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Student #1 has left a new comment on your post "Shaw Fest Examines Women's Struggles":

After reading this article the only question I have is: why, for the love of God, did the commission a MALE PLAYWRIGHT to write a play about a WOMAN’S story. After reading this article the only question I have is: why, for the love of God, did the commission a MALE PLAYWRIGHT to write a play about a WOMAN’S story. After reading this article the only question I have is: why, for the love of God, did the commission a MALE PLAYWRIGHT to write a play about a WOMAN’S story. After reading this article the only question I have is: why, for the love of God, did the commission a MALE PLAYWRIGHT to write a play about a WOMAN’S story. After reading this article the only question I have is: why, for the love of God, did the commission a MALE PLAYWRIGHT to write a play about a WOMAN’S story. And he made the play about two men. :(

Student #2 has left a new comment on your post "Behind the Met's Custom Headdresses for 'Through t...":

I saw this show in person and it was jaw-dropping, head turning, ethereal. Each piece was exhilarating and almost had a vibration of its own. One of my favorites from the show was a dress created from broken Chinese porcelain shards made by designer Li Xiaofeng. It utilized one of Chinese culture's most prized possessions (and a really unforgiving material to work with, for that matter) and transformed it into a piece of clothing. However, I must say that with the China: Through The Looking Glass exhibition, there was a TON of room for stereotypes, error and misconception in dress when it came to the Met Gala this year. There was a ton of cultural appropriation (ie. Emma Roberts wearing chopsticks in her hair, Lady Gaga wearing sushi shoes or a kimono WHICH ARE ACTUALLY BOTH JAPANESE or the reoccurring theme of dragons) and little room for cultural sensitivity. The fact that not many celebrities who went even cared to seek out Chinese designers for their clothing also irks me. While it's awesome that Chinese culture is making its way into the media and more Chinese actors/actresses are breaking into the industry, there is still a lot of racial discrimination against East Asians in the United States film/tv/theatre industry. The whole trope of "innocence" and "exotic" and "china doll" makes me bored and sick to my stomach. I can't roll my eyes back far enough to show you how I feel about this topic.

Student #3 has left a new comment on your post "We’re All Artists Now":

I can't count the number of times that I, upon telling someone I'm going to school to major in theater, receive a response along the lines of "How fun!" Rarely has anybody expressed awe at the amount of work I'll be taking on, or how much effort it will take me to earn my degree, remarks my friends in STEM or Humanities fields often hear. Instead, my university experience is to be considered almost a pastime, where I'll glue pieces of paper together while on psychedelic drugs, and receive grades from men and women who wear berets and use phrases like "abstract post-expressionistic heroin chic." Rarely, if ever, is it acknowledged that my creativity, and its products, takes work, and lots of it. However, I think that Lia's earlier point about how everybody being able to pursue their dreams, coupled with Amy Koultouski ( “It is O.K. to be creative and not be a child.”) show promise. I am optimistic that sometime, hopefully within my lifetime, I can speak of my time here at art school without someone bringing up wildly incorrect stereotypes or misconceptions about creativity based career paths. I can only hope that the realization of my theater-related dreams will be seen as equally valid and deserving of respect as those of my friends in other fields. This article is certainly a heartening reminder that my hope is not entirely misplaced. 

Student #4 has left a new comment on your post "Nothing Sacred: Satire Comes to Salt Lake City":

This was an extremely enlightening read, mostly because of the supposed tolerance of the American Theatre. While satire and theatre have always gone hand in hand, theatrical communities typically hold themselves above the slander and discrimination the rest of the world doles out. Theatre is a home for the misfits, a place for the rejected to find support. The wild success of the Book of Mormon feels like the antithesis of that belief. Mormons have been a cultural punching bag for a while now, and I can't claim that I haven't taken part in sniggering -- or in some cases laughing uproariously -- at the weird and wacky elements at the Mormon faith. Mormons are a minority group that is still socially acceptable to ridicule. Culturally, this makes no sense. We have gotten to the point that outsiders mocking some minority races and religions (racism again African Americans and Asian Americans, Judaism, Islam) is considered taboo, or at least taboo. Yet, we continually see some groups (Mormon, Mexicans) continue to be profiled and harmfully slandered. Where do we draw the line? Could you imagine a Christian writing a Book of Mormon style show about Judaism? It would be (rightfully) called anti-Semitic and protested. But here we are-- derisive religious mockery called "the funniest show ever" and winning the Tony for best musical.

Something feels wrong here.

Student #5 has left a new comment on your post "Overall Design & Production Management Of A Corpor...":

The thing I find fascinating about corporate event management is that it isn't just management, per se. In this video, Andrea talks about how she took the company's original idea for a theme (Americana, academy awards feeling, etc.) and was able to put it into her own style and create something new that isn't too "theme-y". Over the summer, I worked for an extreme pogo company that is in the process of rebranding their work. When we staged the company's two events, the US Open and the World Finals of Pogopalooza, we were constantly keeping in mind how the company needed to come across, how the audience would be best involved, what the most ideal setup would be to draw an audience, and the general question of whether our appearance matched our mission. The most effective change we made was in purchasing a large screen (not quite a megatron) to display the athlete's scores in relation to each other after each event. It was a small technological upgrade, but it made a huge impact on the way the audience perceived the event and how they interacted with it. The screen was a small but much needed change to improve the legitimacy of the sport. I think events, like theatre, are really also centered around design choice, and it's really interesting to see how one small thing can completely alter the look and feel of an event.