Sunday, August 23, 2020

Worth a Look

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

Houston lost 42,500 creative industry jobs and $1.6 billion in sales in 4 months

The Kinder Institute for Urban Research: A new report measuring the damage done to America’s creative economy by COVID-19 shows the South, Texas and Houston are among the most devastated. At the metropolitan level, the Houston area is the largest metro suffering the worst losses.

 

Time for a Change: What If We Cut the Long Hours?

AMERICAN THEATRE: In late July, Baltimore Center Stage artistic director Stephanie Ybarra initiated some big steps to change her theatre’s practices in line with some of the anti-racist demands leveled by the We See You White American Theater movement, among them eliminating “10 out of 12” technical rehearsals—a practice that generally saw actors called to start rehearsal at noon, then released from rehearsal at midnight, with a two-hour dinner break in between—as well as a move to a five-day rehearsal week instead of the traditional six-day week and a commitment to pay playwrights for their time in rehearsal, among other changes. These, according to a press release, were steps intended to “dismantle the systemic exclusion and oppression of BIPOC artists, administrators, producers, and executives in the theatre industry.”

 

In Las Vegas, the show cannot go on

CNN: In those long-ago days of early 2020, business was cranking for Adam Flowers, a former street magician with an enterprising mind.
The owner of a Las Vegas tour business that includes ghost and mob tours, Flowers had just teamed up with 81-year-old Frank Cullotta, an admitted former hitman for the mob. They parlayed Cullotta's violent crimes of the past -- which Cullotta says included murder -- into a schtick, creating a YouTube channel called "Coffee with Cullotta." It racked up thousands of views, which in turn drove visitors to the physical tour.

 

The pandemic popped the balloon drop. Here's why we might not miss it

CANVAS Arts: For decades worth of convention-goers, an indoor blizzard of red, white and blue has been an indelible showstopper. When thousands of balloons cascade to the floor, it’s a moment when pure spectacle takes over political persuasion.

 

Column: After this awful 2020, it just makes sense to start a theater season in January — this is our chance to change

www.msn.com/en-us/news: 2020: Annus Horribilis? The Worst Year Ever? If you are in the business of live entertainment, or consider the arts to be the bedrock of life in a great urban center, I will wager you’re all in with that.

But here’s another of the year’s fascinating potential legacies: the permanent destruction of the traditional cultural season that begins in the fall and concludes in the spring or early summer.

 

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