My Special Projects
Stage Rats LLC
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Stage Rats LLC (2012 -present) This is the company I founded and have run since 2012. Starting as a Company in Residence at Rowan, it was designed to employ advanced students in producing scenery for local schools and theaters.
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As an ongoing project I started by using my Stage Craft III class to look at Production companies and covered business plans. We researched and explored various models of companies, marketing plans, and operations.
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As a result of this research I worked with the Rowan College of Business's Entrepreneurship Program and developed a business plan. This is a link to Final Presentation that the Students
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I was honored to receive Adjusted Work Load from the College of Performing Arts to dedicate time to this endeavor. Here is a link to the report I made in 2016.
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Inclusion, Diversity, Equity an Accessibility (formally Diversity Inclusion and Equity)
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In May of 2020 George Floyd met his horrific and tragic death. This event sparked a wave outrage and protest across the nation. The Department of Theater and Dance's students and alumni responded by writing a letter to the faculty and staff calling us to account for the multiple micro aggressions, racist casting, and general insensitivity to BIPOC, transgender and neurodiverse voices. We as a faculty met and held lengthy conversations and responded with a reply entitle "We Can Do Better". This letter stated " We vow to examine our curriculum to assure that it includes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) voices. Our work is to educate future theatre and dance artists in a forum of equality through a curriculum that offers a deep understanding of cultural diversity and a department that embraces inclusivity."
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We called it "The Big Check"
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I started on a campaign of self education. The University offered several DEI workshops, so I took them all. I was invited to join the University DEI taskforce, the University Senate DEI committee and to create and chair the Department DEI (now IDEA) committee. I arranged for the Division of DEI to dedicate some of their workshops to the College of Performing Arts exclusively.
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In May of 2026 Paule Turner, the Chair of the Department of Theater and Dance asked me to prepare a report of where we where and what could we do better. Here is the link. I also was charged with working with the Division of DEI to formulate our departments' goals. These are published in the divisions dashboard. Here is the link.
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Universal Designed Learning
The workshops and research in DEI work lead me to to conclude that the way to a Inclusive Diverse, Equitable, and Accessible learning community is through Universal Design. This capstone presentation I created for the DEI in Pedagogy Certificate Programs outlines the concepts of UDL.
The Penny Executive Project
In the Antiracist Pedagogy and Practices Certificate Workshop I was approached by Rick Jonsen, a colleague from the College of Business. He asked me if I knew anything about producing theater, to which I said yes I do. He then asked me if we could work together on our capstone project to produce a play called The Penny Executive. I said this sounds very cool so yes lets do it!
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The following excerpts are from the business plan I created to pitch the project to raise funds:
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"The Penny Executive is a one-person play depicting the life of Maggie Lena Walker, an African American feminist social entrepreneur during the “golden age” of black business in the United States (1900-1930). Under Mrs. Walker’s leadership as chief executive, the Independent Order of Saint Luke established a newspaper, bank, and department store in Richmond, VA, all with the purpose of Black economic empowerment. As chief executive of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank, Mrs. Walker became the first Black woman to serve as a bank president in the United States.
This project will be a one weekend long event, with nightly shows followed by discussion groups and a reception. This will take place in the Roher School of Business Atrium February 3, 4, & 5, 2023. This event will host a variety of artists, scholars and professionals with the goal of showing how the example that Maggie Lena Walker set can be and is being followed today. It is also a celebration of what an incredible person Maggie was, a pioneer in social entrepreneurship, women's rights, and social justice. "
The play was a huge success on every point. We received the funding with ease, had a remarkable reception from the audience and panel discussion groups. The University awarded our efforts with the Excellence in Diversity Activism Award for Rick and myself, Asia Todd, the star of the show, received the Excellence in Diversity Performance Award and Hallel Jackson and the production team received the student Excellence in Activism for students. I will be producing a tour of the show with Asia this February and March with shows scheduled at the Albright Community College in Richmond VA and local middle and high schools.
Dracula
In 2015 I submitted a proposal to produce Dracula for our mainstage season. As part of the proposal I included a comprehensive marketing and fundraising plan. I needed to pay a make up artist for workshops in horror make up and lots of dry ice.
The plan included:
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The Dracula Blood Drive, where I had the Brides (actors dressed up in costumes) roam the streets of Glassboro and bring people to where we had set up a Red Cross Station.
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Renfield's Quest, a treasure hunt. I went around Glassboro and Pitman asking small business's to sponsor the show. For $200 they received several small coffins filled with tickets, nick knacks like skulls and vials of blood and coupons from all the sponsors. At Homecoming we gave out maps to the various locations. I raised $2000 which was used to pay for the make up workshops and dry ice needed for the show.
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Coffin across the Campus. As a class project I had 3 coffins built. We then placed them around campus at random places and let people take photos of themselves in them. The town of Glassboro reached out and asked if I would bring them to the Trunk and Treat event, which we did with the Brides, fog machine and coupons for the show.
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Had invitations to the show hand delivered by the Brides to the University leadership.
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The production itself was a massive undertaking. We incorporated puppetry, projections, lots of dry ice and fake blood. My colleague Dr. Liz Hostetter directed the acting and I was co-director in charge of the special effects and choreography of the changes form Dracula the person to the monster, plus when he gets destroyed. We sold out nearly every show over two weekends and had a ton of fun.
Pandemic Projects
When the Pandemic shut us all down I knew we had to actively work on keeping our students engaged while also figuring out how to deal with ongoing safety concerns. Several projects and opportunities arose that helped us all deal with this bizarre and strange new way we had to teach and produce shows.
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Texpo 2020, the online version. Several years ago I created Texpo, a exposition of the Design and Technology students work they had produced over the academic year. Since we could not meet in person I had them put together a slide show of their work which I edited and together and produced a movie. We had a watch party on YouTube before they took down the video due to the fact that I used the Star Wars Theme music and may have liberally borrowed some imagery.
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Projections for Hope. During the Pandemic Rosco, a theatrical lighting company, created and distributed gobos celebrating our first responders and essential workers. Bob had the idea to project these on buildings on our campus. He enlisted me and Dave Cimetta, another colleague to assist. I grabbed my generator and provided the power to light up the instruments while Bob designed the looks and Dave photographed them. We produced a slide show and posted on social media. The University awarded our efforts by giving us Employee of the Month.
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Creation of Covid-19 protocols. Me and my colleague Bob Thorpe researched and worked with the University to develop a set of protocols. We moved our class rooms around to accommodate social distancing, taped out our theater for larger classes and installed hand sanitizing stations. I painted the scene shop floor with area marked out for proper distancing around the tools. I established a sign in form with qrl code to track our classes in case we had an outbreak. Here is the document I compiled and distributed.
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News from the World. I assisted in producing our fall 2020 Cabaret. We had the performers shoot videos of them selves the edited them together as a fake news cast. I organized the students editors, assisted in the up and down loading of the clips and project managed the whole affair.
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Production Practicum Mask Project. Since we where not making any sets we wanted to keep the students engaged as much as possible. We also had a lot of free time on our hands at the at the same time as the Rowan Collège of Engineering provided a file to print out plastic masks. Working with my colleagues and students we printed out 150 masks. We then had the students pick them up from a tent outside and decorate them, take pictures and post on social media.
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The Wolves Video Shoot. For our production of the Wolves we decided to use Green screen technology as well as renting out an indoor soccer field to shoot the play and produce a video of it. I helped find the spaces as a location scout and purchase and distribute 15 green screen kits to the actors.
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Online Course Trainer. Being familiar with technology and zoom I was asked to be a trainer for those faculty who need assistance in transitioning to Zoom for teaching. I was on call for the duration of the academic year and help out several people with finding the unmute button or how to share the screen.
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The Laptop Initiative
As a member of the University Senate Technology Committee I had the idea that everyone on campus should have a laptop. I was asked to co-chair a task force dedicated to this idea. At the end I presented a report to the provost. It included the concept that faculty would need to be trained how to use laptops and online materials in the classroom. Here is a link to the full presentation.
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