Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Injuries Put Safety in Spotlight at Cirque du Soleil

WSJ: Sarah Guillot-Guyard lay dying on the floor of a basement inside a darkened Cirque du Soleil theater here, one leg broken and blood pooling under her head.

It was June 2013, and the 31-year-old mother of two had fallen 94 feet in front of hundreds of horrified spectators after the wire attached to her safety harness shredded while she performed in the dramatic aerial climax of the company’s most technically challenging production, “Kà.”

It was the first fatality during a Cirque show, and it capped an increase in injuries at Cirque with the “Kà” production. The show had one of the highest rates of serious injuries of any workplace in the country, according to safety records kept by Cirque that were compared with federal records by The Wall Street Journal.

Posted by David at 4/24/2015 12:27:00 PM  

AEA Changes the Game for L.A. Theatre

AMERICAN THEATRE: This might look like the end, but it’s likely only the beginning. From its offices in New York City, Actors’ Equity Association yesterday announced the decision of its national council to effectively dismantle the current Equity 99-Seat Plan—a unique L.A. code, in place since 1988, by which union members can volunteer in small theatres for small stipends—and offer in its place what they called “a broad range of options.”

Posted by David at 4/23/2015 02:01:00 PM

The New Face of Study Abroad

Daily Infographic: Apart from the personal development and the bettering of your language skills, international experience is a great way to market yourself to future employers. Studying abroad is an incredible opportunity presented to high school and college students with numerous rewarding benefits.

Unfortunately, a small percentage of American students actually take advantage of this.

Posted by David at 4/24/2015 12:26:00 PM  

Making creative staging safer with the new CDM regulations

Event Industry News: A new way of thinking

Take away the 100-foot screens, blasting lasers, holographic projections and elaborate sets and what do you have left? Thousands of people with nothing much to do but look at a solitary figure standing on a platform.

Creative staging can be almost as crucial as the music or show itself – transforming concerts and festivals into an unforgettable, transcendent, multi-sensory experience.

Posted by David at 4/21/2015 02:55:00 PM

Dearth of Tutu-Makers Puts Ballet in Crisis

www.newsweek.com: The show can’t possibly go on. Or, at least, no ballet company should be expected to woo paying audiences without its principal dancers twirling and whirling in hand-stitched tutus.

And there’s the problem. There just aren’t enough tutus to go around.

“Fashion colleges don’t teach students how to sew; they just teach them to be designers,” says Opera Philadelphia’s costume director Millie Hiibel. “I get applicants who don’t even know how to sew on a button.”

Posted by David at 4/20/2015 04:36:00 PM

Worth a Look

Here are a few storyies from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

How To Maybe Be a Generative Artist

HowlRound: I’m a generative artist. I think I even know what it means. I’m an actor, a writer, a musician. I take photos. I write essays, interview people, work a bit in journalism. And I use any combination of those skills to make new, personal work.

I’ve written and performed works that are autobiographical (The Skype Show), and created installations that combine art and activism (The Female Playwright Project). Because You Are Good, the current piece I’m devising for the East Side Stories Festival, has been different; I am working in a biographical way with another person’s story. Someone I respect, with an important history, legacy, and future.

Posted by David at 4/16/2015 05:04:00 PM  

AEA 99 Seat Referendum Results go 66% Against and 34% In Favor: Big Win for Los Angeles Pro99 Movement

LA Bitter Lemons: The ballots for the 99-Seat Proposal Advisory Referendum have been tabulated. We have already shared the results with the National Council and we will be posting the results on the member portal shortly.

Posted by David at 4/18/2015 06:42:00 PM

The Arts Connect People and Perspectives by Building Welcoming Communities

The White House: As Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), I work with a dedicated and passionate group of people and organizations to support and fund the arts in communities across America. I believe what we do is so important, not just to celebrate and affirm the arts as a national priority critical to America's well-being and future; the power of the arts can be transformative and I've experienced firsthand how this works. My story is especially relevant today as the White House Task Force on New Americans has released its report to the President on recommended actions the federal government can take to build integrated and welcoming communities across the nation.

I was born into multiple cultures, often with seemingly opposing perspectives. Had I not been engaged with the arts, I don’t know if I would have been able to make sense of my own life.

Posted by David at 4/16/2015 05:07:00 PM

Pay Gap in Publishing, Film, TV, Journalism and Art

Flavorwire: Today is Equal Pay Day, and you don’t have to approve of Patricia Arquette’s poorly considered Oscar-night comments to get behind her push for gender pay equity, which is far from a realized goal in America. The pay gap directly or indirectly affects most workers and their families: women in the US working full-time make only 78 cents for every dollar a man makes, while it gets worse when compounded with racial inequality: a Latina woman earns only 56 cents to that dollar.

Posted by David at 4/15/2015 06:14:00 PM

The Future Of Museums Is Reaching Way Beyond Their Walls

Co.Exist | ideas + impact: The American Museum of Natural History has always been one of the most popular destinations in New York City. With about 5 million visitors a year, an increase from 3 million in the 1990s, it—along with the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art—is among the top 10 most-visited museums in the world. According to its president, Ellen Futter, the museum (AMNH) is only behind Disney World and Disneyland as the top destination for families in the country.

Posted by David at 4/18/2015 06:44:00 PM

Worth a Look

Here are a few articles from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

When the Gods Choose a Different Play Each Night: Designing for Interactive Theatre

HowlRound: When Liz Fisher and Robert Matney of Whirligig Productions approached me about designing lights for their new and innovative version of the House of Atreus story, I jumped at the chance, knowing that I was taking on a rather large project and having no idea how I was going to tackle its challenges. Deus Ex Machina is an interactive retelling of the Oresteia—interactive in that, at key points in the play, characters go to an oracle to seek guidance, and the audience gets to select the prophecy that pushes the characters into their next course of action.

Posted by David at 4/06/2015 02:31:00 PM

Between Martyrdom and Sacrifice

The Clyde Fitch Report: “How do people get away with that?” was the question hurled at me during a recent over-caffeinated rant about the storefront theatre in Chicago. My response, in the moment, was, “That’s just what theatre people do.”

It’s a sentiment I often hear echoed by my Chicago non-Equity theatre world – by actors, designers, and directors alike: “People who work in the arts … are going to be people who are passionately committed – given that they could earn so much more in another field.” Yes, we are the ones who don’t just accept, but embrace the sacrifice of high expectations and little pay to prove our passion for the cause.

Posted by David at 4/10/2015 12:16:00 PM

From Henry VIII’s Codpiece to Anne Boleyn’s Corset: Inside Wolf Hall’s Period Perfect Costumes

Vanity Fair: Those living in Tudor period England may not have benefited from such modern inventions as photographs and Photoshop but they did, as Wolf Hall costume designer Joanna Eatwell points out, have portraits and eager-to-please painters commissioned to create them. “We manipulate images and I think that happened very much in paintings,” Eatwell told us during a phone call last week about Wolf Hall, the six-part series adapted from Hilary Mantel’s 2009 novel about Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in Henry VIII’s court that premiered on PBS on April 5. “We know that Henry VIII sent [German artist] Holbein to paint Anne of Cleves, who was to be his future wife. And when she arrived he did not recognize her [because of the portrait’s inaccuracy] and the marriage was never consummated.”

Posted by David at 4/11/2015 02:45:00 PM

Rigging Safety Day - #RigSafe

www.yourperformancepartners.com: How will you celebrate Arbor Day on April 24? We’re joining with USITT in celebrating Rigging Safety Day, a day to promote safer stages by posting and tweeting with the hashtag #RigSafe.

Posted by David at 4/08/2015 06:29:00 PM

Behind The Redesign Of The THX Deep Note, The World's Most Iconic Audio Logo

Co.Design | business + design: So famous that it has been sampled by Dre and parodied on The Simpsons, the THX Deep Note is one of the most recognizable pieces of computer-generated music in the world. Although it contains only one note spread across a variety of pitches and modulations, this 30-channel glissando of discordant sounds builds upon itself to go from loud, to louder, to extremely loud and incredibly close. Now, the iconic audio logo is getting its first redesign ever by the same man who gave the world the Deep Note in the first place. And it's even more dramatic than before.

Posted by David at 4/08/2015 06:35:00 PM

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

How the Tax Code Hurts Artists

NYTimes.com: WITH tax day looming, you can practically hear the cries of creative professionals across the country. That’s because the tax code hits many right where it hurts, by penalizing them for the distinctive way they make money.

The biggest offender is still the alternative minimum tax, despite the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which brought long-overdue reform. Two provisions of the A.M.T. hit a disproportionate number of actors, screenwriters and directors: In calculating it, taxpayers can’t deduct employee business expenses, nor can they deduct state, local and property taxes.

Posted by David at 4/04/2015 05:53:00 PM

Women’s Voices To Be Heard at More Than 50 D.C.-Area Theatres

AMERICAN THEATRE: The Women’s Voices Theater Festival has announced preliminary details of the programming for the two-month-long festival, which will unite more than 50 professional theatre companies in the D.C. metro area this coming fall. Each theatre will produce a world-premiere play from a female playwright. Highlights include new plays from Sheila Callaghan, Karin Coonrod, Jen Silverman, Jessica Dikcey, Martyna Majok and Caleen Sinnette Jennings.

Posted by David at 4/01/2015 11:31:00 AM

The Most Successful Theater Kickstarter Ever

Vulture: NBC’s musical series Smash was widely panned and only lasted two seasons, but two years after its final episode, its small but devoted contingent of fans are just as invested in its future. Earlier this month, the Actors Fund announced it would put on a Broadway benefit concert performance of Bombshell, the Marilyn Monroe musical workshopped over the course of Smash’s season that gave stars Megan Hilty and Katharine McPhee space to catfight and belt to the rafters

Posted by David at 4/04/2015 05:51:00 PM

Is small theater in Los Angeles getting the curtain call?

www.dailynews.com: When you hear “Hollywood,” you think movies, right? Or maybe TV.

What nobody thinks is theater. Theater is New York or some other place people moved here to escape.

When folks come west, they leave behind their snow shovels, mittens and “Regards to Broadway.” Yet every week in Los Angeles, thousands flock to world-class venues like the Ahmanson, Mark Taper Forum, Pantages and a handful of others for the live theater experience.

What isn’t so well known is many thousands more find that same joy in the less glamorous parts of town — the seedy stretches of Santa Monica and Melrose, the dark patches of Highland and even the nether regions of Lankershim.

Posted by David at 3/31/2015 03:45:00 PM

Are Theatre Critics Critical? An Update

HowlRound: It wasn't exactly an ambush, but the first question actor Bernardo Cubria posed to me as a guest on his theatre podcast was about a complaint that actors have about critics. I was his sixtieth guest, and his first theatre critic.

Why do so many reviews, he asked, just summarize the plot and not give an opinion? Later he complained that a critic’s opinion in a review upset a friend of his who had spent “three months of her life” dedicated to her show.

Posted by David at 4/02/2015 03:26:00 PM