Finishing School... Finally!!
Concurrent Graduate School Programs
Entr'act III... moving to NYC - 1985
- Ann, who had completed her undergraduate degree at Antioch University
in Los Angeles (while we traveled with A Chorus Line) was accepted for
graduate school by Teachers College, Columbia, University, New York, NY
- John Monaco, the music contractor I had worked for in Los Angeles
for the west coast (San Francisco and Los Angeles) production of the
Broadway Show, La Cage aux Folles offered me
the La Cage National Tour which was supposed to be on the road for a year or more.
We quickly moved to NYC, found an apartment at 110th and Riverside, a few blocks from Columbia,
and settled in. Unfortunately La Cage producer Alan Carr closed the tour 4 weeks
after I joined it...
- Out on the road again, this time with Zorba the Greek and then Cabaret.
The New School
- I soon realized that while doing Broadway shows I was often in NYC for
enough time to take a semester or two of classes. I looked around for a school and
found The New School for Social Research in the Village. (history)
- The New School had a continuing Adult education program that accomodated my past
college work and made it possible to get a BA with the least amount of core
(science and math) courses.
- Discovered the New School also had a "distance learning" program. I was able to take classes
while on the road -- I carried a "lunch-box" size portable and an
acoustic coupler modem and logged into "class" from hotel room phones and lobby
payphones from around the U.S. and Canada.
- I took (with official approval) 30 hours of Masters level
courses (focusing on emerging computer-based technologies) "on-line" to complete my BA.
- The degree was awarded in 1990... in absentia, I was on
the road with Fiddler on the Roof.
Teachers College, Columbia University
- My last show was "Fiddler on the Roof" which ran from Nov 18, 1990 to
Jun 16, 1991 at the Gershwin Theater in NYC
- As Ann was working on her Developmental Psychology PhD at Teachers
College, Columbia University I investigated the TC computers/instructional technology
programs and found one I liked.
- I enrolled fall of 1991 and finished the spring of 1992 with a Master of Arts
Degree in Instructional Technology/Computers in Education.
- My Masters Thesis was the first iteration of my drumset instruction
program, MusicLab, programmed in Hypercard (Mac) and Toolbook (PC). I built a "bleeding-edge
multimedia computer" to support the project. The Thesis evolved over time into E-MusicLab.com.
- I also taught introductory Turbo Pascal programming classes for three semesters
- Ann was awarded her PhD in Developmental Psychology and I received my Masters
of Arts at the same commencement ceremony, June 1992
- Both sets of parents were able to attend.
- When Fiddler closed it was to be years before I played my drums again...
- A whole new life is on the horizon...