Jon Shimon won a free master class through Live Design. He has a choice of going to the 3 day lighting, sound or projection classes in New York City. I believe his choice is projections, and I might be next in line if he can’t go. (so watch your back Shimon)

Well, I have been asked this question by the locals, and tried my best to explain what theater is…
But I really just want to post pictures of some of the faces and things I have seen at USITT so far.  This is just a sampling.  I need to get a lot better at taking pictures of everyone I see.  There are probably many familiar faces in this crowd.  (and they are not all FSU folk).
Sorry some of these photos are blurry…the iPhone can only do so much.

Alan Hendrickson and I pulled off a successful* session about automation terminology at this years USITT.  Armed with nothing but a PowerPoint presentation and a laser pointer we covered the basics of stage automation.  If you were unable to attend, I will upload the handout (or swag) that we gave the attendees as they entered the room.  You can find the PDF here: Automation 101-Terminology
Below you can see Alan and I in action and the crowd that was already assembled 5 minutes before they barred the doors.  Since we ran out of our hand outs, we figure we had over …

This group benefits the ESTA Foundation’s Behind The Scenes program and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.  If you are at USITT, you can donate money to this group and get a bracelet.  If you are interested keep your eyes open for Loren Schreiber.
An excerpt from their site: “The [motorcycle] riders will assemble at the Presidio in San Francisco on the morning of July 24th and head north into the Napa Valley. Over the next seven days the group will ride through Eureka, Susanville, Le Vining and then over to Truckee and Lake Tahoe. They’ll ride …

I am going to start bragging right away.  I am staying in an incredible hotel.  FSU has set aside some money for me to travel to conferences etc. and I told them to put me up at the Holiday Inn – Aladdin, because it was the cheapest one at the time right next to the conference center.  Wouldn’t you know it, it is all decked out and fancy.  I had to take a video of it to show it off.  Please bear with the loud sucking noise in the background.  That is the air intake and it has been …

I feel that I try to stay up on the new technology, science, concepts, etc.  My wife will tell you that this is true except for when it comes to pop culture, this includes social networking.   This blog probably started a couple years after it should have.  I am on Facebook, but hardly keep up with the thing.  Well now I am Tweeting.  This is just in time for USITT*.
Look to the top right of this page…this tweet is what I recently said.  Ooooh….Ahhhh….
You can click on PiraTWEETnical and follow me through whatever tweet tracking method you might use.  If …

The title doesn’t lie. USITT has created a iPhone App. You can see details on their web page here: http://www.usitt.org/USITTiPhoneAPP.aspx.

If you want to go grab it for yourself go to: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/usitt-2010/id358128548?mt=8

Well the CES ended last weekend and one of the topics to come out of the showroom floor was 3D in your home. Many LCD and Plasma TVs coming in the option of 3D should be available to you some time in 2010 and many are allowing you to pre-order them already. They all pretty much require you to wear some sort of glasses. Some are basic cardboard polarized glasses and others are powered glasses that actually link top the TV to shutter each lens as you watch. I also heard that there was one TV …

You’re in the audience of dramatic play.  The tension of the plot has the viewers on the edge of their seats.  Then, despite the pre-curtain speech, a cellphone goes off.  And whats worse is it starts playing “Super-Freak” as the ring tone.   I am sure this has happened to many of you (perhaps a different ring tone).  Well, Shin-ichi Ohkoshi of the University of Tokyo* has developed a paint that prevents the transmission of wifi signals.  The BBC has an article here “Anti-wi-fi paint offers security”.
Now lets think up some of the pros and cons of using this on the …

Evidently this was posted to YouTube 2 years ago, but it just came across my path.  I wish I could train my graduate students to be this good.