Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...
Think of the Children Before Scrapping the NEA, Says Mike Huckabee
Hit & Run : Reason.com: The $148 million allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts is fiscally trivial in the context of a $4 trillion federal budget. By the same token, however, the NEA is culturally trivial, a point that Mike Huckabee inadvertently makes in a Washington Post op-ed piece urging Congress to preserve the program.
It’s A Time For Disobedience: MIT Media Lab Will Pay $250,000 To Support It
Fast Company: “You don’t change the world by doing what you’re told.” So says Joi Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab, on the nomination form for a new type of award: a prize for disobedience.
The award–a $250,000, no-strings-attached cash prize, funded by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman–will go to a person or group responsible for an “extraordinary” example of disobedience for the good of society. While that might take the form of traditional civil disobedience, Ito defines disobedience broadly.
Cheerleading company can get copyrights, pursue competitors, Supreme Court says
Ars Technica: The Supreme Court issued a 5-2 opinion (PDF) today allowing cheerleading uniforms to be copyrighted. The case, Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands, is expected to have broad effect in the fashion world and beyond. A group of 3D printing companies had also asked the high court to take up the case, asking for clarity on how to separate creative designs, which are copyrightable, from utilitarian objects that are not.
The Company That Launched Broadway’s Great Comet Reveals the Key to Finding Groundbreaking Art
Playbill: Ars Nova has earned a reputation for developing groundbreaking new work that defies the boundaries of traditional theatre—think Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which the company debuted Off-Broadway four years before it hit Broadway’s Imperial Theatre this past fall.
Since its founding in 2002, the organization has continued to showcase emerging artists with fresh voices and produce innovative new theatre. Last week, Ars Nova paired with WP Theater to present Rachel Bonds’ new play with music, Sundown, Yellow Moon, which opened Off-Broadway to critical acclaim.
What Theatre Artists and Administrators Should Know About Sexual Harassment
HowlRound: Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (beneath the root of a tree, at the bottom of the ocean), you know that sexual harassment in the workplace has been a topic in the news lately. What performers and other theatre professionals may tend to forget is that while they are artists, they are also “acting” as employees, be it of a theatre company or an individual producer. And, as employees, they have certain rights under federal, state, and sometimes city employment laws.
And a bonus article this week:
Tests Show CMU Water Supplies Are Safe
www.cmu.edu/news: Following extensive testing, Carnegie Mellon University has determined that drinking water supplies throughout its campus facilities are safe and free of elevated lead levels.
