April was happily busy with two projects and some exciting news. Beginning with the projects, I returned to Milwaukee as director and designer for John McGivern’s Mother Stories & Other Stories at Oak Creek Performing Arts Center. Once again, I served as John’s sounding board for his text and performance and designed projections, the space and music. We’ve been working together for many years now and it’s surprisingly easy for us. The show was lovely. My other big project o

25 years ago, I wrote and directed a post-modern adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Twain’s book is a masterpiece but it’s controversial because many people don’t realize that the novel depicts the character Jim through the ignorant eyes of its narrator, Huck. There are, in fact, many people (including a number of scholars) that misread the story entirely or reacted to the dialect or Twain's very conscious use of the N-word, and believe the book is racist. So

January was a strange month in this country, but I was fortunate enough to have a number of good projects and collaborators during my 4-stop road-trip, and happy to see old friends and colleagues in the Bay area, the Midwest and Southeast Texas. I spent two weeks in Berkeley helping Pamela Gaye Walker develop her one-woman show Little Big Mouth . I knew her from a class I'd taught a few years ago at the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. She's also an old friend and cast-mate of

Jed Diamond, Clarence Brown Theatre, 2025. When I was in 6th grade a neighborhood lady staged an abridged version of A Christmas Carol with a bunch of local kids. I played Scrooge. I caught pneumonia just after the auditions and was in bed for 2 weeks, but I used the time to memorize the play; so when the Ghost of Christmas Past forgot a line during our performance, I cued her. Fast forward to 1998. I was working at Milwaukee Rep and Joe Hanreddy and I began writing our adapt