summerfield Stage Company.

The rest of the shows I saw were produced by these companies and schools:

Spirit Gum Theatre
Camel City Playhouse
Atkins High School
Triad Pride Acting Company
Stained Glass Playhouse
Guilford College
Temple Theatre Company
NC Black Repertory
Salem Academy and College
Wake Forest University Theatre 
40 Plus Stage Company
Shared Radiance
Common Thread
Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance

I'd also like to mention these other local theatres whose shows I was unable to attend:

Lexington Live
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
North Carolina A&T University
Greensboro College
Community Theatre of Greensboro
 

I'm currently designing scenery for this production of Maxwell Anderson's Bad Seed with director Todd Fisher and lighting designer Randy Morris for the Drama Center of Greensboro.

Currently at CFRT designing scenery and lighting for their Studio 2015 Summer Camp shows: Shrek The Musical Jr. and A Year with Frog and Toad.

I had the privilege of working with Cape Fear Regional Theatre on their current production of Avenue Q, this time collaborating with David Griffie on the lighting design for director Nick Minas and set designer Christopher Tulysewski. I hope to have pictures up on this site soon, but in the meantime:

For tickets, go here.

Super-excited about this one. Just before I graduated last May, UNCG invited me to come back and design this set for them as a paid guest artist and I couldn't be happier with the results. I got to reunite with director John Gulley (Pride and Prejudice), TD Chip Haas, assistant designer & props master Terry Baker, props coordinator DeDe Ferrell, and many other colleagues from my time as a student while collaborating with two of the new design MFA students, lighting designer Luke Klingberg and costume designer Sydney DeBriel. I can't remember working on any show that had a more efficient production process and I'm extremely privileged to have been a part of this.

I'll be posting more production photos as soon as I can get them. In the meantime, here's the digital set rendering and a blurry camera pic from last night's pre-show. Enjoy!

Right on the heels of Spamalot came this set I designed for Guilford Technical Community College for their fall production, built and run by their production and stagecraft classes. Though not terribly large or complex, the set still pushed our available resources to their limit, and I was impressed by the work the students did, especially considering that none had ever built any scenery prior to this. 

I also want to give a special mention to Jody Tidwell who pulled double duty as both Technical Director and Lighting Designer; her commitment and expertise kept the whole process from falling apart. (Click the picture above to go straight to the portfolio page.)

This is a job I did back in August and September for the Cape Fear Regional Theatre in Fayetteville, directed by Tom Quaintance, who is also the artistic director of the company. The experience was both exhilarating and exhausting--it's a massive show with dozens of locations and set pieces, and I was brought in very late in the process to replace the original set designer who was unable to complete the job.

In spite of these daunting circumstances, every member of the cast, crew, and production team was extremely patient and professional; I've worked on less-demanding shows where co-workers have lost their cool and taken out their frustrations on those around them, but I didn't encounter that problem here. Everyone stayed focused on their job and did a crazy amount of work in a very short amount of time and I'm very proud to have been a part of this team.

To visit the portfolio page, click on the Drew Struzan-inspired poster above, painted by my collaborator David Rawlins, who also designed the video segments for the show.

Finally getting around to uploading some pictures of the job that took over my life immediately following graduation. I designed these murals in collaboration with the clinic staff, who had a lot of specific requests and suggestions, and painted them with a team of other artists, including Lynne Buchanan, David Rawlins, Michael Moore, Krista Blaser, Laura Barker, and the Croucher siblings Cadence, Ethan, and Sienna.

I'm waiting on some higher-quality photos before I put this in the portfolio, but in the meantime, here are some acceptable images taken with my phone.

Adventure Theatre MTC
AKT3
Alden Theatre
The American Century Theater
Arena Stage
Atlas Performing Arts Center
Capital Fringe Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Constellation Theatre Co
Dance Place
Design Foundry
Discovery Theatre
Dissonance Dance Theatre
Encore Decor Inc
Faction Of Fools
Flying V
Folger Theatre
GMU- Center For The Arts
GWU- Lisner Auditiorium
Happenstance Theater
Imagination Stage
Intermission Lighting Associates
JCC of Northern VA
Lean And Hungry Theatre
Molotov Theatre Group
NextStop Theatre Co
No Rules Theatre Co
Olney Theatre Center
Rorschach Theatre Co
Pinky Swear Productions
Round House Theatre
Shakespeare Theatre Co
Signature Theatre
Sitar Arts Center
Spooky Action Theatre
Studio Theatre
Synetic Theater
Texas Scenic Company
Theater J
Washington Revels
Wolf Trap Opera Company

and anyone else who was at the Technician Cattle Call in D.C. this weekend. I was happily surprised at how enjoyable it was and regret the conversation couldn't have gone on longer. You all made me feel very welcome.