Tag: theatre

Manifesto 2050

My latest technical project: Manifesto 2050 written and performed by Alex Hetrick. Set in a not so distant future it examines hyper-masculinity and just what exactly is technology doing to us…


I will be in the booth as operator and designer. Back in the wonderful BCN Studio, we’ve been hard at work plugging sound cues and programming lights in order to bring this show to life next week May 19th with an additional show the following Tuesday May 26th.

What I love most about designing lights is creating the world of a play. The lights are something that no one notices if they’re done well but makes all the difference in capturing the audience and leading them down the rabbit hole into the mind of the writer, director, performer(s), etc. It’s an indispensable piece of the theatre. And when you can take not only the literal image but the feelings and emotions out of the mind of the artist and throw them across the stage, it is a magical feeling for everyone involved.

Is that the Sun or a Worklight?

Impro Narrativa; Valencia, Spain

This past weekend I had the opportunity to play along with incredibly talented improvisers from all over Europe in Valencia’s Impro Narrativa Festival.

It was three days of absolute shenanigans, whimsey, mystery, tomfoolery, and even some serious tones all formatted in various long form improv. There were classic structures alongside creative new ideas of storytelling and I got to be a part of it all. The picture above is my view from their light desk as I was live busking to the stories onstage. The venue was fabulous and it was a familiar challenge to me color mixing on the fly and following performers around the stage as the light board operator/designer.

My two favorite shows were “King’s Whim” as an audience member and “Sound Off” as a technician.
“King’s Whim” featured two players, one straight man, one fool. There were pranks and destruction and panic and speed as the court jester and playwright have 30 minutes to write a show for the “king” based on audience suggestions. It was full of both wit and slapstick and had me cackling from the booth.
“Sound Off” was a 45 minute long form, again, with only two players. These women were physical geniuses – as the whole piece was done without dialogue, only music from a live piano player and sound effects from the two players. As the lighting tech, I was able to play along with them with total freedom, becoming a character, myself. I used the lighting to change the time and create a lighthouse – it was one of my favorite things to create their world and environment.

I had such a blast at this festival and exploring the city of Valencia when I was off the clock. I will definitely be pinning this festival for the future and have made plenty of friends to visit in other cities around Europe and beyond.

“Light Magician”

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This spring I’m flying south…well, riding a train…

Held in Valencia, Impro Narrativa’s festival begins March 26, and features workshops and multiple performances each night of their four day improv festival. I’ll be serving as their “Light Magician,” sitting in the sky with their lighting console and looking out over the grid.

My experience in theatrical lighting began in high school where I was recruited by my friends who specialized in design but needed a gofer to sit behind the board and push buttons. From there I learned to use an ETC Element board (no, not one as fancy as the image above, try a model four or five decades earlier), hang lights, secure cables, and a basic understanding of live-busking. At my university, I went on to choose electrics as my area of technical-concentration and continued hands-on training along with the theory behind it all in a class officially called, “The Fundamentals of Technical Theatre Design” – fondly christened by students as “Fundies: where fun goes to die.”
But the class, and the manual labor, proved more than useful when I found myself trouble-shooting console control in a museum made theater in Germany. And I really pulled VectorWorks from the depths of my brain when I was commissioned to design and install an electrical grid in a budding theater space here in Barcelona.

I now work freelance gigs like this one as well as design and board operator jobs among my friends, colleagues, and hopefully many more to come.

Coming Home

Left: a headshot taken my third year in uni (2019-20); Right: a headshot taken under a lighting grid I designed and installed (2025)

It’s been over 5 years since I’ve walked onstage as someone other than myself.

After a two and half year hiatus after uni, I began my stand-up career and returned to the stage as an improviser, musician, and vocalist. But I had yet to add traditional acting back into the mix…until today.
Today I take the stage in my original piece, Where We Die; a piece I’ve spent the last three months as director, dramaturg, and lighting designer. But tonight I’ll step into the role of Sophie, a broken young girl from America who has lost more than her sister in the last five years. Now she finds herself among strangers, and we’ll see if in them, she can find herself.

I feel somewhere between anxiety and pride to be stepping back under the lights. I’m grateful to be joined by five other incredible, hard-working cast members. And while I’m excited to get to play, I’m nervous to “put my money where my mouth is” as it were; with minimal rehearsals yet speaking the words I, myself, wrote, a pressure weighs on me to be more than good.

But this is what I’ve been trained to do. Beginning at the age of eight, I’ve been in countless productions of drama, comedy, varying lengths and intensities, some with song and dance, some with puppetry and movement. I’ve almost two decades of stage time with the years between age 13 and 21 being the most intense, doing 2-6 productions every year complete with rehearsal, memorization, and of course, performances. I know what to do when something goes wrong, when you miss a line, when you get lost. This, too, is a play I know intimately as it was birthed from my own brain, the characters splinters of myself.

I have no idea what awaits me onstage tonight, but I know that the curtain will rise, and it will fall.