Luna Oxenberg
Co-FOUNDER
Life is a funny thing and while sometimes the most carefully built plans come to nothing, a simple twist of fate can open up exciting new doors. After finishing school at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where she studied chemistry, botany, environmental science, anthropology, and spent a semester studying medicinal plants in the Himalayas, Luna moved to Berkeley in 1997 with a desire to make the world a better place through graduate school or a job in the field of environmental science. Then one day a friend got sick and offered her the opportunity to usher at the Warfield Theater. It was just a one time volunteer opportunity, work a bit, see a show, have a beer. However, this twist of fate changed everything. Luna fell in love with working at the theater and over the next few years worked her way up through almost all the jobs the venue had to offer and then into roles with other event companies. Since then, Luna has worked worked on almost every aspect of live events. She has sold tickets, illustrated flyers, created beautiful dressing rooms, cleaned toilets, been security, drawn maps, built crews, run crews, applied for permits, planned, planned and planned - and stayed up way too late. In 2005, after planning their wedding - a huge production, Luna and Matt started Taylor Street Production, so that they could fully realize their passion for live events.
Born in Venezuela, Luna had lived in two countries and four states by the time she was 10. Her family settled in Indiana when she was 9. It was hard adjustment coming from New Jersey, just outside New York City, to the small college town of Bloomington. Being dark skinned didn’t help. Even in the relatively progressive college town, Luna experienced bullying and harassment and a general unwelcoming mindset of many people. However, there were happy times with her horse and summers spent at fairgrounds competing in horseshows. Because of this time, Luna still feels very connected to the challenges of life in the midwest.
Today, Luna lives in Berkeley, Ca with her four cats, three dogs, two kids, and her kind and patient husband. She likes to listen to Science Friday while cleaning the house, walk her dogs, plan events, and cook.
Matt Lawsky
Co-FOUNDER
Matt Lawsky offers a unique blend of the abstract and practical. He holds a BA in analytic philosophy from Reed College and studied there and at Columbia University. The academic life never tempted him – he wanted more real things at stake. But symbolic logic was always very concrete and visual to him, and it would turn out that the part of the brain that visualizes long chains of symbolic logic can also visualize in the same way any complex system with individual components whose relations are governed by arbitrary rules – it can be logical propositions, or it can be shuffling sound and lighting equipment cases around to optimize flow on and offstage. It all kind of looks the same inside the head. As long as you can stay calm under pressure in real-time situations with people yelling at you, then if you can do analytic philosophy, you can do event production.
After college graduation in 1998, Matt moved to the Bay Area, took various jobs, and soon ended up as a truck loader at the Warfield Theater. There, he learned every aspect of concert production hands-on as he progressed to stagehand, then crew chief, then stage manager, then production manager. Meanwhile, he interspersed this and other local concert work for Bill Graham Presents with work on the road for touring bands, again serving at least a tour or two in every job onstage – lighting designer (for Aimee Mann and the Finn Brothers), audio tech (Primus and Phil Lesh), production manager - even, for a brief stint, long-haul truck driver.
At the end of the day, when you’re putting on a rock show by a touring band, regardless of what role you’re in, or what side you’re working for, the challenges all become variations on each other. By 2005, Matt was looking for ways to continue growing in the industry and to find new challenges. The way forward was starting Taylor Street Production LLC, together with his partner Luna, who had been serving her own hands-on apprenticeship in concert production. Through TSP, Matt and Luna have found no lack of challenges to discover and overcome. Since 2005, they’ve worked coast-to-coast to build their skills at producing every aspect of public assemblage - how to manage physical and human resources to keep tens of thousands of people safe and happy. Matt’s learned how to carve up a million-dollar budget a dozen different ways while always making it balance; he’s developed the best damn way to fit the most portopots in a tight space while keeping an open feel; he’s got an eye for just how many trucks you can squeeze next to each other; he’s learned how to defuse tense situations, whether they’re with clients in crisis or with confused patrons. He’s learned that every event takes place at the intersection of vision, budget, and what’s logistically possible.
The final piece of Matt’s puzzle – besides the analytic skills, and the hands-on production experience – is values. Matt attended a Quaker summer camp and Quaker school for years, and the value he took from that is that everyone is a human being, the same as everyone else. Whether it’s a headlining artist; a patron in distress; or a street person who wanders into the middle of a loadout; everyone he encounters gets the same treatment – gets engaged with as a human who’s worthy of respect, and who can bear responsibility for his or her choices. That approach is what’s enabled Matt to engage successfully at every level, in every job, with everyone he’s met. And it’s those values of compassion and of human engagement that he hopes to promote through Cattywampus.
