USITT - Wednesday

It is Wednesday, yes?

First off, mission accomplished:


The CMU based, Piano Lesson "Phantom Piano" entry to the tech expo is set up, for what it's worth. Let this be a lesson to everyone: if you want to put something in a show, don't pull it from the warehouse the day it has to ship (lest you might discover it needs a power supply). Still, something is better than nothing.

I went to the Technical Production leadership meeting and only volunteered to do one thing that ultimately I probably won't be allowed to do. And believe you me, there was much more volunteering to do. If anyone wants to coordinate a large, hand's on programming section of next year's conference, now if the time to email Fritz.

We did "Knots knots knots" again this year. I think I lost about 1/3 of my rope. This year we did the sheet bend, double-dragon bend, carrik bend, clove hitch, two-half hitches, bowline, figure-eight on a bite and then I lost track.

By my count it was 65 minutes until the first person said "monkey's fist" and it was all down hill from there.

After that I sat through the start of Ben Sammler's presentation of his production management style. What he does is highly dependent on operating inside of what I call in my Basic PTM class "the proto-typical regional." It's a model that is extreemly egalitarian and collaborative. I had to leave because I wanted to ask subversive questions like "But what do you do if historically each department has treated their budget as their own instead of a part of each show like you are suggesting?" The answer would either be: "Get them to change their mind" or "well, you probably don't want to work there." Neither of those (although correct) are particularly helpful I think.

Tomorrow the show floor opens.