Worth a Look

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

Look Back on the Original Broadway Production of Chess

Playbill: Chess is currently back on the boards, as it readies to open its first ever Broadway revival, led by a trio of young stars: Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele, and Nicholas Christopher. It is also playing at the Imperial Theatre, the same theatre where the show first ran in 1988. But how did a show about a board game, which only had 68 performances on Broadway, become a cult classic?

 

Sorry, But You Can’t Copyright AI — One Filmmaker Just Found Out the Hard Way

No Film School: There is an old biblical saying, "You reap what you sow," which essentially means you get out of the world what you put in. So excuse me while I pile onto an AI filmmaker, who posted on Twitter that their prompts were being stolen by the outside world.

 

Ireland’s basic income scheme for artists points at how governments could help sectors in crisis

theconversation.com: The Irish government has announced that a pilot scheme providing artists and creatives with a weekly stipend of €325 (£283) will be made permanent. The scheme, which was first introduced in 2022, was launched in an attempt to mitigate the growing financial instability many in the creative industries face.

 

Why I left the Kennedy Center

DC Theater Arts: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has always been a part of my life. Growing up just outside of Washington, D.C., in the 2000s, I always saw its large marble building as integral to my city’s landscape, just as much as the Washington Monument. I came of age in the building, seeing Theater for Young Audiences as a kid, national tours of Broadway musicals as a middle schooler, and music concerts as a high schooler.

 

Experiential entertainment is having a gold rush but commercial success is far from certain

Business | The Guardian: When the first ever stage adaptation of the global book and film franchise The Hunger Games opens its doors in London next week, fans paying up to £200 have been promised an “electrifying” and “immersive” experience.

 

Worth a Look

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

The NEA At 60, Through The Eyes Of Past Chairs

Butts In the Seats: Last week, the Arts Management program at American University released a series of video interviews with the former chairs of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) on the occasion of the NEA’s 60th anniversary. These chairs are Jane Alexander, Bill Ivey, Dana Gioia, Jane Chu, Rocco Landesman, Maria Rosario Jackson.

 

OpenAI’s Sora Video App Is Jaw-Dropping (for Better and Worse)

The New York Times: The app we used was not TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, the current leaders of short-form video. It was Sora, a smartphone app made by OpenAI that lets people create such videos entirely from artificial intelligence. Sora’s underlying technology debuted last year, but its latest version — which is faster and more powerful and can incorporate your likeness if you upload images of your face — was released on an invitation-only basis this week.

 

Bread and Puppet Theater forges ahead in uncertain times

NPR: Generations of peacenik Americans first saw Bread and Puppet Theater during anti-war protests. Giant white birds on rods soared high over marchers against U.S. military actions in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq and Gaza. Performers milled on the street with bobbing paper mache heads of Uncle Sam and other caricatures.

 

Meet the Experimental Collective Reimagining Set Design for the Contemporary Stage

Architectural Digest: It’s hard to think of a more iconic exchange in the history of theater than the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. Those legendary lines. That stolen kiss. It’s been performed countless times the world over. And it was for that reason that Andrew Moerdyk, Kimie Nishikawa, and Santiago Orjuela-Laverde, founders of the Brooklyn-based scenic design studio dots, hoped to reinvent it, when tapped by director Sam Gold for the Circle in the Square Theatre’s recent Broadway adaptation.

 

Malfunctioning drones rain fireballs on fleeing crowd

AV Magazine: A pyrodrone show went disastrously wrong when spectators were showered with fireballs. The incident, which took place in Liuyang, China, saw people flee for cover in panic as sparks rained down.

Worth a Look

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

IATSE ratifies first-of-its-kind contract with AICP for commercial workers

Reel 360 News: The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has ratified a first-of-its-kind contract with the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) covering Production Department Workers on TV commercials.

 

Exclusive: Broadway Green Alliance establishes inaugural board of directors and advisory council

www.broadwaynews.com: Broadway Green Alliance (BGA) has established an advisory council and a board of directors. This announcement marks the first formal governing bodies of the 17-year-old industry initiative dedicated to educating, motivating and inspiring the theater community to implement environmentally friendlier practices.

 

IATSE on President Trump Movie Tariff Announcement: ‘U.S. Needs Balanced Federal Response to Return Film and TV Jobs’

IATSE: IATSE continues to pursue all policy measures that can be implemented to return and maintain U.S. film and television jobs, while not disadvantaging our Canadian members. Federal policymakers must act to level the playing field and make the U.S. film and television industry more competitive on the global stage. IATSE is engaging with the Trump administration and Congress to advocate for policies that result in those stated goals.

 

Santa Fe: The Hollywood Insider's Guide to the Capital of Tamalewood

www.hollywoodreporter.com: Beautifully lit desert-to-mountain landscapes, authentic Western sets, and early adoption of production tax incentives have long made “Tamalewood,” as New Mexico has been dubbed, a favorite Hollywood backdrop. While Albuquerque boasts a Netflix production hub, Santa Fe continues to grow its infrastructure.

 

DGA President Lesli Linka Glatter Says 'There Is Still So Much to Do'

www.hollywoodreporter.com: “It is no secret that our industry, which is no stranger to rapid change, is experiencing a period of massive transition,” Glatter wrote. “The industry contraction from the dual strikes has led to significant unemployment for our members and all industry workers. AI presents both incredible opportunities and concerning unknowns.

 

Worth a Look

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

Workers Bear the Burden of Des Moines Metro Opera’s Ambitions

www.broadwayworld.com: It sounds like boot camp. An 89.5 hour workweek. Back to back 14 hour days. Overtime pay a rarity (and lack thereof legally sanctioned). Working in a warehouse where temperatures exceeded 100. Bullying. An open pit with no proper safety barriers. An employee so depleted and delirious that a doctor asked whether they were a victim of human trafficking. People in tears. Others too stressed to sleep. Dozens of employees sharing a single kitchen, with one stove and one refrigerator.

 

IATSE on President Trump Movie Tariff Announcement: ‘U.S. Needs Balanced Federal Response to Return Film and TV Jobs’

IATSE: IATSE continues to pursue all policy measures that can be implemented to return and maintain U.S. film and television jobs, while not disadvantaging our Canadian members. Federal policymakers must act to level the playing field and make the U.S. film and television industry more competitive on the global stage. IATSE is engaging with the Trump administration and Congress to advocate for policies that result in those stated goals.

 

What's at Stake for Live Nation/Ticketmaster? Billions - Plus its Entire Business Model

TicketNews: Two historic cases now threaten Live Nation and Ticketmaster from different directions: the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit filed in 2024, which seeks remedies up to a full corporate break-up, and the FTC’s consumer-protection and BOTS Act lawsuit filed this week, which targets deceptive fees and resale practices. Together, they put Live Nation’s vertically integrated empire — and the fee-heavy ticketing system fans have railed against for years — in serious jeopardy.

 

Michigan anti-porn bill would criminalize ASMR, written erotica, and nonsexual depictions of trans people

reason.com: An "Anticorruption of Public Morals Act" sounds like something out of the Victorian era. But far from the brainchild of Comstock-era Progressive scold, it's a new bill in Michigan. Introduced September 11 by state Rep. Josh Schriver (R–Oxford), the act would ban the online distribution of material "that corrupts the public morals."

 

Taylor Swift Lawsuit Dismissed: Judge Rules Lyrics Didn't Copy Poems

www.billboard.com: A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit claiming Taylor Swift stole lyrics for 15 of her songs from a self-published Florida poet, ruling the accuser was trying to claim ownership over basic ideas and “common words.”