I am a facilitator. I help people to learn things about theatre, mostly about technical theatre and with 30 years of teaching I know that sometimes I help people to learn about life. I am a teacher and a technical director at a large university. I have to work to juxtapose my duties as an administrator with my desires to be a dynamic teacher. In terms of pedagogy the technical director supports the teacher. In terms of time it is sometimes very difficult to balance the needs of both.

My approach to theatre training follows the basic precept of a "liberal arts education" in that a person should study many things to be prepared for an unknown and changing future.

Many of my students over the years studied theatre because they wanted to be the next "great actor". None so far has achieved that success. All, however, become successful individuals, if they took their theatrical training seriously. They learned self confidence (the proverbial "can do " attitude), responsibility, creativity, flexibility, interpersonal skills, the importance of planning ahead, the importance of time management, and discipline. In fact, they learned so many things while they were students that they became great designers, technicians, teachers, nurses, business people, law officers and many other things after school.

I am "process oriented". I am involved in the process of mounting more than ten shows a year. That means that 75% of my time as a theatre professional is spent in the process of taking a production, be it theatre dance, or musical theatre, from design/conceptualization, through working drawings and estimation, to construction, and finally realization of the complete production on stage. We all learn in the crucible of collaboration. We are always starting with a meeting or another play to read. We are always finishing with a strike. The beginning and ending are separated by countless hours of planning, inventing, chucking out, starting over, learning, building, rehearsing, running, and then packing it up to re-use and/or trash. It is an exciting, frustrating and ultimately extremely satisfying process. I believe that people learn by practicing their art.