20 years? Really? No way! I'm not that old! What? Oh. I am that old. Great. I guess that explains the "really, really, blond hairs" in my beard. Thanks ever so much.
As some of you may recall, I got impatient with the whole high school thing and got out early (so, technically, this will be my 21 year reunion. My diploma is now old enough to drink!). After creating a minor ruckus on my way out, I went on to study Administrative Communication at NAU. After three years, I ran off to Florida as part of the Walt Disney World College Program, a terrific internship where they promise to teach you the inner workings of a major entertainment corporation. I suppose I learned a little about the inner workings, but mostly it was about hanging out with the international students who worked at Epcot (those Norwegian kids really know how to party!) and providing cheap labor in the theme parks. At the end of my semester, I had the choice of going back to NAU to complete one credit hour, or just take a class at a local community college and send it back. I figured that because I had a job and a girlfriend, two things distinctly missing from my life in Arizona, I'd just take the class and stay in Florida.
I spent a couple of years working in Theme Park Operations ("Hi, how many? Please watch your step as enter the car/boat/train/theater/etc.") before I became completely burned out and restless. Fortunately, I was able to transfer to a new location: Main Entrance Operations! That's a fancy way of saying that I was the guy directing traffic in the parking lot. The only upside to me, other than the FANTASTIC farmer's tan, was that my new department gave me permission to audition for a role as a Disney Character. So, that summer I became "very good friends" with Tigger, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a few others. After going back and forth between the Parking Lot and a fur costume for six months, I was finally hired to be a full-time Character.
In my personal life, I was still dating the same girl I had met when I first started the College Program. Soon after getting full-time Character status, we got married… and a few months later came the separation… and several months after that, the inevitable divorce. The only good thing to come out of that experience was it provided a common ground for many of us at the 10 year reunion! I have to admit that I had more fun with more people at that reunion than I did in all my three years of high school. We were just ourselves, scars, warts and all. We weren't trying to live up to any expectations, our own or others; we just were. And that was enough. We bonded through our mutual pain and discovered that we weren't all that different after all.
I went on to work in numerous shows at all four of Disney's Florida Parks, most notably "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Bear in the Big Blue House". They're "most notable" because I had the most fun working on them!
In 2000, I left Disney for a few months and started working with the City of Orlando Puppetroupe. I was hired to be a puppeteer, but my boss figured that my Communication degree meant that I should also write scripts. I had never written a play before, nor had I ever built a puppet, but by the end of the summer, I had written, designed, built and performed my first puppet production, "Tibbens in Time."
I went back to Disney after the summer ended, but the seed had been planted; I knew I couldn't just be a performer anymore. I wanted to have more creative control over my projects. And I wanted to make a name for myself, something not possible working within the Disney machine. So, in the fall of 2001, I went back to school.
I enrolled in the graduate program in Puppet Arts at the University of Connecticut. I thought it would be an easy degree to get, especially since I had been working as a puppeteer for so many years already, but I quickly learned how little I knew about puppetry. I was good enough for a Disney puppeteer, but those skills barely scratched the surface of what there was to learn. I spent the next three years learning everything I could, and finishing my education with the production of my thesis show, "Totems: Tales of Raven" a story based on the creation myths of the Northwest Pacific Tribes.
After graduation, I returned to Florida and worked every puppet job in the Orlando area. I worked in theme parks, museums, community centers, elementary schools and a small marionette theater. The number of jobs available was amazing, but the paychecks were always too small, so I eventually took a job that moved me out of Orlando, and, temporarily (I hope), out of puppetry.
I'm currently working as the Stock Supervisor for the Metropolitan Opera Costume Shop in New York City. It's a fancy title that means I get to organize and track all of the materials used by the costume shop to create the clothes appearing in all the operas. It's a job with unique benefits (i.e. the opportunity to see some of the world's greatest singers at the best opera house in the world), but I still keep my eyes open for opportunities to take me away from the opera and into your televisions.
Last December, parents of small children had a chance to see my right forearm in action in "Elmo's Christmas Countdown". It was a small role as part of a large forest scene, but it's a start. I got to work with fun people, doing what I enjoy doing, and I got paid for it! What more can you ask for?
Wait! I know: Fewer of those "really, really, blond hairs!"
As some of you may recall, I got impatient with the whole high school thing and got out early (so, technically, this will be my 21 year reunion. My diploma is now old enough to drink!). After creating a minor ruckus on my way out, I went on to study Administrative Communication at NAU. After three years, I ran off to Florida as part of the Walt Disney World College Program, a terrific internship where they promise to teach you the inner workings of a major entertainment corporation. I suppose I learned a little about the inner workings, but mostly it was about hanging out with the international students who worked at Epcot (those Norwegian kids really know how to party!) and providing cheap labor in the theme parks. At the end of my semester, I had the choice of going back to NAU to complete one credit hour, or just take a class at a local community college and send it back. I figured that because I had a job and a girlfriend, two things distinctly missing from my life in Arizona, I'd just take the class and stay in Florida.
I spent a couple of years working in Theme Park Operations ("Hi, how many? Please watch your step as enter the car/boat/train/theater/etc.") before I became completely burned out and restless. Fortunately, I was able to transfer to a new location: Main Entrance Operations! That's a fancy way of saying that I was the guy directing traffic in the parking lot. The only upside to me, other than the FANTASTIC farmer's tan, was that my new department gave me permission to audition for a role as a Disney Character. So, that summer I became "very good friends" with Tigger, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a few others. After going back and forth between the Parking Lot and a fur costume for six months, I was finally hired to be a full-time Character.
In my personal life, I was still dating the same girl I had met when I first started the College Program. Soon after getting full-time Character status, we got married… and a few months later came the separation… and several months after that, the inevitable divorce. The only good thing to come out of that experience was it provided a common ground for many of us at the 10 year reunion! I have to admit that I had more fun with more people at that reunion than I did in all my three years of high school. We were just ourselves, scars, warts and all. We weren't trying to live up to any expectations, our own or others; we just were. And that was enough. We bonded through our mutual pain and discovered that we weren't all that different after all.
I went on to work in numerous shows at all four of Disney's Florida Parks, most notably "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Bear in the Big Blue House". They're "most notable" because I had the most fun working on them!
In 2000, I left Disney for a few months and started working with the City of Orlando Puppetroupe. I was hired to be a puppeteer, but my boss figured that my Communication degree meant that I should also write scripts. I had never written a play before, nor had I ever built a puppet, but by the end of the summer, I had written, designed, built and performed my first puppet production, "Tibbens in Time."
I went back to Disney after the summer ended, but the seed had been planted; I knew I couldn't just be a performer anymore. I wanted to have more creative control over my projects. And I wanted to make a name for myself, something not possible working within the Disney machine. So, in the fall of 2001, I went back to school.
I enrolled in the graduate program in Puppet Arts at the University of Connecticut. I thought it would be an easy degree to get, especially since I had been working as a puppeteer for so many years already, but I quickly learned how little I knew about puppetry. I was good enough for a Disney puppeteer, but those skills barely scratched the surface of what there was to learn. I spent the next three years learning everything I could, and finishing my education with the production of my thesis show, "Totems: Tales of Raven" a story based on the creation myths of the Northwest Pacific Tribes.
After graduation, I returned to Florida and worked every puppet job in the Orlando area. I worked in theme parks, museums, community centers, elementary schools and a small marionette theater. The number of jobs available was amazing, but the paychecks were always too small, so I eventually took a job that moved me out of Orlando, and, temporarily (I hope), out of puppetry.
I'm currently working as the Stock Supervisor for the Metropolitan Opera Costume Shop in New York City. It's a fancy title that means I get to organize and track all of the materials used by the costume shop to create the clothes appearing in all the operas. It's a job with unique benefits (i.e. the opportunity to see some of the world's greatest singers at the best opera house in the world), but I still keep my eyes open for opportunities to take me away from the opera and into your televisions.
Last December, parents of small children had a chance to see my right forearm in action in "Elmo's Christmas Countdown". It was a small role as part of a large forest scene, but it's a start. I got to work with fun people, doing what I enjoy doing, and I got paid for it! What more can you ask for?
Wait! I know: Fewer of those "really, really, blond hairs!"
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