"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts..."

- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Drama is what plays out on "The World Stage". Each person buys into the action and reaction and plays out their part depending on their karma. Karma is a word very similar to drama, both rooted in action and reaction. The best drama reflects the hegelian dialectic of thesis (action) and antithesis (reaction), evolving into a synthesis. Gabriel has brought this into his productions whenever possible throughout his years of serving the dramatic arts as a stage designer, technician and performer. After Gabriel's theatrical biography below, please be sure to check out his latest project: Karmageddon, a Musical Revue, introduced at the bottom of this page.

MINISTRY OF DRAMA

Awakening to Theater

As a growing boy in grade school, Gabriel was always captivated by the living breathing worlds made real thru the rare school play he was able to be in, and when seeing his older commune brother, Chris, in school plays. It wasn’t until his senior year of high school that Gabriel finally dove in and got cast in the school plays, and found a place that allowed him to be 'bigger than life'.

UC Davis Drama

When Gabriel went off to UC Davis, he quickly zeroed in on Dramatic Art as a major, and immersed himself in the acting coursework. He landed a role in Bertolt Brecht’s St. Joan of the Stockyards with a tough, visiting British Director, William Gaskill, playing a starving meat packing worker. Then, getting called in to try out for Don Juan, it became evident that his youthful look coupled with his tall, thin build made him a unique casting challenge. So he delved deeper and deeper into backstage work. But, to this day, he sees acting as the noblest artform.

UC Davis was a great department for experiential learning, and Gabriel enjoyed a regular work study position in the Scene Shop, where he learned the fundamentals of stage carpentry, scene painting, etc. During the four years he was at UCD, Gabriel had endless opportunities to design sets, lights, costumes, sound, and even direct a one act play.

Gabriel assisted the faculty designers with special projects, like carving and gold-leafing the British Royal Arms for The Devil's Disciple, as pictured here (12'w x 6'h). Gabriel's set design teacher, Ralph Fetterly, brought him into the graduate set design course to help him prepare a portfolio for graduate school auditions.

Gabriel's first mainstage set design at UC Davis was for Zora is My Name, by Ruby Dee. This was the west-coast premiere directed by Harry Charles Johnson. Gabriel then went on to design Peer Gynt with British avante garde director Pip Simmons (pictured here). His last show was a musical adaptation of The Birds, directed by Jeff Bengford. Years later, Gabriel would be invited back as a guest artist to design After the Fall, directed by Rod Ceballos.                                                  

Gabriel received his BFA in Dramatic Art at UC Davis in 1992 and was given Departmental Honors for outstanding undergraduate work.

After graduating, Gabriel was referred to the Foothill Theater Company in Nevada City by his design teacher, who was a resident designer there. Gabriel had a great time designing The Importance of Being Earnest there with director  John Deaderick. This was a great lesson in practicality and painting and set dressing. It was a huge set design: 16 foot walls, with a 24 foot turntable stage and 4 spinning pariaktoi, creating 3 distinct settings. This would be Gabriel's last show in California for a few years, as he was accepted to a prestigious, expensive drama conservatory back east.

Carnegie Mellon Drama

At CMU, Gabriel was given the opportunity to design some of their most exciting shows with world class directors and artists, and his love of the art of theater grew many fold in collaboration with his amazingly talented peers and mentors.

In his first year, Gabriel spent most of his time on class projects. The small scale sketch, groudplan and model was the method of choice. Gabriel learned the benefits of small scale white models, which were required on most projects because they could communicate the 3-dimensional idea quicky and be redone relatively easily. Pictured is Gabriel's first 1/8" model for Oedipus Rex.

After demonstrating a willingness to redo drawings, students were given the okay to do 1/4" drawings. But students were notallowed to use color until they could draw light and shadow. By the end of Gabriel's first year, he had started to grasp the importance of light as the motivation for set design, mostly by experimenting with light color pencils on dark paper. Pictured is Gabriel's sketch for La Boheme. Later, Gabriel was able to explore color with projects like Rigoletto, pictured here as adapted into the world of a travelling carnival and "freak show".

Students were allowed more time on projects to develop more finished sketches as well. Pictured here is a design for Two Trains Running, which Gabriel was able to research right in the Hill District of Pittsburgh.

Gabriel was given many production assignments thoughout the CMU season. He served on many shows as an assistant set designer, props master and scenic artist. Gabriel's first mainstage design at CMU was for Sweeney Todd, directed by J. Ranelli. This skeletal design was intended as "actor focused theater". Pictured here is the pie shop and the judge's study. Gabriel designed lights for Dr. Faustus in CMU's studio theater as well.

Gabriel's last design at CMU would be for The Cherry Orchard, directed by Mladen Kiselov. This design was conceived as a duplication of the finely carved oak house in the Kresge Theater, built in 1912. The house detail was continued up onstage into the setting to give a sense of immediacy to the great loss suffered at the end of the play, when the house is boarded up for good and the Cherry Orchard is chopped down. It was also conceived as a "four seasons" play, with each of the four acts representing a season. Pictured is the last hurrah of the fall, followed by the desolation and loss in winter.

Gabriel's Thesis Project was Faust, by Goethe. For this he prepared 1/8" color sketches for each of the 20+ scenes, 1/2" scale design plans, a 1/2" scale color renering, a 1/4" color scale model, a full set of color costume renderings, prop drawings and written design thesis. Gabriel received his MFA in Scene Design from CMU in 1996.

During summers, Gabriel taught scene paingting in the Carnegie Mellon Pre-College program and served as Stage Technician for the Festival of New Plays at CMU.  He also served as Production Design Consultant for the 1995 Beaux Arts Ball in the College of Fine Arts Building at CMU.

While finishing his Thesis at CMU, Gabriel did a couple free-lance designs with the Pittsburgh Playhouse at Point Park College. He designed Come Back to the 5&Dime with director Raymond Laine and a wonderful children's theater version of Stuart Little, directed by David Vinski.

Marin Theater Company

Returning to the Bay Area, Gabriel ended up landing at Marin Theatre Company, where he started working in the scene shop as master carpenter and assistant technical director. His first design there was Machinal, directed by Don K. Williams for the MTC School. This landed him a design with the Artistic Director, Lee Sankowich for the show Molly Sweeney (pictured). He worked again with Sankowich, designing lights for the comedy Bleacher Bums.

During this time, Gabriel also designed scenery and lighting at the Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley for Tom Ross's production of Abigail’s Party; and designed lights for A Bedroom Farce with director Gerald Slate at the Hayward Little Theater.

Lowell High School

In 1999, Gabriel landed a position as Technical Director and Theater Tech Instructor for Lowell High School's Performing Arts Department. Lowell is one of the nation’s top high schools with an award winning performing arts program and incredibly creative students. Gabriel learned to direct a 1000 seat/30 lineset proscenium stage; a tech crew of up to 30 students and volunteers; a design and publicity department; production budgeting, publicity & box office management; and a technical theater program with beginning, intermediate and advanced level students. Gabriel and his Crew hosted a full performing arts season, with regular musicals and plays; dance, choir, orchestra, jazz and band concerts; school assemblies, performances and rallies; plus local groups like Shan Yee Poon Ballet, and international rental groups from as far as Russia.

Gabriel also supervised facility maintenance, and made improvements & upgrades, including design & grant work for renovations to the Carol Channing Theater, and new additions like the Steve Silver Little Theater. During Gabriel's tenure, the Lowell acquired all new, state of the art sound and lighting systems, and a remodeled scene shop, dressing room, paint and storage areas.

Even though Gabriel learned alot about delegating and stepping out of the way, he always liked to keep his hands involved, and served alongside the students with scenic, lighting, sound, props and costume design; technical direction and set construction; lighting, rigging, sound, costumes, publicity, etc.

With Gabriel's guidance, his Theater Tech students were able to win the Tech Olympics at the Ohlone College Theater Festival, and won 1st prize in Set Design for Twelfth Night (pictured). Gabriel's students were an inspiration to him and brought him great joy, always showing up for the challenge that live theater offers. When Gabriel asked them if they were really up for doing the two story version of Dr. Higgins' study in My Fair Lady (pictured), they insisted and made the extra effort needed.

Gabriel's final production for Lowell was South Pacific (pictured). This show brought the tech students out as a cohesive group and honored their devoted service, with the director giving them a full bow at the end along with the actors. Gabriel knew he was leaving them in a good place for the next TD, and looks back at Lowell as some of the best team oriented theater he has ever done.

When Gabriel finished paying off his student loans in 1994, he opened to the Universe and was called to take some healing time away from the City and expand his ministry on to the world stage. Since then, he has been less involved in traditional dramatic arts and more in sacred ritual and devotional music performance. He looks forward to his next stage design project in service to his ministerial calling.

Karmageddon: a Musical Revue

A musical revue and puppet cabaret for the End Times! This stage play (and eventual feature film) is based on the mainline prophecies as unveiled by Allen Michael in the Everlasting Gospel. It all takes place on "The World Stage", a fully designed, touring spherical stage representing our transforming planet earth.

This church sponsored production will be part of a touring ritual festival, presented over the course of several days as a great seminar in New Age living. The evolving story line unfolds as the main players are called into their karmic response to the tribulations unfolding in front of them on the world stage. The cast transmutes the karma as it comes up, synthesizing the mythology around the End Times by contacting archangel Michael and making a stand which delivers the world into 4th dimensional galactic realities and full ETI contact, culminating in the arrival of all the world avatars on the "mothership", the New Jerusalem of prophecy.

Join our troupe in presenting the greatest story the world has ever known, all based on the truth-realities channeled by Michael and the 144,000.

Call to Artists:
Gabriel is seeking theater artists to collaborate on this exciting production: performers/puppeteers, composers/musicians, designers/costumers, technical/run crew, concessioniers/craftspeople, production/publicity managers, etc. Please see CONTACT section at the end of GABRIEL's page to inquire.

Posting here soon:

Outline & Script

Stage Design & Drawings

Music & Lyrics