One could say David Stone ’70 owes his position as head of The Media Shop in Philadelphia, Pa., (where he is a writer, producer and director of short industrial and other films) to rock ’n’ roll.
Not long after Stone left Wichita, he did what virtually any dedicated actor does. Yep. New York City. While he did get some work as an actor, he found it difficult to maintain momentum: “You get to New York City and realize just how many actors there are,” he says.
Then Stone realized he could perform even if he wasn’t acting. “I was hired to do a one-man multimedia show for high school students about the history of rock ’n’ roll,” he says. “This was back in ’73, so there wasn’t much history there, but we’d do this show with reel-to-reel tape, lights and slide projectors, which I was working by myself. It was primitive.”
By the time he’d completed hundreds of performances, he notes, he became impressed with how much information was being conveyed through the visual media and formed The Media Shop in 1977.
Although he’s no longer on stage, he occasionally appears in his own films. Still, he’s quick to point out that his days under the lights were not for naught. He learned one thing, in particular, very well: professionalism. “Being at Wichita State and studying under people like Dick Welsbacher taught us what professionalism is,” he says. “We became professionals doing theater at WSU.”
