On my son, theater lighting designer Lucas Krech (lucaskrech) from TriCities.com, September 27, 2007:

"Dracula is Back: Fang You Very Much"

Important part:

"Why our boy Dracula doesn’t go after a taste of her jugular is beyond me — maybe necks time?

"Rose directs with his usual bloody precision, Cheri Prough DeVol designed the effective set, Amanda Aldridge outdid herself in shrouding the actors, and Cindi A. Raebel managed the stage, which, I assume, meant keeping the blood supply flowing.

"However, the technical stars of this show were the lighting by Lucas Krech and the sound designed by Bobby Beck. Very, very effective."

"Dracula" is running at at The Barter Theatre, a regional theater in Abington, Virginia, whose Fall 2007 repertoire includes "Dracula" and "Driving Miss Daisy," which also will be lit by Lucas.


On my daughter, Briana Miller, from Oakland Magazine:

Caffeine, Collaboration and Cartoons

Some East Bay coffee shops are serving up more than froth-topped lattes and fresh-brewed regular and decaf. We’re not talking about the flavored concoctions that are more milkshake than Joe. Creativity and community rule at Gaylord’s Caffe Espresso on Piedmont Avenue. It’s a hangout that supports just that: hanging out—with a laptop; with friends; and, in this case, with drawing tools and a fellow artist who, like you, has a passion for the cartoon genre.

Thien Pham thinks he’s 32, but he isn’t sure, as he escaped with his parents on a boat from Vietnam when he was about 5 years old and doesn’t have his birth certificate. His best friend, Briana Miller, is in her 20s. Pham is married. Miller has a boyfriend. Both are art teachers at Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School.

Gaylord’s comes into the picture because it’s where this pair, who met at a comic book convention in San Francisco, have been getting together amidst the aroma of what’s brewing, the occasional screech of the blender and the hubbub of conversation every Wednesday evening for the past three years to create—and brainstorm on ways to promote—comic book art. Together they represent 13 comic book artists, buying their work and then selling it on consignment at stores such as Comic Relief, Dr. Comic & Mr. Games, Issues and Pendragon Books, and on their promotional Web site, www.hobocomics.com.

Pham is best known for his quirky East Bay Express restaurant review cartoon, “I Like Eating.” Miller creates a daily comic blog on her Web site, www.breakcomics.com. Their work regularly features each other as characters and together they’re planning a cartoon cookbook.

“Piedmont Avenue is a hotbed of cartoon creativity,” says Pham, who lives nearby and adds: “I love this street. I get sad when I have to leave it.” And Gaylord’s, they attest, is where they’re inspired to create. “We see a lot of collaboration here,” says Miller. “Knitters, crocheters, jewelry designers—other artists.” A case of a coffee shop brewing up a great deal more than caffeine and beans.

—Wanda Hennig
—Art by Thien Pham and Briana Miller

Briana's daily comics can also be found at BreakComics
Thien Pham's comics are at Thien Pham Fan Club

My children attended the fabulously underfunded, crappy El Cerrito High School in the mid/late 1990s. The school may have been a wasteland academically, but there were some bright lights especially in the theater department and the debate team. Thanks to a few amazing teachers (Mr. and Mrs. Berman and Mr. Anderson to name the big ones in our lives) more than a few of the kids that were in those classes appear to be heading on to true fame and success in the arts. How cool is that?

Jacob Steingroot is a film editor in New York City now and one of his film's is being shown at the Sundance Film Festival right now. Everything's Cool is a documentary about global warming. Amazing. Jacob and my daughter, Briana Miller, have been very close ever since 8th and 6th grade respectively. They used to do art projects downstairs in my house (one of my favorites being a reconceptualized old computer monitor, which became a time continuum from the Jurassic to 2080) and now Jacob is up for an award at Sundance and she is a published cartoonist and comic artist.

Josh Costello founded Impact Theater in Berkeley and has directed plays all over the country. My son, Lucas Benjaminh Krech (lucaskrech ), is a lighting designer in New York City. There are others from that two or three year span at ECHS who are also on the way. I'd love to name them all (okay: Ashkon Davaron and Becky White are two of the others who are in motion) but enough's enough. You get the picture and then some. I don't quite understand what was in the water that decade (or maybe the one in which these kids were conceived) but I think this is a pretty amazing art cluster.

What can I say? If I am spelling it correctly, I'd say this is what naches is.