Language & Logistics

I enjoy collecting skills, and so wear many hats at work.  The range of these hats can largely be summed up as "Language and logistics" and I have worn them for academic, corporate, private, non-profit, and arts communities...  These different commmunities call their Writers, their Producers, and their Stage Managers by different names, but the skillset for a given position is essentially the same from one to the next.  Only the vocabulary changes.  Well, that and whether you wield a clipboard, laptop, or a screwdriver.

To do the job you must be able to communicate with anyone!

Language                   Writer - Editor - Communications Manager - Web Designer - Calligrapher

I have written or edited everything from newspaper editorials to press releases to grant applications, from travel essays to web sites, from official correspondance to articles on the psychological aspects of millennialism.  As a Calligrapher I have created simple documents, fancy cards, and large and ornate invitations and ketubot.

Samples of my writing and calligraphy are available elsewhere on this site.  Further samples, stories, and references are available on request.

I am fascinated by the look and sounds of words - how they combine, and how they move the viewer's eyes;  The editor's desire to make a sentence more balanced and grammatical isn't so different from the calligrapher's desire to construct a beautiful document.   Both disciplines need to be simultaneously aware of the big and the small - of the whole page and the smallest line or dot - and to make each serve the other.  Editing is its own discipline.  It's founded on the writer's skills, but the editor must perform his role while preserving the original author's voice.  To call any of these either a science or an art would be incomplete.

Logistics                   Event Planner - Stage Manager - Producer - Program/Project Coordinator - Idea Facilitator

I have planned, organized, or managed everything from a single-evening concert and a full-day symposium to a weekend wedding, a week-long international conference, and a full-season theatre festival.

Some people are "computer geeks", I'm a "logistics geek": give me a plate full of presenters, audiences, stages, hotels, airlines, and media, and I'll make it work.  Sometimes I am hired to work on a specific aspect of an event, but more often I'm the general hand who helps plan against problems, trains staff, assembles details, and finds and repairs loose ends before they can unravel.  In these roles I have done everything from negotiating with hotels and catering companies, to designing lighting and specialized event coffee mugs, to building sets and props, to creating special blood and pyrotechnic effects, to writing programs and press kits, to...      A Harvard opera director once introduced me to a musician friend of hers in this way:

"This is David, he makes operas happen."

Information on some of my theatrical work is available elsewhere on this site, and references are, of course available.  Among the people and organizations who have used my skills are: Boston University, Harvard University, Blue Cross Blue Shield, King Richard's Renaissance Faire, the Chinese Wushu Research Insitute, Behind The Mask Theatre, MIT, The IgNobel awards, and The Boston Folk Festival.

Contact me about your project or ideas.