theatrical + film
costume + sets + writing + directing + producing
I began my professional career at Disney. I specialized in special event costume design, which covered parades and personalized shows. This was the dawn of participatory theater in the late 1990's.
The training at Disney gave me a lot of groundwork in organizational management for productions. As a result, I've specialized in the unusual, stylized, challenging projects.
Lola's Lab
founder, programatic and theatrical writer, artistic/creative director, illustrator, costume and product designer
Lola's Lab offered a range of theatrical immersive programming. I wrote over 40 original plays were presented paired with arts curriculum that allowed the audience to participate in the story, breaking the fourth wall. in For 7 years Lola's Lab offered live programs and over the last 5 we began to experiment with licensing our curriculum, and producing immersive video and podcasts called Heroes of Imagination.
VSA Arts - Kennedy Center
co-writer, costume & set designer
VSA celebrates artists with disabilities. Every year, the VSA special event unites top performers and visual artists from around the world in a single show at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The show in which I collaborated, stared VIP's in politics and theater, Laura Bush, Ben Vereen, Ronan Tynan, and 125 professional artists. Creating this special was a complex project considering the international cast, each with their own unique acomodations to incorporate. The production team would never actually meeting the cast in person until the single rehearsal on the day before the show! And the 3 hour show was performed in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, which is a space with no wings.
To meet these challenges, I suggested we write the script to strategically with an overall story including pockets throughout for a variety of different artistic acts. The resulting story was called the Magic Crayon. The crayon, grew larger and larger, demonstrating the power of the arts to create change and move one past perceived limitations.
With no way to swap sets, I designed wheeled scrim shapes which could reconfigure and be lit throughout the show with interesting effects, shadows, projections and surprises, such as invisible paper rolls unfurling from the top edge for artists to work live on stage. I designed the costumes in layers to began in black and white adding pops of color whenever characters used the crayon. As they did, the crayon prop light up wand the scenery shifted and a featured act would take the stage.
films
I wrote, directed, designed and produced the short films in the reel below and I have worked on a number of others including "She's Too Tall" a feature film about crazy fashion with Brigitte Nielson, Gerorge Hamilton and Corey Feldman. More recently, certified in Field Production, Studio Production, Premiere Pro, iMovie.. I currently volunteer at Arlington Independent Media, as a the Floor Director and Camera Operator .
special event entertainment
costume design
Special events involve elaborate costumes. For the ASAE show, we built an entire costume shop from scratch just for this effort. Poseidon, seen below, was part 1 of 9 other extravagant mythological characters. He is made of real hand hammered metal, metallic pleated leather, a hand sculpted with with latex and gold leaf and a real starfish on top of his crown.
The equally elaborate unicyclist costume seen next to Poseidon, was made for a circus performer.
