Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Worth a Look

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

No More Hotel Auditions, Says Union Representing Actors

The Two-Way : NPR: SAG-AFTRA is calling for an end to auditions in private hotel rooms or residences, after a spate of sexual harassment allegations against powerful Hollywood figures. "We are committed to addressing the scenario that has allowed predators to exploit performers behind closed doors under the guise of a professional meeting," the union's president, Gabrielle Carteris, said in a statement.
Posted by at


Actors' Equity votes to change the name of the Gypsy Robe

Broadway News: The Gypsy Robe is changing its name.

After hearing concerns about the insensitivity of the name, the Actors’ Equity Association has voted to rename the robe that is awarded to the chorus member with the highest number of Broadway credits on opening night of a show. The name change will be put in place next season and the more than 60-year-old tradition of the robe will continue.
Posted by at


White Actor Is Voicing A Black Character In ‘Spy Kids’

New Pittsburgh Courier: The computer-animated series Spy Kids: Mission Critical is hits Netflix on Friday. The ten episodes will follow attendees at Spy Kids Academy, which is a top secret school for kid agents. The kids have to save the world against an evil force known as S.W.A.M.P. (Sinister Wrongdoers Against Mankind’s Preservation) and their leader, Golden Brain. The series including one Black male character, known as PSI, but the actor who is voicing the character, Travis Turner, is white .
Posted by at


What Proposed EU 2020 Lighting Regulations Really Mean

Live Events: The UK’s Association of Lighting Designers (ALD), as part of its Save Stage Lighting Campaign that is warning of the devastating effects the proposed EU 2020 Lighting regulations would have on production lighting, has today released a clear, concise guide to those regulations.
Posted by at


The monkey selfie lawsuit lives

The Verge: Just when you thought you wouldn’t hear about the monkey selfie ever again, the legal saga lives once more. Although the parties — the photographer, a self-publishing book company, and PETA, on behalf of the selfie-taking monkey — reached a settlement in September of last year, the Ninth Circuit is now refusing to dismiss the case. This means the court will be coming out with an official appellate decision about the monkey selfie.
Posted by at

Posted by David at 9:51 AM 0 comments

Labels: ,

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Worth a Look

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

'The Simpsons' To 'The Problem With Apu': Drop Dead

Monkey See : NPR: Comedian Hari Kondabolu made a documentary in 2017 called The Problem With Apu. It's not very long — less than an hour. In it, he interrogates the legacy of Apu, the convenience store owner on The Simpsons voiced by Hank Azaria. Kondabolu talked to other actors and comics who longed for more South Asian representation, only to find that at the time, Apu was just about all there was. And Apu was not only voiced by a white actor, but he was doing what Azaria has acknowledged is a take on Peter Sellers doing an Indian accent in the movie The Party. In other words, he based his caricature of an accent on someone else's caricature of an accent. Or, as Kondabolu said on W. Kamau Bell's show Totally Biased, "a white guy doing an impression of a white guy making fun of my father."
Posted by at


OHIO study shows high number of concussion-related symptoms in performing arts

www.ohio.edu: A recent study released by the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine shows a stunning number of participants not only experienced concussion-related symptoms and head impacts but also continued performing either without reporting the incident or without receiving the recommended care. These participants were not taking part in any sporting contest at the time, however. They are theater personnel.
Posted by at


Equity Launches Campaign for Tony Awards Chorus + Ensemble Category

Backstage: Actors’ Equity, the nation’s union for live theater actors and stage managers, has launched a campaign petitioning the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League to offer a new category in the Tony Awards: best chorus and best ensemble in a musical or play.
Posted by at


Queer Women of DC TV: Power of Inclusive Stories at ClexaCon

The Mary Sue: “It’s all about stories,” said Chyler Leigh at the final panel of ClexaCon on Sunday, April 8th. If there’s one phrase that can sum up the impact of the myriad queer women and characters that were celebrated at the three-day con in Las Vegas, that’s it. ClexaCon was both a celebration of wonderful shows, creators, ships, and characters, and a reminder of the impact these stories have on their audiences.
Posted by at


The EU's latest copyright proposal is so bad, it even outlaws Creative Commons licenses

Boing Boing: The EU is mooting a new copyright regime for the largest market in the world, and the Commissioners who are drafting the new rules are completely captured by the entertainment industry, to the extent that they have ignored their own experts and produced a farcical Big Content wishlist that includes the most extensive internet censorship regime the world has ever seen, perpetual monopolies for the biggest players, and a ban on European creators using Creative Commons licenses to share their works.
Posted by at

Posted by David at 2:14 PM 0 comments

Labels: ,

Worth a Look - Time's Up

And five more...

Nondisclosure Agreements, Inclusion Riders + More U.K. Legal News

Backstage: After revelations about the use and abuse of nondisclosure agreements against staff at the now infamous Presidents Club fundraiser as well as their use in the silencing of allegations against Harvey Weinstein, there’s increased pressure on the government to look into the legality of NDAs and to better regulate or even ban their use. The Human Rights Commission, a U.K. rights body, released a major report and said that NDAs were being misused to sweep misconduct “under the carpet” instead of their original purpose: to protect the identity of victims.
Posted by at


Molly Ringwald Revisits “The Breakfast Club” in the Age of #MeToo

The New Yorker: Earlier this year, the Criterion Collection, which is “dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world,” released a restored version of “The Breakfast Club,” a film written and directed by John Hughes that I acted in, more than three decades ago. For this edition, I participated in an interview about the movie, as did other people close to the production.
Posted by at



Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Carousel,’ After #MeToo

www.vulture.com: Billy Bigelow says he does not beat his wife. “I wouldn’t beat a little thing like that — I hit her,” he explains to the Starkeeper, head man in heaven’s waiting room. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

Bigelow is the protagonist in Carousel, the second work by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and one that’s come to be known as a problem musical, or “the wife-beater musical.” And the problem is not that Billy hits his wife, Julie, but that Julie, seemingly, makes an excuse for him, thereby teaching their daughter Louise that abuse is a form of love.
Posted by at


Why Should You Try Inclusion Riders? Because They Work — For Everyone

Variety: When Frances McDormand introduced the wider world to the phrase “inclusion rider” during the 2018 Oscars, it had an effect almost immediately. Weeks later, the production companies of Michael B. Jordan, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, and Paul Feig were among those jumping on board, saying they would adhere to the riders’ mandate to include certain percentages of employees from traditionally marginalized groups. Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel even wrote a memo supporting inclusion riders.
Posted by at


Kiss Me, My Fair Carousel Woman: Now Is the Season of Our Discontent

AMERICAN THEATRE: Is this really the right time for a spate of male-authored, male-directed musicals about subservient women to come to Broadway?
Posted by at

Posted by David at 2:12 PM 0 comments

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Worth a Look

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

"It Just Didn’t Occur to Me": Showrunner Melissa Rosenberg on Race

The Mary Sue: We have been very vocal about our disappointment about the latest season of Jessica Jones, especially in regard to the treatment of men and women of color. (Jeri was great though.) Thankfully, it hasn’t been just us and the criticism about the issue has been loud enough that it reached the ears of showrunner, Melissa Rosenberg.
Posted by at


Thoughts from Mark Shanda - USITT President

sightlines.usitt.org: The mission of USITT is to connect performing arts design and technology communities to ensure vibrant dialogue among practitioners, educators, and students. Let that mission statement roll around in your head for just a minute and please keep that central to your engagement for the balance of the week. Some key words that jump out to me include community and vibrant dialogue. In this past year, our community has faced challenges that we never imagined we would face and the need for vibrant dialogue is critical.
Posted by at


Tax Tips for Freelance Creatives: Debunking Common Myths

99U: Does the thought of doing your taxes make you want to cry? For many in the design industry, including myself, the answer is a resounding yes. But a solid grasp of figures and finances is the equivalent to building the strong foundation to a building. If you can shore up the money part of your business, you can spend more time doing what you really love—the creative part of the job.
Posted by at


Theatre's missing accents

Exeunt Magazine: In ‘I bet Nicholas Hynter doesn’t have to do this’, a brilliantly titled chapter of Glory and the Garden (eds. Ros Merkin & Kate Dorney) , Gwenda Hughes chronicles the complaint letters she received as artistic director of The New Vic, then The Victoria Theatre in North Staffordshire. Amongst these are a series of moans directed at Northern Broadsides’ Shakespeare, including one outraged-of-Cheshire writer who felt horrified at the bard’s words being so unsuitably intoned by those with (gasp) regional accents.
Posted by at


On the Representation of Disabled Women in Cinema

Chaz's Journal | Roger Ebert: Hollywood just doesn’t seem interested in telling unique disabled stories in general, and the only narrative they do regards men who become disabled. "Where the women at?," to paraphrase “Blazing Saddles.” When I saw “The Shape of Water” last year I had to smile. The movie has its flaws from a disability standpoint, but seeing a mainstream Hollywood feature about a woman with a disability from birth, who is a sexual being, who is independent, and who leads her own story, felt revolutionary.
Posted by at

Posted by David at 2:23 PM 0 comments

Labels: ,

Monday, April 02, 2018

Worth A Look

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

Musician wins landmark ruling over ruined hearing

BBC News: A viola player who suffered a life-changing hearing injury at a rehearsal of Wagner's Die Walkure in 2012 has won a landmark High Court judgment against the Royal Opera House (ROH).

The case won by Chris Goldscheider has huge implications for the industry and the health and safety of musicians.

It is the first time a judge has scrutinised the music industry's legal obligations towards musicians' hearing.

The ROH said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the judgment.
Posted by at


Pilot Season: Female Creators, Directors Break Through

Variety: The 2018 pilot season is shaping up to be a landmark year for women behind the camera.

Female creators and directors saw gains virtually across the board, as networks ramp up efforts to include more women in the pilot process. As Variety previously reported, the Time’s Up and Me Too movements have played important roles this season, with the networks all looking for ways to increase female representation.
Posted by at


Disability Theater Access in 2018

Chaz's Journal | Roger Ebert: The Cinemark movie theater I frequent in Sacramento boasts four wheelchair spaces. As a movie lover with disabilities this is a process not unlike fitting in additional guests at a dinner party. You wonder how friends will sit together and have optimal access to the food on hand. A trip to my local theater to see “Black Panther” in February saw my metaphorical dinner party end with the equivalent of thrown plates and wasted food, a sad reminder of how movie theaters in America continuously fail patrons with mobility issues.
Posted by at


Still on stage after 40 years: Wisconsin firm grows beyond theater lighting

news.wisc.edu: In a spotless, 10-acre factory in Mazomanie, Wisconsin, Loyal Burkhart II assembles gears for hoists that will raise screens and backdrops above a theater stage somewhere in the world.

The hoists being tested on the floor nearby are bound for a theater in Israel.
Posted by at


It Takes an Army

Chaz's Journal | Roger Ebert: By now, we all know that it takes a village to raise a child. Less well-known is that it takes an army of women to raise consciousness about how Hollywood’s gender and race imbalance—both in front of the camera and behind it—is inimical to equal employment, pay, and representation.

Largely due to the efforts of activist female filmmakers including Allison Anders, Ava DuVernay and Maria Giese, agenda-driven academics such as Martha Lauzen and Stacy Smith (all five pictured above), and institutions such as The Bunche Center at UCLA, inclusion has been a critical and still unresolved factor for the past two decades in the Hollywood movie equation.
Posted by at

Posted by David at 10:17 AM 0 comments

Labels: ,

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)