Woo HOO More Interviews

Except that they're the good kind this time.
So I've been spending my time here at USITT learning a lot about this industry and also feeling kindsd of out of the loop. Now I don't mean this skill wise, I feel that I know a good deal ( not that I can't learn more) but I feel lost when people are talking about important designers. When I hear there names, I have no clue who they are or what they have done, all I can tell is that they are imporant. I normally realize this because of the way that people say there names etc. For instance yesterdy there was this session with the Scenic Designer, the TDs (there are 2 of them) and one of the Props Master of Actors Theatre of Louisville. Now I went since this particaluar session was about how they dealt with the Humana New Play Festival. The thing about the Festival is besides being New Plays is that it is rep. So for the month of March they are running 7 shows in rep. Now since I'm working rep again this summer, I was more interested in how they do things ( this is how I think) and some of the soultions that they have come up with to deal with change overs etc. Well that's not what 99% of the people in the room were interested in. They were interested in what Paul Owen the Scenic Designer had to say. Over the cousre of the hour and a half I realized that this man had been a driving force in American Scene Design for at least the last 30 years and that I had never heard of him. So I went hmm, who else here is important that I don't know about. I've found what I need to learn next, I need to learn about all of these people who came before the current generation of designers and techincans.
Other than that realization in that part of my knowlege its been pretty good. Yesterday I got to attend this great session on paper props and learned about a lot of good rescorues, (induling this one guy Herb who in his retirement is makeing a collection of paper good available via Cd) and some new techniques. I also was able to let the people there know about the water color paper trick with plotters as well as about the Tate online. Then I got to hear Jon Jory ( the retired (I think) Artisic Director of Actors Theatre) speak. Which was great. The other really cool session i got to go to was about Handmade Scene Painting tools and it was done by Rachel Keebler the head of Colbalt Studios, who is really nice and had a lot of good info. ( By the way she was giving out drawings of the tools and if people want them I am willing to make copies and mail them.) And I ran into people that I worked with last summer and some that I will be working with again. And got hugs so that was great.
Today I didn't go to that many sessions. The first one I wanted to go had too many people , so I didn't get in but I did get to wander around the stage expo and check stuff out. And then after some debate I hiked over to the Marriot and signed up for interviews (there was a fee involed which lead to the debate). So tomrrow is a portfolio review and 4 interviews. So hopefully I'll get some work out of this. ANd then I finally got into this session about Non tradtional product use. It was awesome. The two presenters talked about what they had found and opened up the floor, there must have been at least 150 people there all with a lot of good knowlege about werid things used in productions. Finally it was decided that some how we needed to make a list and add to via email so hopefullu I'll get that info to whomever is interest. Oh and for those Scene Painters amongst us, if you add some lysol or Pine Solv to your paint it will keep the bactriea out and keep it from going bad as fast. And then the really cool thing that happened was that I got to go on a tour of Actors Theatre and I got to meet and talk with one of the Props Masters there. He was really nice and answered my questions about how do you deal with rep and delicate props and stuff like that. So it was really cool, but I need to eat and then head on back over. I'll let you all know what happens.