representing

two matching housers at university orientation last week holding down the fort in the theatre and ready to welcome anyone who walked through the door.

love, laurie

dressing up for a woodstock tribute

we had a woodstock tribute band at the theatre this past weekend, so annie and i traded in our theatre black clothes for our matching tie-dye shirts.  my dad went all out and traded in his red usher vest for a full hippie costume.  it was great!  everyone wanted a picture with papa!

love, laurie

lots of "big shows"

mr. noah has been a big help at all of mama's "big shows" recently!

and he's always game to test out whatever scenery we have on stage!

love, laurie

"museum after midnight"

the dance studio where i teach had their annual spring dance recital this weekend at the theater and it went great!  the show was "museum after midnight" which was such a great theme that we brought to life.

this show was extra fun because i got to record approximately 40 voiceovers that played between each song to guide the audience through the "museum" and that was so much fun to do!

love, laurie

my spot light guy

i have the best spotlight operator in the industry.  all other theatres should be jealous.

love, laurie

a few random snapshots from life lately

lots of rehearsals and shows at the theatre lately for dance recital season, congratulating dominique on a superior senior recital, and cupcakes for annie's birthday!

love, laurie

hooding our graduates

it was an absolute honor to be selected to hood some of our graduates at the hooding ceremony for our music, theatre, and dance department last weekend.  

i will certainly miss this group of students!

love, laurie

living at the theatre

we have been living at the theatre for the past few weeks with massive dance productions back-to-back.  noah is our supervisor after school.

i snapped these two photos during a fog test and it was wild how the fog looked in the stage lights.

love, laurie

street sweeper

noah asked to turn his toy car into a "street sweeper" at mama's big show.  he got the broom and i got the gaff tape.  it worked (and my stage got cleaned too)!

love, laurie

advisor of the year!

i was so honored to win another award last week at the university where i teach.  this one was for "advisor of the year" and i received it at the annual leadership award ceremony.  i am so touched that my students nominated me for this award, and shocked to have won!

love, laurie

an award!

i was surprised to learn that i won an award at the university where i work!  apparently the students nominated me for this award that is based on leadership, dedication, and contributions to the university community.  i wasn't able to go to the event where they passed out the awards, so i picked up my award this past week and was grateful for the recognition!

love, laurie

mr. technician

someone had to show mom and dad how to operate the genie lift . . . (don't worry, he didn't actually go up in it, he just pretended). 

love, laurie

well deserved thanks

it takes a village to make a show happen, so i wanted to take the time to thank the cast and crew for helping to make our show a success.  i sat down on friday night and wrote out 29 individual personalize thank you cards to our 20 cast members and 9 crew members who all worked so hard.  

when they arrived at the theatre on saturday morning for the show, i had each card waiting at their stations for each one of them.  so grateful for them all!

love, laurie

celebratory lunch

we went out to lunch with our parents after friday's rapunzel show and it was such a nice treat.  it was the perfect way to celebrate our hard work and a successful show!

love, laurie

"let your hair down, rapunzel"

for the past few weeks, we've been hard at work on this year's children's theatre production of "let your hair down, rapunzel" at the university.  (well, really it's been longer than that because i actually started working on this show 11 months ago.)  

children's theatre is near-and-dear to my heart and it's a genre of theatre that i absolutely love. 

i directed the show, choreographed, designed the costumes, and designed the props and scenery.  ryan was the technical director, production manager, and lighting designer.  we both oversaw special effects and audio.  noah was everyone's supervisor.

i can't even believe that after all of our hard work, it is over.  i'm exhausted, but i'm sad to see it go because i really put my heart into this show and enjoyed the process.  i had a good time putting the show together and i'm proud of the outcome.  i told the cast and crew that we created magic together and that's exactly what we did for nearly 1,200 people who came to see the show.

these are only a few photos of the show.  you can see many more of my photos here.

love, laurie

opening day!

rapunzel opens today and i can't wait to welcome over 1,100 school students to see our show over the next few days.  this show was a real labor of love and a lot of work for me.  i certainly hope everyone appreciates it!

love, laurie

getting closer to rapunzel

we're getting closer and closer to our rapunzel show and we can't wait!  things are coming along nicely.  the show opens one week from today!

love, laurie

our jobs are weird

i've said many times that our jobs are strange but this was a first.  we did an event at the theatre over the weekend that was a colon cancer awareness event and they brought an inflatable colon with them for the audience to walk through.  of course, being the theatre people that we are, we gave it uplighting!  it was a hit.

love, laurie

behind the scenes

we have been hard at work on rapunzel for quite a bit now and we're building scenery, making props, and creating costumes like crazy.

here's a tiny little sneak peak of some construction shots of rapunzel's tower build.  it's nearly finished but i won't reveal the finished product just yet.  let's just say we may have outdone ourselves with this one!  it stands at a massive 10 feet wide and over 15 feet tall.

love, laurie

a tribute to van morrison

well, i didn't think i knew any van morrison songs until we did a van morrison tribute this weekend and i realized that i did in fact recognize a few!

love, laurie