Iterations

A couple weeks ago, I spoke to a friend from college who I hadn’t spoken to in…well, longer than it should have been. It’s something I’m really trying to work on, but as you probably know, sometimes life gets in the way. Anyway, during the course of our conversation catching up on what was happening in each other’s lives, he told me that my design professor and the person who was really the cornerstone of the entire technical theatre department had passed away last year. I hadn’t spoken to him since 1989, but the news of his passing left me a little gutted. Herb Camburn was a scenic designer, a costume designer, a director, and an artist. He was one of the most talented people I had ever met, let alone had the pleasure of studying under. When explaining a particular concept, he would routinely grab a pen or pencil and begin to draw—sometimes a costume rendering, other times a scenic elevation—but regardless of what he was drawing, the execution was always impeccable. The real art, however, was that he would m