Sunday, January 29, 2017

Worth a Look

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

Love or Money: How About Both?

AMERICAN THEATRE: Art has always been done more for love than money. Actor Hilary Swank revealed in an October 2016 interview with Chelsea Handler that she was paid no more than $3,000 for her Oscar-winning role in Boys Don’t Cry. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) minimum to receive health insurance then was $5,000, which meant she had an Academy Award but no health insurance.

Who Killed Teatro ZinZanni?

Theater - The Stranger: Teatro ZinZanni is a very successful operation. The quirky combo of modern cirque, cabaret, and five-course dinner service has been in Seattle for 18 years. According to their promotional literature, the organization has generated nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in "economic activity" in that time, and draws an annual average of 60,000 patrons. And that's not including the San Francisco branch of ZinZanni, which opened on April Fools' Day, 2000.


56 State Arts Agencies Face the Death of the NEA

Clyde Fitch Report: On Jan. 3, 2017, I sent an individual email to leaders and selected staff of all US state arts agencies — 56 in total, counting 50 states and six territories. Their contact information is easy to find via the website of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), which provides an interactive map as well as links to websites, social media and superb data, research and analysis. The subject of the email was straightforward. We’re in new and frightening political waters.

An Interview with Madeleine George

THE INTERVAL: Here are some things that I learned about playwright Madeleine George within the first ten minutes of being in her apartment: she likes puns, she is of the “why tell a joke once when you can tell it twice” school of thought, she knows a good Nazi reference and isn’t afraid to use it, she and partner Lisa Kron have to move because they have more books than wall space, she has a painting of an egg that she bought in Moscow, she has been to Moscow, and she has a highly neurotic dog (the mental state of the dog could not be independently confirmed as he was currently in Michigan).

No more nerds, sex bombs: Female animators draw away clichés

New Pittsburgh Courier: The California Institute of the Arts was created partly by Walt Disney’s desire to bring more top-flight animators into the profession. And it has during its 47 years, though for a long time almost all were men.

Now, nearly three-quarters of CalArts’ more than 250 animation students are women, and there’s a new goal: ensure that when they land jobs, they get to draw female characters reflective of the real world and not just the nerds, sex bombs, tomboys or ugly villains who proliferate now.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Worth a Look

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

Dramaturgy of the Duels in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s "Hamilton"

The Theatre Times: Two men face off in Weehawken, NJ just before dawn. They hold muzzle-loaded flintlock pistols, primitive firearms by today’s standard. The moment determining life or death will be that instant that triggers are pulled. Once that mechanism is engaged, flint will strike steel, creating a spark that then ignites powder, which in turn propels a lead ball towards their opponent. This lethal action provides some sense of justice over an insult and satisfies the honor of both combatants.

Two trans actors from Mosaic's Charm tell their Truth

DC Theatre Scene: Mosaic Theatre’s current production, Charm by Phillip Dawkins, is inspired by the true story of Chicago trans icon Miss Gloria Allen, who teaches etiquette classes to youth at the Center on Halsted, an LGBT community center on Chicago’s northside.

The production already garnered a great deal of press when they announced a change in casting close to the start of rehearsals – swapping out cisgender KenYatta Rogers for the trans actress B’Ellana Duquesne in the role of Mama based on Gloria Allen. The move was made after a great deal of conversation between the artists and feedback from the transgender community, arguing that a trans role should be filled with a transgender actor.

Why Unrest is Gold for Creatives

99U: In an era of upheaval and crisis, creative expression takes on new urgency. Writer Mike Sager calls upon his own formative teenage experience in 1969 that led him to begin using his stories to question authority. For those creatives feeling discontent in these fractious times, it’s a reminder that the simmering feeling of anger can be best used to issue a call to action and serve as a tool for change.

Dr. Charlotte Canning on Internationalism and US Theatre

HowlRound: We tend to think of the middle of the twentieth century as a litany of horrors, from the trenches of the First World War and the atrocities of the Second to the fear of nuclear annihilation that came with the early decades of the Cold War. However, as Dr. Charlotte Canning of the University of Texas at Austin chronicles in her new book, On the Performance Front: US Theatre and Internationalism, there were also plenty of theatre artists during this time who believed that they could bring about a better future by sharing their work with the world.

Ringling Bros. And Barnum & Bailey Circus To End 'The Greatest Show On Earth'

The Two-Way : NPR: After its nearly century and a half run, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus plans to shut down "The Greatest Show On Earth."

The historic American spectacle will deliver its final show in May, says Kenneth Feld, the chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment, the producer of Ringling.

Feld announced the news on the company website Saturday night, citing declining ticket sales — which dipped even lower as the company retired its touring elephants.