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A gentleman and a scholar. Beauty.
Brilliant. Devoted.
A mentor. Kind.
Masterly. Magician.
Inspiring. A vision and a visionary.
To me, Stephen Landon was a role model. He brought out the best in people. He was
a mentor and he was a great inspiration. Stephen showed me the world. He showed me
art. He showed me my career and he showed me beauty in everything, in life. And he changed
me for the better. I really appreciated about Stephen Landon
that everytime that I would see him he would compliment me on something and I noticed that
he would compliment other people like on things that he found like fashion wise or like their
hair that he really liked and he would always like take time to compliment. And I really
thought that it was just really nice because coming from him it was something special because
he had such an eye for beauty. I mean everything that he created was so beautiful and he was
so adept at design and art that when he told you did something right, you really felt like
you did something right. Stephen Landon to me was a leader because
he was role model in any and everything he did. Working in the shop, some of my fondest
memories are working with him. He gave me inspiration for what I want to do and working
with him was truly an honor. My first year here, I transfered and I took
"Advanced Scene Design" with Stephen Landon and it was just him and maybe five other guys.
And we had to build a 3 dimensional set of whatever play we chose to do for the theatre
festival coming out that year. And I did a big like coliseum circular thing for "Titus
Andronicus" and I had it all ready and it just like sleeted the night before and as
I was walking out of my apartment, I slipped and fell flat on top of the set design. So
I brought--it kind of accordioned in on itself--and I brought it in, I still brought it in to
the final because that's all I had. And he came up and he said, "Oh, what is this?" and
I explained to him what happened and he picked up the kinda sandwiched up pieces and he said
"Well, I can tell before you did that, that it was really quite lovely."
Last ACTF, I took two prop designs for "Midsummer Night's Dream" and for "The Ruby Sunrise"
and Stephen Landon, he helped me put together my boards, he helped me arrange all my pictures
and all these things, and he helped me really put it together. So I brought it to the festival
and I presented to the best of my ability and I ended up winning--both of my designs
ended up winning in the Allied Design and Tech category for that year's ACTF and Stephen
Landon was the person who was going to be presenting the award to me and Carolyn Knox
from the University of Oakland announced my name and that I had won the category and of
course myself and my friends are all going bonkers and I finally get up to the stage
and Stephen is up there with my award in his hand and unlike everybody else who had given
awards to students that won, he did not shake my hand, he gave me a hug right there on stage
in front of everybody else. And one of my friends ending up getting a picture of it.
But I won an award and I got a hug from one of the most put together men I've ever known.
Whatever ideas you brought to him, he would always find something about them that he liked.
And I kind of think that's how he felt about people, too. He saw something he liked in
all of us I felt like and I was really inspired by that.