The Raggedy Ann Revival Effort (or R.A.R.E. for short) has been my main passion project since March 2021. Raggedy Ann, aka Rag Dolly, is a musical by Joe Raposo and William Gibson. Concieved as a dark fairy tale to show children the importance of hope and friendship when faced with death and adversity, its rocky production led to a hasty push to Broadway, and the tonaly mismatched show failed as a result. Our initial goal was to preserve the show to keep it from being lost, which succeeded when we recovered a full archival taping and many assorted scripts and sheet music. Our new goal is to revise the script and secure the licensing directly from the estates, in order to bring back the show for schools and community theaters to produce.

As an organizer of the group, I help manage archives, provide advice to those searching for materials, moderate online discussion, manage and create posts for our social medias, and contact members of the original cast to conduct interviews. I also assist in working on the revised script of the show, and often do in-depth research into the playwright's process and previous works to keep our changes as faithfull as possible.

We are still a few years away from the culmination of our efforts. The most recent discussion has been over rights to perform free workshops of the material, which is promising but yet to be official. Once we ccan move forward, I plan on helping organize said workshops, and eventually assist with a larger production as dramaturg, and possibly as a set and costume designer as well.

I (along with other members) have already spent some time thinking about and designing possible set and costume pieces for the show, mainly as a fun little exercise. My main project here has been the design of the villain, General D, and I've made real-life proof-of-concepts of my designs and re-designs of him over the years. My sketches, notes, costume, and makeup designs for him can all be found on his page here.

If you're interested in learning more about the musical, our group, and how to support us, visit the official website:

The Fogtown series is a live-action puppet series (so, not stop-motion) started by Sean Parker and Austin Hillebrecht! Currently in the development and pitching stage, the show re-imagines the adventures of Sherlock (in this case, Sherblock Holmes) and his friend Watson (Blockson). They're also working on a choose-your-own-adventure game using the same puppetry techniques! The team is a close-knit group of writers, artists, puppet makers and film people, and I'm honored to be part of their volunteer crew making puppets, costumes, and puppeteering on set.

Projects I've done as part of the Fogtown production:

In tech they have something they call a "black box", a system where the input goes in and the output comes out, and whatever goes on inside is a mystery. I learned this from the Maker community, which got a lot of its start in technology and coding before expanding to art and traditional crafts, where it has been abstracted to cover any sort of process. It's become the term for the enemy, of obscurring the process in which everyday things around us were made until it doesn't even occur to people that their world is maluable, not something that comes from a factory ready to go. So while I respect certain protected ideas that preserve the integrity of a work, especially if one needs to make a living off of it, I encourage the sharing of the process. Assuming the process itself of making is worth trademarking assumes that our own experiences have nothing to bring to the table, that given the same materials and the same technical background every human would make the same art. And I simply don't believe that.

I love photographing and documenting every step of a project, and believe sharing my process to be an important part of my place in the artistic community. Or, in other words, I'm secure enough in my creative endeavors to know that sharing my work will lead to a lot more inspiring than it will flat-out "stealing". If you feel inspired by something you see, I'm pleased by the thought that I could ease some of the frustration involved with doing something for the first time.

That being said, if I'm working on a project for someone else, I don't post anything until it has been made public or I get approval. And, when asked, I will refrain from posting any work-in-progress shots at all.

I built this place myself! I was frustrated at the lack of options for most portfolio website builders, so I decided to teach myself some html and start from scratch. Currently I am hosting this on Neocities, as it's very user-friendly! Once I have finished everything, I'll consider moving to a more secure host.

You'll notice in the devlog that it starts with "began overhauling the site". I started coding my own site for the first time in Feburary of 2023, the first time I had ever worked with html, and it was quite a mess for a while. I set it aside and created a personal site where I could experiment and learn, and somehow ended up messing up the design code for this one in the process. After a few more months of putting it aside, I finally felt like I knew enough to revisit it! In September 2023 I picked out a new template and dug in. And I'm very glad I did.

I'm a real proponent of returning to the "old web", of handmade sites and unique blogs. Generally, the world of social media has replaced these in the social aspect more than it has replaced professional websites like this, but the aesthetic is still lost when everything is made from drag and drop widgets and clean minimalist squares. Learning html from scratch has been a real treat, I would reccomend it to anyone who has thoughts they want to put out into the world. Once you've learned even the basics, it's hard to go back to those white and grey squares and bare bones customization. A wonderful recource for why and how to start your own site is 32-Bit Cafe.

If you'd like to peek behind the curtain and see the resources and process of making this site, click the button below:

At the beginning of 2024, I decided on a project: I would see as many small and experimental shows as possible for the year, and I would find something to say about all of them. No more just talking about the 4-5 shows I'm obsessed with, I want to expand my experience and challenge myself to form coherent opinions!

In addition, I've been watching to get to know the local theater community more, to make friends and build connections, and support the very industry I want to be a part of.

These aren't hard reviews of the shows, just some personal opinions and stuff I liked! I know that there's a good change people who worked on them will find themselves reading these, so I just want to keep it pretty lighthearted.

To read my blog about the shows I've seen recently, click the button below: