THE UNIVERSITY THEATRE PLAYERS CHAPTER OF
THE TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY EX-STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
GREENROOM NOTES
September 11, 2007
"Green Room everyone! It is time for notes"- Ron Schulz
As always seems to be the case when I manage to get out a special edition, I make up for the extra by being late on the regular. But I’m here and we have a few things to discuss.
I received scores of letters from folks congratulating Will on his big win. Thanks to the miracle of “reply all”, some of them were from folks who are not Players, but who Will and Cat have touched over the years (not that there are that many of them – years, that is) since they left the home place of TTUT and ventured into the world. It is a testament to the two of them that so many care so much.
Now you can yell at me all you want, but since all the letters were variations on Hurrah, Will!, No one deserves it more!, I’m so excited I don’t know what to do! – well, you get the idea – I’ve decided not to run the individual letters.
I think we can safely just say that we are all very proud and pleased and join together to say
HURRAY, WILL!!!!!!!!!
Now just a couple of quick updates. First from Lin (Pratt) Leffel.
Hey there Jimmy!
Well, I've finally gotten around to sending you an update, and, as I turn 26 tomorrow, its right on time!
Life for Chris and I has been pretty crazy these last months. I decided earlier this year that I was done with the retail thing and began looking into alternative certification programs for teaching. I got into a program, and with the help of Chris and Zach Elms (whose wedding was beautiful) I got in contact with Chris's old theatre teacher and current colleague of Zach's, Carla Ford-Rich with Plano ISD. We had a wonderful meeting and she put me in touch with a former colleague who was now in
Frisco ISD. After a brief chat with her I interviewed with Wakeland High in Frisco and was almost instantly offered a position teaching Theatre I and Tech Theatre 1,2,3,4. There was some drama in between then and now involving testing, but I started inservices last week and am looking forward to my first day teaching on August 27th. And, I'm not the only Tech alum in the Frisco ISD theatre circle! Thanks to a tip from Dr. Donahue I found out that Cathy Huey is teaching at Centennial High in Frisco. It was great getting to see her and I look forward to working with her this year. I'm both terrified and thrilled and know that despite the hard work and the stress I am cut out for this. I thank God daily that he opened this door and made it so easy to find a job. We open our theatre season with Thoroughly Modern Millie the first weekend in December.
Chris is still with Barbizon Lighting and loving it. They are currently working on the systems at the Meyerson Symphony Center. He has also selflessly agreed to help me with all my lighting and sound mumbo-jumbo this year and is going to do the lighting design for Millie. Chris also just wrapped up a production of High School Musical at Teatro Della Muse in Plano and is their resident lighting designer. Their next production is First Kiss. You can check them
out online at http://www.teatrodellemuse.us/index.html.
Besides our jobs we are simply enjoying our life right now. We love our dogs and enjoy living close to family. If anyone is ever coming to the Dallas area give us a shout. We would love to see some old friends!
TTFN!
Lin (Pratt) Leffel, 2004
As I recall, Lin, you and I still have a trip to Santa Fe for the opera that we put on hold. We’ll get to that someday, I’m sure. In the meantime, good luck with the
teaching thing.
Steven King checks in.
Dear All:
It's great to read how well everyone is doing. Here is my long-overdue
update:
After leaving Tech, after someone you may have heard of, Will Bigham, starred in my play "Relief at the Receptionist's Office" at Red Raider's Spectacular under my pseudonym John Trundle (get the
RROAPS CD compilation from the Tech theater office!), 2 new plays of mine won contests in Houston: "And the Symphony Awaits" at Theatre Southwest's Festival of Originals and "Not That Kind of Man" in the
Scriptwriters/Houston 10x10 play festival. My short "The Tragedy of Antoinetta and the Telephone" also saw production.
Aside from plays, I helped edit, ran the website and wrote a column for Lubbock Magazine. I also had a long-running humor column ("Local News from the Third Planet") in the Connecticut paper The Voice, and
co-wrote a column ("from the pen of Kenneth Snipps") in the Hartford Advocate.
I've acted in short plays and 2 independent series "Tonight at11:30" and "Now Showing" and a short subject "Camera 1 is Bored" (all I co-wrote) with extra work in "Friday Night Lights", "Cristina's
Court", "Judge Alex", a Vodafone commercial and a movie, "A Little Bit of Lipstick". I'm also slated to do a comedy bit this winter in a music
video for the band, The Black Math Experiment, through whom I ran into David Arquette. I highly encourage running into him, but not very hard. He's very cool, but not very substantial. And thanks to all that, I’ve just become SAG eligible.
I travel a lot, win a lot of races and do some science on the side. Other than that, I am completely bored.
That's all for now!
--Steven King
In an additional note to me, Steven also mentioned something about working at Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston. As I have a few stories about the very short period of time I worked in the pathology department at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, I’m almost afraid to ask.
Finally, Max Campbell has a request for information.
Jimmy,
I was wondering if you or anyone knew about some of the top music schools (in the U.S. or out of it). My brother is a cellist, guitarist, composer, pianist, etc., etc., etc. Anything with music just flows with him. I am trying to help my mother research some schools for his benefit but we didn't know where to start. If you wouldn't mind putting this in the Notes I would really appreciate any input you or anyone had.
Thanks so much.
Max
I’m doing some checking around (Max, I swear I haven’t forgotten about you, I just haven’t been able to tackle any of my orchestra instrumentalist type folks), but if anyone else out there has ideas or knowledge, let us know.
That’s it for this time.
Don’t forget to check the board as you leave!
Jimmy