Sunday, March 26, 2017

Worth a Look

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.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Worth a Look

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

Yes, women are still getting screwed in Chicago theaters

On Culture | Chicago Reader: Gender Breakdown, Collaboraction's angry and absorbing ensemble piece about inequity in the theater community, is rooted in something equally dramatic, but a lot drier: a ten-month research project undertaken by Kay Kron, an actor, writer, and, currently, development associate at Chicago Children's Theatre, as the "capstone" project for the DePaul University master's degree in nonprofit management she'll complete this year.

Classical ballet has a diversity problem and its stars know how to fix it

www.usatoday.com: As an African-American soloist with the United Kingdom’s Royal Ballet, Eric Underwood says he is often asked why the ballet world isn’t very diverse.

It’s complicated, Underwood says. Race, income, social hierarchies and other factors often conspire to create a situation that excludes people of color from serious pursuit of dance.

Musical Theater Can Create Political Action, Right?

Clyde Fitch Report: In a moment when Americans are looking for means of resistance in all aspects of political, cultural and daily life, musical theater seems like, well, one of our less effective weapons. Yet the musical is often referred to (perhaps disparagingly) as a populist art form. What, then, are the possibilities for musicals to harness the power of the people? How effective are musicals at, for example, documenting contemporary, real-life stories? Can they stir audiences to take direct action? Can they organize communities? With a team of writers, musicians and composers, I’m developing and directing a new project that I believe will explore the potential of musicals to meet us where we are.

Don't dismiss Universal's new, interdisciplinary take on theme park rides

www.themeparkinsider.com: Universal has developed a lot of screen-based attractions, so it should stop developing new rides that use screens and build nothing but animatronic dark rides, to keep fans happy.

Am I getting this right?

A California Movie Theater is Trying to Appeal to Families With Playgrounds

Movie News | Movies.com: Imagine you go to see Disney's new live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast and while the show is playing there are kids running around and climbing on a jungle gym and going down large slides all around you. That's what could be the experience at some "Cinepolis Junior" theaters in California trying to appeal more to children, and with them whole families.

Sunday, March 05, 2017

Worth a Look

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

PURF research reveals theater concussions

OHIO: Compass: There’s no tackling or helmet-to-helmet hits in theater, but actors and stagehands are just as susceptible to head injuries as those on the field.

Assistant Professor of Athletic Training Jeff Russell and Brooke Kapple, BSAT ’16, noticed a growing trend in head injuries while working in the Science and Health in Artistic Performance Clinic (SHAPe Clinic). Students working in theater, including set builders, soundboard technicians, actors and stagehands, frequently visited the clinic complaining of concussion symptoms.

Collaboraction’s ‘Gender Breakdown’ tackles the tearful truth of discrimination through laughter

www.chicagolandmusicaltheatre.com: For any woman who’s been told she’s not pretty enough, not thin enough, not white enough, not feminine enough, not “enough” to succeed in theatre…and for any man who has stood by and watched this happen, this show is for you.

The Mill’s incredible Blackbird at GDC : The future of Virtual Production

fxguide: Filming cars was never going to be same again, after The Mill introduced the Blackbird. Their car invention was truly an incredible cutting edge production tool. It addressed a fundamental problem: automotive car availability on location. But when filming with the Blackbird, the problem was trying to make decisions creatively without the actual target car visible on set...

Two High School Shows That Couldn’t Be Saved

Arts Integrity Initiative: When incidences of high school theatre censorship arise, the point at which they occur, and when that breaks out beyond school walls, can be central to efforts to reverse the decision. At other times, one finds webpages like the one above, from Danville Area High School in Pennsylvania in late January.

The recent debate in Cherry Hill NJ over Ragtime is an excellent case in point. The decision by the school administration to alter all “offensive” language in the play, without permission from the licensing house or the authors, arose while the show was in rehearsals, six weeks before performances were to begin.

Billions Season 2 Taylor Gender Nonconforming Character

www.refinery29.com: The mere fact that the writers of a popular prestige drama with an A-list cast (that also includes Paul Giammatti and Malin Akerman) created a non-binary character is in itself groundbreaking. The fact that a gender-nonconforming actor who hadn’t affixed that label to themselves yet ended up playing that role? Dillon calls it coincidence; I call it one of the most incredible cases of synchronous casting in Hollywood history.