Here are some posts from the last week of the Greenpage that might be worth a look:
Parsons launches new MFA program in Transdisciplinary Design
Core77: "Parsons The New School for Design announced a new MFA in Transdisciplinary Design set to launch in Fall 2010. The program is based in the School of Design Strategies at Parsons, which encompasses innovative programs that apply design thinking to study the intersection of cities, services and ecosystems."Fugard directs at his own South African theatre
Berkeley Rep Blog: "Athol Fugard is in the midst of a creative burst. The legendary 77-year-old playwright, director, and actor has written several new plays, including Coming Home (continuing through February 28 on the Thrust Stage) and Have You Seen Us?, which had its world premiere at the Long Wharf Theatre."Arts Funding
KUOW.org: "Most nonprofit arts groups get their money from season ticket subscriptions, donations or grants. But that money has been harder to come by in the past couple of years. There's more competition for entertainment dollars, and charitable giving took a nosedive after the recession. One Seattle theater company has come up with a strategy it hopes will attract new audiences, and keep them coming back for more."Q & A with Hilary Robinson
POP City: "Dr. Hilary Robinson is the Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon. A creative force in the community in the short time she has been here (2005), she serves on the boards of The Andy Warhol Museum, The Mattress Factory, Quantum Theatre, Silver Eye and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, she was head of the School of Art and Design at the University of Ulster in Belfast."Response to Isaac re: CRADLE
Theatre Ideas: In response to my post yesterday, Isaac stepped forward (with some trepidation, I got the feeling) and asked a couple good questions. Rather then bury my response, I thought it deserved a full post. Here is what Isaac wrote:"One thing that happens in urban environments (beyond their sucking up all the arts subsidy money) is that minorities and underprivileged people of various kinds tend to cluster in them, whether they be gay, people of color or poor. I honestly believe this is one of the reasons (not the only, i agree that urbanist prejudice probably plays a part, along with our willing denial of class dynamics) why funders wanting to encourage diversity in the arts target cities... you can get a lot of bang for your buck in them."Social Media Strategy Presentation
24 Usable Hours: "I updated the social media strategy presentation for my Artistic Director/Managing Director/senior staff, incorporating more of the research findings, and corrected a few formatting issues. The meeting date’s been set: Jan 25! Of course, the marketing office has already been moving forward: finally launched the Yale Rep Facebook page."
Here are a few posts from the last week of the Greenpage that might be worth your time:
A New Great White Way: Times Square Pedestrian Mall Will Become Permanent
Playbill.com: "The temporary pedestrian mall created in Times Square in summer 2009 is a Broadway hit, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has green-lighted construction of a permanent plaza."Productions Honored
Carnegie Mellon University: "Two Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama productions have recently been recognized by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: 'The Oresteia Project,' (2007) has been named one of the Best Plays of the Decade, and School of Drama professors Michael Chemers, Don Wadsworth and Matthew Gray have been named Best Supporting Actors of 2009 by the Post-Gazette for their roles in 'The London Cuckolds, ' (2009)."Working in the Theatre - The Play That Changed My Life - December, 2009
American Theatre Wing: "What was The Play That Changed Your Life? Not only the title of a new American Theatre Wing book, which posed that question to 19 of America's most distinguished playwrights, but the start of a discussion by two of those playwrights, Tina Howe and Diana Son. They also talk about which of their own plays changed their lives; what role theatre played while growing up; if there were teachers who inspired them to get involved in theatre writing; what drew them to playwriting; how much of themselves are in their characters; and their role as mentors for young writers."Shouting it from the grassroots rooftops: Wolf Trap Opera and the digital season launch
Technology in the Arts: "For arts organizations, February brings with it the final throes of determining next year’s season. Some have renewals out already; others are still mired in scuffles with artistic, production or finance offices over which productions and dates will make next season the best it can be. Regardless of where you are in the process, if you are in marketing or PR, your thoughts have probably turned to how you will get the word out about the new season. You may have perfected publicizing your season through renewal mailings and paper season brochures, but how do you “shout your season from the rooftops” online?"Magicians Speculate on Profession's Gender Imbalance
Smart Journalism. Real Solutions.| Miller-McCune Online Magazine: "In the early 1900s, Adelaide Herrmann was one of the most famous magicians of her day. She inherited her husband Alexander’s magic show upon his death in 1896 and performed internationally for 30 years."Opinionist: You're Welcome.
Gothamist: "Of all the performing arts, theater has a tendency to be the most unbearable. You can easily walk out of most concerts, and with dance there's usually at least a certain technical proficiency to be admired. But particularly in small Off Broadway theaters—where, ironically, the potential for magnificence is greatest—it's almost impossible to escape without causing a major disruption. When theater stinks, which is often, you've usually got no choice but to suffer through it without anesthetic, as time slows to a crawl and your captors torment you with boredom."Playwrights collective scores big grant
Variety: "Playwrights collective 13P, founded in 2003 to produce one play by each of its 13 members, has scored a hefty grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to stage its final four shows."
Write something dammit... It's fairly disheartening to hear about elevations in hostility in Afghanistan after all this time... My dad didn't notice the earthquake... Really, I thought we were done with Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, do we have to be booking them on TV? I could do with less... We did Six Penn for Valentines dinner. It was ok, but I'd hoped for better... It's cool they loaded in an observation room with a panoramic window at the space station. From that far away I would have though any window would be panoramic... They are predicting snow again, I wonder if CMU sold all their Pittsburgh property if there would be enough money to relocate to Las Vegas and turn a small profit... If I never set up Google Buzz do I have to have privacy concerns? I'm not sure I even know what it is... Is there any possible way this Bill Hendrickson election can come out well? I think not... Kevin Smith shows what a celebrity with a Twitter feed can do. Too bad for everyone else... I shoveled down to the sidewalk today. Probably do it again tomorrow... Now it seems like there's more H1N1 vaccine than they know what to do with... The end of the NBA All Star game was pretty cool. Not sure about basketball in football stadiums though... Lots of stories this week about health care premiums going up. Has me wondering when we will be hearing from our HR people... There were four scheduled interviews today but it turned out to be one. Those kind of days really are less than... Each time I think I've blocked the last Facebook game from my News Feed another one pops up. They're like feed weeds... It would be nice if more of the Olympic broadcast showed actual competition - less studio commentary please... As a general rule, I think if you call someone after midnight and they don't pick up, you ought to leave a message; even if its just "nevermind"... People at trivia the other night either really liked the Beastie Boys or forgot about just about every other band that ever released a record... I've been talking up tomorrow as "Unfriending/Unfollowing Day" I wonder if I'll do it? That is, if I find time... There is a four foot icicle on the end of our gutter in back - on what is supposed to be the high end. I wonder if it is pitched wrong? At this point I guess I should be happy if it doesn't bring the roof down... I saw a woman yesterday digging her car out with an ice scraper. Kenny beat it though, he saw someone digging out bare handed... NFL Full Contact had a pretty cool documentary of the NFL Kickoff concert here in Pittsburgh last fall - a huge live event and I knew nobody working... The automation gear is in the first show and working. Pretty fancy if you ask me...
This installment of Random Photos begins with a picture of my friend Peg. She's very photogenic, don't you think?
For our next show we are building a staircase that runs from the stage off into the wings and up to the midrail. I was trying to get something that showed what the actors would be looking at when they were at the top about to enter.
Really the picture is not the same as standing there looking down. It's WAY up there.
Here's an install photo from our current show. The tagline should be something about a level.
In class last week we made cove moulding by running the stock askew to the blade on the table saw.
It turns out that this was even for me something I had only heard about, so I thought it would be fun to do. A good time was had by all.
Another shot of the leaning scenery of the Chosky. The important bit here is the inaugural deployment of our new FTSI automation gear.
More photos and video to follow.
This was my truck Friday night after work:
If you've been watching the news you know its pretty much been downhill from there. But apparently we're back to work tomorrow.
Here are some posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time:
The Windy City is blowing Toronto away
The Globe and Mail: "The Windy City is having another season to make other theatre cities envious.
By the time the Tony Awards roll around in June, a record number of Chicago productions and plays will have gusted over to New York."'War of the Worlds' plans U.S. invasion
Variety: "The aliens are COMING! THE aliens are coming!
For the past few years, the U.K., Europe, Australia and New Zealand have been visited by an arena tour of a musical version of 'The War of the Worlds,' toplined by an 11-foot tall hologram of Richard Burton."Know Before You Go: Tickets May Come at a Higher Price Than You Realize
Electronic Frontier Foundation: "As part of our Terms of Ab(use) project, we pay close attention to the fine print of online agreements for provisions that are potentially dangerous to consumers. We've noticed a troubling change in the way event planners restrict the rights of individuals who attend their shows. Where once these limitations had to fit on the back of a ticket, increasingly event organizers have moved their fine print online, where they are able to use even more contract law to avoid the limits of trademark and copyright law and actively control what ticket holders can say or do even after the event is over."Start Spreadin' the News
Carnegie Mellon University: "They want to be a part of it — New York, New York — and they are. In fact, alumni from the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon perform on stage in major opera companies, musical theater productions and with world-class ensembles around the globe."The Value of Design
BusinessWeek: "Back in December, I published a somewhat bad-tempered blog post. Titled 'Come on Designers. Step Up', the piece was prompted by an article in The Times of London, in which designers and the design industry were hauled over the coals for, essentially, being a waste of taxpayers' money. In this instance, designers had created a new logo for the British National Health Service that nondesigners quoted in the piece (including British MP Greg Hands) deemed both unnecessary and expensive."Design the Art Works Logo
Art Works: "How would you represent the phrase “art works” in a single image?
“Art works” is Rocco’s guiding principle for his work at the NEA. The phrase has three meanings: “art works” are the plays, paintings, dances, films and the other works of art that are the creation of artists"ESTA Behind the Scenes Holiday Card Student Design Contest
iSquint.net: "Behind The Scenes, an initiative of The ESTA Foundation, announces its first-ever holiday card student design contest, open to any lighting, set, video or costume full-time design student interested in creating an original design for a 2010 card."
Here are a couple of posts from over on the Greenpage that might be worth your time:
What is This 1950? Women Are Missing as TV Creators
Women & Hollywood: "It’s pilot time in Hollywood. The time of the year when all the networks look at the submitted scripts and decide which ones to take to pilot. Then after they see the pilots, the networks then decide which shows to put on the air next season. It is a cut throat and difficult process."George Picks Up the Black Ball...
An Angry White Guy in Chicago: "Sunday was the day that the DCA Theater folks arranged to have The (edward) Hopper Project be ADA Compliant for one show. Specifically, they hired two sign language interpreters to sit onstage and translate the show for anyone deaf and a guy who describes the show via individual headset units for the blind."A Sound/Show Control Guy's Take On the grandMA2
- John's Blog Main Page - : "After years of work by my CityTech colleagues Charles Scott and John Robinson, we recently got a brand new MA Lighting grandMA2 system at the school. We got two main consoles: a GrandMA2 Full Size, and a GrandMA2 Light; a VPU Video Processing Unit; and network DMX processors. I was lucky enough to sit in on the excellent training session, done by Jason Baeri of A.C.T. Lighting, and I'm going to give you a little perspective on the console from a sound/show control guy's perspective."CMU grad's film to screen at Sundance
Post Gazette: "'Armless,' a feature film directed by Carnegie Mellon University graduate Habib Azar and starring Pittsburgh native Daniel London, will play at the Sundance Film Festival."ENORMOUS DOLL HEADS that you can WEAR! With fluttery eyelids!! Cool!
Craftster: "I almost forgot to explain that we made these for a hair show. The hair/wigs was done by a hairdresser. We made the heads. The wigs are AMAZING. There were 6 heads made in total, each had it's own style."Joe Walsh (famous guitarist) teaches Joe Walsh (Republican candidate) about copyright law
The Hollywood Reporter | Esq. | Entertainment and Media Law: "Another musician is claiming that a political candidate is tone deaf to the nation's intellectual property laws. And this one has an amusing twist."Toronto's Romeo and Juliet is just too racy for Nashville
thestar.com: "When Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet 'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,' he must have had the city of Nashville in mind."What were Macbeth and his wife Gruoch really like?
Scotsman.com Living: "Scottish historian, writer and broadcaster Fiona Watson sighs wearily as we discuss the Macbeths' dark, demonic reputation. Thanks to William Shakespeare, she acknowledges, there are few places in the world where the name Macbeth is unknown, and few societies untouched at some point in their histories by the kind of reign of terror over which he supposedly presided."
