Sunday, June 25, 2017

Worth a Look

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

New CAA study says diverse casting increases box office potential across all budgets

LA Times: There’s been little debate over the moral arguments behind increasing diversity on- and off-screen in Hollywood, but the economic arguments haven’t always been so clear.

While women, people of color, LGBTQ folk and other historically marginalized communities in Hollywood continue to insist “diversity pays,” the box office success of films with diverse casts such as “Hidden Figures” ($230.1 million worldwide) and “Get Out” ($251.2 million worldwide) is inevitably deemed a “surprise.”

Theaters that perform Shakespeare are getting death threats

The Boston Globe: The messages started pouring in earlier this week.

“Your play depicting the murder of our President is nothing but pure hatred,” read one of the tamer ones.

“[H]ope you all who did this play about Trump are the first do [sic] die when ISIS COMES TO YOU [expletive] sumbags [sic],” read another.

The senders were outraged over the Public Theater’s controversial staging of “Julius Caesar,” a production in New York’s Central Park that has become a national flashpoint for its depiction of the stabbing assassination of its Trump-like title character.

Should There Be All-White Productions of "Hairspray"?

OnStage Blog: Imagine that Hairspray is being produced in a local theatre near you. And after the auditions were completed, you notice that the show has an all-white cast. How would you react? Would you be angered? Insulted? Confused?

While it might be questionable that Hairspray would be cast this way, it's something that happens fairly regularly and the reason is that in large part, it's actually endorsed by the creators of the show.

Home Depot, Menards Customers Cry False Advertising When They Learn “4x4s” Aren’t Actually 4×4

Consumerist: Talk to any contractor or carpenter — or most people who are reasonably familiar with home construction and repair — and they’ll tell you that a “4×4” piece of lumber is not actually four inches by four inches, and that it hasn’t been that way in any of our lifetimes. Yet some Home Depot and Menards customers are — literally — making a federal case out of this discrepancy, accusing the retailers of false advertising.

In its defense of a theater critic, the Tribune sidesteps the real issues

Chicago Tribune: I am disappointed by your misleading, glib editorial on the Chicago theater community's response to Hedy Weiss' pattern of, at best, racially tone-deaf criticism.

You cite the length of Weiss' tenure at the Sun-Times and describe the critic-artist relationship in lieu of offering a substantive defense of the specific critique of racial animus that the community has raised.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Worth a Look

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

‘Bachelor In Paradise’: Lisa Bloom On Sexual Consent, Lawsuits

Variety: Prominent attorney Lisa Bloom is calling on TV-dating shows to change the rules of consent for casts engaging in sexual behavior on camera in the wake of the “Bachelor in Paradise” controversy. “I think it would be very helpful on these shows to have a course of conduct like a lot of these colleges have, which is there has to be an explicit verbal ‘yes’ to each sexual act,” said Bloom, who is currently working with other stars in the midst of high-profile cases, including Kathy Griffin.

Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones Responds to Online Petition Against Critic Hedy Weiss

www.broadwayworld.com: The reviews are in and some in the theater community are non-too-pleased with Chicago Sun-Times theater and dance critic Hedy Weiss.
A petition urging Chicago theater companies to stop inviting Weiss to productions was posted on Change.org on June 13th by the Chicago Theater Accountability Coalition. As of this writing, the petition has received more than 2,000 signatures.
In the petition, the group specifically charges Weiss with having consistently made inflammatory remarks in her reviews.
"[She] has proven that she is not willing to work with us to create a positive environment," the petition states. "She has proven this repeatedly
Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones responded to BroadwayWorld's request for comment on the story.

Scholars See Bad Omens in Pulled Sponsorship of ‘Julius Caesar’

The Chronicle of Higher Education: This year’s free Public Theater performance sets Shakespeare’s drama in modern dress, and presents Julius Caesar as a figure resembling President Trump ­— complete with blond hair, blue suit, and gold bathtub, according to a review in The New York Times.
While the production faces conservative and corporate backlash for depicting the assassination of a Trumplike title character, scholars critical of the backlash said it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the play. But more important they said, it portends ill for public faith in the arts during the Trump era.

10 major milestones for women directors in Hollywood

www.usatoday.com: For all the progress Hollywood depicts in its films, behind the scenes, gender and racial equality has barely inched forward in the last several decades. In fact, just 7% of 2016's top-grossing films were directed by women, a two percentage point drop from 2015, according to research by the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film at San Diego State University.

Equity & LORT Reach a New Five-Year Agreement

Stage Directions: Actors’ Equity Association announced that it has reached a tentative agreement for a historic new five-year contract with the League of Resident Theaters (LORT) for actors and stage managers. Key provisions of the agreement include substantial salary increases ranging from 16 percent to 81.7 percent over the life of the contract. Upon ratification, members will also receive raises retroactive to Feb. 13, 2017, when the original LORT agreement expired.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Worth a Look

Just because the students are off shouldn't mean I have to stop these posts.  Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Why is the Seat Moving?: Seeing “Wonder Woman” in 4DX

Balder and Dash | Roger Ebert: On a Tuesday night in June, I drove an hour north of my home in the Chicago suburbs to the only 4DX theater in the Midwest, and one of only nine in the entire country, to experience the latest adventure in heightening the moviegoing experience. My son came with me to see his first superhero movie in the theater, Patty Jenkins’ already-beloved “Wonder Woman.” Posters outside the theater advertise the 4DX experience not unlike the nearby Six Flags Great America advertises a new roller coaster with an excited patron holding on to his armrests for dear life as he doesn’t just watch the movie, he becomes an active participant in the experience.

Lynn Nottage Is 50 Percent of All the Female Playwrights on Broadway Right Now, "And In 2017, That's an Abomination"

www.elle.com: The New Yorker deemed it "the first theatrical landmark of the Trump era," but Lynn Nottage takes care to explain that she wrote (and set) Sweat, the show that is now on Broadway and won her a second Pulitzer Prize several months ago, before Donald Trump was elected.

Charges Finally Brought in Oakland Ghost Ship Fire Investigation: Two Men Face 39 Years in Jail

Flavorwire: Six months after the ghastly fire at Oakland DIY venue/living space Ghost Ship, charges have been brought against those in charge of the building. As per a report in the New York Times, both the building’s “master tenant,” David Almena, and Max Harris, who “assisted [Almena] in a supervisory role in the building,” have been charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

NYC's 'Freelance Isn't Free' Act Goes Into Effect Today

Gothamist: The country's first freelancer protections against nonpayment go into effect in New York City today, so now's a good time to brush up on a law intended to help a full third of the city's workforce get paid on time.

To recap, the law mandates that freelancers be paid in full for work worth $800 or more, either by a date set forward in writing or within 30 days of completing an assigned task. The Freelance Isn't Free Act also aims to protect freelancers from employer retaliation, and can increase monetary consequences for employers who refuse to pay.

Video gaming’s voice actor strike is ending in slow, small drips

Ars Technica: The video game voice actors in the SAG-AFTRA union have been holding a solid line since they started striking last October, demanding limitations to vocally stressful work sessions and bonus payments for work on top-selling games. But as the strike extends into its eighth month, plenty of games are still getting made with unionized vocal talent. That's because even as the strike as a whole continues, the union has been able to peel off a growing number of developers and publishers willing to agree to new contracts that meet their demands.