Tag Archives: life
Thursday Pic Post
Yep, it’s hot today.
Thankfully, I’m in my office, where we have air conditioning…
(Hey! Don’t judge me, ALL our desks get messy SOMETIMES!)
Last night we had a blast hanging out with our friends Ann and Duncan, playing “Last Night On Earth” (the zombie board game) outside, under the trees, in the dark, by candlelight! It was great fun. 
Here are the ladies, beating the heat with some ice cream before the game!
I can’t tell you what the picture below is yet…
…. but I can tell you that it’s:
A) work related
2) awesome
III) part of something else that is also awesome. 🙂
Also, in case you’re wondering whether we’re pet friendly here at Williamston Theatre…
I helped John feed his snakes this week. The ones he keeps in his office. Here’s one of them. The small one.
(And by “helped” I mean stood and watched from the other side of the room waiting to see if he got his arm bitten off.)
(He didn’t.)
Happy Thursday everybody!
Pic Post Wednesday!
Snapshots of a week full of theatre, family, and fun! It’s been a busy week, not as much journaling as I’d like, but it’s been a good kind of busy, so no complaints… Just pictures!
My son bought me this at a yard-sale. Yes, it’s a Klingon. Yes, it’s also a piggy-bank!
(Fellow nerds: Is this Gowron?)
“Today is a good day to save!”
This is our closing week of The Understudy at Williamston Theatre. It’s been a pretty terrific experience.
My kids are Rock Stars!
Speaking of my kids, Max is laying here next to me, reading, as I write this post on my iPad. Look how cute this kid is!
Tracking the progression of the set for the upcoming show (mentioned in last weeks Pic Post), here’s a picture of the updated model! Nice changes by the designer, based on discussions of both aesthetic and practical needs. Excited for this show!
Lastly… This is awesome…
…and so is this…
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Pic Post Wednesday: New Shows, New Games, Family Time!
A good, busy week!
Production meetings for the next show at Williamston Theatre, Red, White and Tuna, directed by John Lepard. Here’s a picture or two of the set model – Janine Woods Thoma is the Set Designer. This pic was right before they had a couple of great ideas and Janine tore the model apart to experiment!
In other theatre news, I’m beginning work on the next show I’m directing, boom, which I LOVE!
Had a great time with Max this evening. After Maggie and I grilled an awesome dinner (salmon, chicken, pork medallions, veggies), she and Jeanne went out dress shopping, so Max and I got some Dad/Son time: first, ice cream from Twisters.
Yes, they’re both huge, and yes his has 3 candy eyeballs on the front of it. These things happen…
Next, we wanted to play some games, and we had a new pack of expansion cards…
So we played some Munchkin!
Seriously, could that kid be any cuter?
We also played a game of Ticket To Ride with the whole family, and then the kids were off to bed!
Lastly, Maggie and I saw this bumper sticker when we went grocery shopping, and it made us laugh… and then we spent the next 20 minutes rhyming things with “peanut”…
Have a great week, folks!
Monday Night Quotes – Making a Difference
Thinking a lot lately about responsibility, the reason we do what we do at work, at home… Planning the next few things for the Williamston Theatre, meeting with teachers about next year for my kids, making and debating choices… Hoping they’re the right choices, but knowing that the only way to find out is to move forward!
*****
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.
-Woodrow Wilson
When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough, we must do.
-Leonardo da da Vinci
How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve the world.
-Anne Frank
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
-Dr. Seuss
Pic Post Thursday!
Random photos from random moments in the life of a random Dad, Husband, Artistic Director and geek…
The week in review:
This can’t be good, right?
Since the “service engine” light was distressing, Maggie and I got Pinkberry!
Okay, the “Service Engine” light may not have been the actual reason we got Pinkberry, but while we were having it, we discussed the fact that we’re less than two months away from the Warrior Dash, which we’ll be running together this July! Here’s me at the end of last year’s Dash:
That’s why, despite the Pinkberry, this week I started really hitting the elliptical runner in the basement again, and last night the kids had me working my cardio by joining them in a long battle of “Just Dance” on the Wii:
(“It’s easy, Dad – see the guy on the screen dressed all strange like you used to dress in the 80’s? You just follow all the moves he does until the game ends or you fall over and we roll you out of the way… whichever comes first.”)
Aaaaand lastly, the reviews for The Understudy at Williamston Theatre have been good so far, and audiences seem to be really enjoying it, but just to be safe we’re considering adding a new actor for the show:
Here’s Milo Lepard, son of Emily Sutton-Smith and John Lepard, hanging out on the set of The Understudy. He’s learning all the parts, just in case…
And now, a weekend full of shows! Hope your week has been good!
Friday’s Flotsam and Jetsam…
Miscellaneous things on a Friday afternoon!
A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.
Franz Kafka
***
It’s Opening Night for The Understudy!
Here’s a fun article from the Lansing City Pulse previewing the show
***
It’s Towel Day! What’s Towel Day?! It’s a day celebrating the life and work of Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, among other things!) 
To celebrate, you’re supposed to carry a towel around with you! “Why?”, you ask? Read on…
“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
Also, see: DON’T PANIC.
Alex and I, being very serious, with our very serious towels.
***
In other miscellaneous news – today was “Moving Up Day” for my daughter. This means that she spent the day at the High School she’ll be attending next year, in an orientation. This also means that suddenly my little girl is in High School!! WHAT?! Oy… didn’t we just start her in kindergarten?! *sigh*
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Franz Kafka
Wednesday Pic Post!
Random images from a week in the life of a Dad, Artistic Director, husband, geek, etc…
A cool image of Alex Gay and Chris Purchis at Williamston Theatre, on the set for The Understudy. The set makes it look like we’ve expanded and added an entire theatre of seats upstage! 🙂
Tonight the Detroit Tigers had some VERY special guests watching their game. Sadly, all the reactions were the same when Prince Fielder threw the ball into the ground, instead of to home plate:
In news not nearly as sad as the record of the Tigers, my family has a new board game that’s a ton of fun: Ticket To Ride!
The game is easy to learn, and a ton of fun. 
If you’re a family who plays games together, and your kids are 12 or over, give it a shot, you’ll love it!
I’m not one of those people who post pictures of all their food all the time, but I have to say that I’ve been trying to eat healthier as I prep for the Warrior Dash in July (and, y’know, trying not to be chubby in general!), and this Chicken Caesar salad from Tavern 109 in Williamston was awesome!
It looked so good I had to take a picture, and then it lived up to expectations. Come to Williamston – we have good theatre, and good restaurants!
Lastly, it’s been a long week, full of the normal challenges of anyone working to keep a business open and prospering in this economy. I saw this picture on a friends Facebook page, and had to share it, because it fit so nicely with the week and was a nice reminder of how to tackle running a theatre:
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Monday Night Quotes: Simplicity
After a great weekend of previews for The Understudy, and a nice night playing games with my family, I’m reminded of the importance of simplicity. (It seems to be a recurring theme in the giant pile of things I keep learning and re-learning over and over!)
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
-Hans Hofmann
Seek simplicity but distrust it.
-Alfred North Whitehead
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
-Alan Perlis
Simplicity is natures first step, and the last of art.
-Philip James Bailey
Wednesday Pic Post: Fun in May
So, life is busy. Starting performances of The Understudy this week, my son had his 12th birthday, my daughter and wife just got back from a trip to Washington DC where they did all sorts of cool things. Busy, but good!
Here’s a fun video from Tech Day of The Understudy, at Williamston Theatre:
And from tech day, here’s a shot of a fun little corner of the set that I like!
And a picture that I like a lot from the show:
(Michelle Held, me, Drew Parker)
Also, my friend Michelle (who is in The Understudy, and pictured above), did a photoshoot for a talented photographer, Chris Arace, and I think this is a really cool picture!
Click on the picture to go to his website!
Maggie, hugging a panda bear statue. I love this picture! 🙂
A couple more shots from Max’s birthday party:
Everyone who came got moustaches to wear. Just because. And, as you can see, they took them very seriously.
and…
Here’s a handful of the party-goers relaxing outside!
I hope everyone out there is having as wonderful a week as I am! 🙂
Tony Caselli 