Sunday, January 20, 2019

Worth a Look

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

In 'Lab' Strike Against B'way, Is Actors' Equity Overreaching?

www.clydefitchreport.com: Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), the nation’s largest union for theater actors and stage managers, authorized a strike recently against the Broadway League, the trade association for commercial theater in NYC and beyond. The dispute largely concerns the Developmental Lab Agreement that is often used to workshop new musicals, plus other contracts and guidelines (“Workshop Agreement,” “Staged Reading”) used by League producers to try out new material. AEA members are now barred from working for League producers who want to hire them under any of these agreements. AEA’s famous “Do Not Work” list displays the names of these producers.


Four fixes for Chicago theater's diversity problem

www.chicagobusiness.com: Chicago is a third white, a third black and a third Hispanic, more or less. So why doesn't its theater industry—widely recognized as being in the national vanguard—reflect that diversity? An October survey by union Actors Equity revealed that white actors are cast far more often and make far more money than actors of color. Leadership at the city's biggest theaters—Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Second City, Drury Lane, Marriott, Paramount, Steppenwolf, Goodman, Broadway in Chicago and Northlight—is predominantly white and male.


The Spectator Between Productive Participation And Narcissism In Punchdrunk’s Immersive Theatre

The Theatre Times: We all probably agree that the theatre is by nature “immersive” and that–since the days of the dithyrambs sung and danced in honor of Dionysus–the involvement of the spectator is one of its main purposes.

However, in the last decade, and particularly in England, the Immersive Theatre has become an effective theatrical genre. The spectator’s interactivity and participation, the use of technological and digital devices, the preference for unconventional spaces as well as the simultaneity of the scenes and therefore the disinterestedness in the philological interpretation of the dramatic text, are some of the main characteristics of this new theatrical art form.


How the era of the remote worker complicates management

www.fastcompany.com: New York-based startup Muck Rack is a team of 50 people who can work from home whenever they want. About one-third of the company’s team is based outside New York and therefore, always remote. CEO Greg Galant says he set Muck Rack up to be a completely remote company, meaning that if the startup’s building burned down tomorrow, business would go on as usual the next day.


Men still dominate top theater jobs. Here's how that hurts women.

Chicago Tribune: Oscar nominations will be announced in a couple of weeks. If history holds, the gender inequality in Hollywood will be on full display once again. But film is not the only medium where a marked gender gap persists.
I’ll be starting rehearsals soon at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago for a new play I wrote. I’ve been writing plays for 36 years, but this will be the first time I have worked exclusively with women. The cast is comprised entirely of women. The director is a woman. The scenic, lighting and costume designers are women. This is no accident. It is by design.

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