Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2017 - 49

The author leads a panel at the 2016 Association of Theatre in
Higher Education meeting. Photos courtesy of ATHE.

Porter shatters any notion that meditators are passive or disengaged, and her techniques seem to produce
strong, vital collaborators. Alumna Samantha Watson
reflects: "After almost 5 years of being a stage manager
in New York, I can certainly say that I would not be
in the position I'm in [or] found the success I've experienced without my yoga and mindfulness practices.
It's so crucial that I go to yoga twice a week. It really
grounds me and creates the headspace I need to be my
best self. I'm a stronger stage manager and have a much
healthier personal life because of it."
person is so difficult,' take a step back and say to yourself, 'how do you know that that's true?' There's always
going to be somebody who is upset, somebody who's
not getting what they want, some weird thing you have
to deal with, an emotional person-that can all be
framed very negatively, but they don't have to be, they
don't have to be negative."
A common theme in interviews conducted with
Porter's students and alumni was that even though
most of them struggle with actually doing the practices, the awareness they cultivate and the vocabulary of
mindful collaboration that they develop is invaluable.
"I am currently working on a project with performers
who speak five different languages, from many different
cultures and ways of working," says alumnus Zach Kennedy. "Mindfulness and meditation practices have led
me to engaging with them where they are-to observe
and respond to what they need, even if they can't find
the words (or I can't understand) what they need. If I
stay present, I can see, I can help, I can manage them.
Meditation is essential. I find a calmness after meditating that, without calmness, the room could erupt in
chaos. But with many collaborators mindfully engaging
with each other, we find a way, even without translators,
to help each other to find peak performance."

ACCESSING DEEPER CREATIVITY
At the University of Tennessee-Knoxville Department
of Theatre, the inside joke about incoming graduate
students is (imagine a comically dramatic tone) "You're
not ready for the lights."
Kenton Yeager confidently brings meditation and
related philosophy into the training of his lighting design students, as well as others at the university. Yeager,
who also is president of the American Meditation Society, created the Master's Program in Entertainment
Lighting Design and Technology at UT, and he was
clear from the outset that he was not going to train theatre designers in the traditional way. The list of required
summer reading expected of his incoming students includes not only books about lighting and grammar, but
also Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, and Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance. Yeager has had a busy lighting
career over the last three decades, designing for Milwaukee Rep, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Cincinnati
Playhouse in the Park, Asolo Theatre, and The Denver
Center, among others. He is a member of United Scenic Artists and the creator/owner of Yeagerlabs, which
are miniature light labs used to assist in the teaching
and simulation of lighting designs.
Contemplative practices have changed his work
and life for the better, and he is certain it can do the
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