The first month of my technical theater class, I had grand designs on repeating a project I was assigned in college: we were asked to take measurements and build a replica of a theater in downtown Savannah. This replica was to be built neatly and entirely out of black foam board, and they were to build our stage. It was step one to a longer goal of building a model set design on that stage, and it exercised a bunch of skills from measuring to scale drawing to making neat cuts (the key is patience!) to using new tools (like the Rabbet cutter!). As a theater teacher, it's exciting when your content gets to cross over to the core subject areas that people don't scoff at. A fellow bridesmaid in a wedding in Connecticut last year scoffed at the idea that I was a full-time theater teaching unit. "Alabama needs to get its priorities straight," she said. And instead of arguing with her that my job actually helps those other priorities or that our school is large enough i...