USITT Kansas City 2010

Apr 6

I hadn't been to the USITT conference in a couple years, so I figured it was time to go (I also did a bit of travelling before the show). I ended up on two sessions, the first on Wednesday with Carlton Guc from Stage Research, called Integrating Show Systems without Resorting to a Sledghammer:

I gave an overview of modern show control, which was fun, and the session was well attended.

That night, Kara Anderson from Focal Press took a bunch of her authors (including me) out to a very nice dinner.

The floor seemed pretty busy, and, since this was the 50th anniversary, there were some cool historical exhibits, like 50 years of stage lighting.

Jim on Light has a great write up of the floor, and there was also a great panel with Steve Terry, Gordon Pearlman, Anne Valentino, and Fred Foster:

UMKC students also put up a display on winches. Their hearts were in the right place, but can you count the safety violations here?

It would be bad enough to put this kind of stuff in a trap room, but to expose the general public to unprotected, highly powered roller chain, etc. seems really irresponsible to me (and take this from someone who carried a finger to the hospital in college)

One of the booths had a pair of aerialists:

I took a run out Friday to do a bit of storm chasing, but got back in time for the Yale alumni party. For the last session slot, I was on the excellent "The Future of Graduate TD programs" panel run by Rich Dionne of Purdue. Rusty Cloyes from the UT Austin and I were the panelists, and this was fascinating stuff, on the changing learning styles of "Millenial" students (actually, I think I was a millenial student before this group had a label).