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Student #1 has left a new comment on your post "7 Musicals We Can’t Wait to See at NYMF":

The seven new productions coming out at NYMF cover a wide variety of topics, some that focus on more serious topics than others. The first show listed, “Der Gelbe Stern,” is a more serious piece that exposes the different ways that political, social, economic, and cultural shifts can change the art of an entire era. In this case, the art of Erika Stern is oppressed during the rise of the Nazi regime. Other productions that are coming out regarding political topics include “Clinton: The Musical” and “Propaganda! The Musical,” both describing the life of a president, one real, one fictional. Other productions that veer towards more serious topics are “As We Lie Still,” a story of a disgraced magician attempting to regain his fame, and “Mr. Confidential,” a production that exposes the darker secrets of show business. “Rescue Rue” is a production with a young target audience that caters to a new demographic by being an “autism-friendly” show. In this show, the lobby will be staffed with autism specialists, the house is guaranteed to be silent, and all flashing lights have been removed from the show. With changes like these, musical theater not only displays it’s public awareness, but also takes a step towards a new future where productions may one day be completely accessible for people with these disabilities. Lastly, “Zombie Strippers” is the black sheep in the lineup for being a campy (not to mention raunchy) comedy designed to be a good laugh for an audience. All seven of the productions are bound to be entertaining, no matter what the topic may be, and NYMF displays a positive diversity of ideas this July.

Student #2 has left a new comment on your post "Yale Offers A Course That's Cross-Listed Between P...":

As someone who is both scientifically minded and artistic, I often felt like people have viewed those two traits as contradictions. There is this idea that some people are left brained and some people are right brained, but this class shows that there is not an uncrossable line.

I love how a class like this could help many different students. It would be a dream class for dancers who are also math nerds, but there are so many more people who could benefit. Dance students who need to take a math class but don’t like math can use this class to put mathematics into a context they love. Mathematically minded students who want to learn dance would be able to learn it more easily if it is explained in the way they like to think. This class would even help students who aren’t passionate about math or dance, but want a break from a standard classroom setting and a chance to be a bit more active. I hope intersubject classes become more common, after all, this class works for many students because it is integrated.

@Jasmine Lesane: I like what you said about different departments having preconceived notions about other fields. It isn’t unheard of for departments to have skewed views of each other, even though overlap students exist. Classes like this could help decrease barriers between departments and, in turn, increase overall respect for difference.

Student #3 has left a new comment on your post "Release Your Inner Genius With These 5 Tips":

Romans defining the word Genius as inner spirit guiding us to our calling seems strangely fitting. Genius is what permits us to do what we love, and yet it lives in the eye of the beholder, truly making it an inner spirit. This article, by outlining the 5 steps to releasing your inner genius, gives us a way to discover this Roman phenomenon. To start, we are told to be mindful. Seems simple enough. The second step, conscious openness, is where the article begins to get interesting. The insinuation is that we must not follow any set guidelines for doing things, we must do what feels natural, not what rules or recipes tell us to. Omnivorousness is also recommended in this article, but not in the eat meat AND veggies sense. We must take in all information of all kinds to truly open up our mind to the full extent of our world. Practicing positive affirmation might be the hardest thing on this list, if only because we as a species are inherently negative, so forcing yourself to look on the bright side constantly might prove to be more than a little challenging. Finally, we must never stop learning. We must even relearn. By forgetting old, we can let the new in, and then let other people and experiences bring us back to the old. This five-stop roadmap just might make a genius out of anyone.

Student #4 has left a new comment on your post "Antipermanence: An Argument for Increased Infrastr...":

Very relevant and engaging article. I'm intrigued by the dichotomy of the large commercial-oriented theaters of Broadway and the more independent regional theaters, and Feinberg presented the information in a compelling and well-organized manner. I especially liked her relating theatre to an ever-changing organism; theatre can become whatever we want it to be. In addition, I appreciated her taking into account the next generation of theatre-consumers (that's me!) and how adjustments should be made for them. It's not very often that I walk into a theatre and see a crowd of other people around my age, and I fervently hope that someday theatre can touch a more diverse audience.

Altogether, I'm inspired by this Feinberg and her dedication to using her research to further develop the theatre world. I'm definitely going to see if I can dig up anything else by Feinberg, hopefully to further grasp the state of art and how it relates to the world. She certainly doesn't shy away from calling out theatre establishments and their apparent hypocrisy. Is every establishment doomed to commercialism? Is that a bad thing? Probably. 

Student #5 has left a new comment on your post "Broadway? Bigscreen? ‘Blue Highway’ Preps for Both...":

“Blue Highway” is an out-of-the-ordinary production with ambitious goals in crowdfunding, casting, and publicity. Turning a screenplay for an indie film into a full-fledged Broadway production isn’t something that happens every day, especially not when making an attempt to overlap casting between the two fabrications. Expecting to raise half a million dollars through crowdfunding alone may be a stretch, though it is not unheard of, and the marketing team will have to be extremely effective in their ability to raise awareness for the show. Even creating a documentary on top of it all to narrate the privations of going from set to stage may make everything too busy and hectic, and though it could be used as another form of media to raise awareness about this expensive endeavor, there might be too many things happening all at once for the show to stay organized and on-track. It seems like a valid strategy to express this story through various forms of media, as although it was originally a screenplay, the failure of one production does not necessarily mean the failure of the others, ensuring a probable increased rate of success for the independent film/show/documentary combination.

Worth a Look

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

Twitter Hashtag Encourages Hollywood to #HireTheseWomen

jezebel.com: A hashtag on Twitter is helping highlight women working in Hollywood and encouraging the industry to take note of them.
When Women and Hollywood unveiled their totally depressing infographic about the lack of women directors hired by major studios recently, most people weren't all that surprised. The information revealed that by and large, the major Hollywood studios (the Big 6 as they are known) are not hiring women to helm major releases.

Posted by David at 7/03/2014 04:39:00 PM  

Should a Degree Influence Casting?

DENNIS BAKER: Hey guys, my name’s Clara. I’m a long time reader, first time guest blogger (well, here, anyway). I’m friends with a bunch of amateur, semi-professional and professional actors and recently a debate was started over brunch. I think, and maintain, that an actor with a four-year degree (or better) should get a little extra consideration by those behind the table at auditions.
For argument’s sake, let’s say after callbacks two actors are in contention for a lead role. All other things being equal (implausible, I know), who should get the role: the actor with a degree or the yeoman?

Posted by David at 7/04/2014 10:45:00 PM

USITT Responds to Tony Decision to Cut Sound Awards

sightlines.usitt.org: When the Tony Awards administration decided on June 11 to eliminate future Tonys for sound design, USITT realized it had to publicly address the shock and dismay sweeping through the theatrical design and tech community.
The next morning, USITT Executive Director David Grindle wrote a letter to the American Theatre Wing expressing USITT’s position that cutting the sound design Tonys dismisses and disrespects the artistic contributions of sound designers in Broadway shows, and that the decision should be reversed.

Posted by David at 7/01/2014 04:13:00 PM  

Ask The Experts: Is It A Bad Idea To Live With My Co-Workers?

Fast Company | Business + Innovation: When you are starting out, or living in an expensive city (we're looking at you New York and San Francisco) roommates can be a necessity. But while your co-workers are awesome to spend 9 to 5 with, do you want to deal with their dirty dishes and late night guests?

Posted by David at 6/30/2014 05:51:00 PM  

In Memoriam: Jay O. Glerum, 1939-2014

Stage Directions: Jay O. Glerum died June 26, 2014, in Bothell, Washington, after a brief illness. Born August 16, 1939, Glerum attended Montgomery Junior College and later the University of Washington, where he met his wife Sara (Sallie) Johnson. In addition to teaching at Seattle and Marquette Universities, Glerum started his career working at Peter Albrecht Company, a theatrical rigging-design company based in Milwaukee, eventually becoming one of the world’s foremost experts in theatrical rigging.

Posted by David at 7/03/2014 12:11:00 AM

Our House

In the middle of our street.

We had some people over today for a post fourth of July fourth of July cookout (a friend on Facebook was very particular that just cooking on a grill was not in and of itself barbecue).  Over the course of the afternoon I wound up talking about some of the folks that helped out with our home renovation.  I don't think I've ever posted about them and so I figured I would take one of these posts and hit the highlights.

The GC on our job was Sparkle Construction.  Greg took on the job from another contractor that had done design drawings and bid the project.  Sparkle took the job fixed fee and pretty much managed to toe the line on that without many of the home show "oh by the way" moments.  They did demolition, framing, insulation, drywall, moulding, flooring and tile; as well as manage painting, plumbing, hvac, fireplace, and electric.  All in all we were very please with their work.

Greg also hooked us up with some other subs worth calling out.

Kellner Millwork did our staircase renovation.  I have to say that overall this was one of the most difficult parts of the project to realize.  Mostly it was about trying to do something really different and coming up against the residential building code.  In the end though we got a really special highlight to our first floor and we're really happy with it.

Another vendor that came through Greg was Rex Glass.  Rex did a KILLER shower panel for us.  We had very specific things we wanted to see in the bathroom we remodeled and Rex did a great job.

We also worked with a designer on our job.  We had looked for a consulting architect with no luck and went it alone with Greg helping on the contractor side and Maggie from mad Designs helping on the design side.  Maggie was great.  She didn't fight us on our particular aesthetic and really worked with Mrs. TANBI as a collaborator.  The results here were also great - the link above is actually our kitchen on her website.

Maggie also brought along a float of good vendors.

Top of that list was East Hills Cabinet.  We'd originally talked to East Hills about being GC of the whole job, but after seeing it they declined saying it was more than they typically did.  That, I think, was a good sign right off the bat.  East Hills did the cabinets in the kitchen and the vanity in the bathroom.  We've since had them out to do some office built ins too.  Good price.  Great work.

Maggie sent us to look at tile at The Tile Collection.  This place is ridiculous, just room after room after room of tile finishes.  Mrs. TANBI says "they have all the tile."  Ultimately we skimped on our kitchen backsplash (we got that at a store you may have heard of: The Home Depot).  There were some budget issues in this area and some lead time issues, but again, overall very happy.  Plus this is a neat place just to look around.

We also got Don's Appliances through Maggie - or maybe we found them on our own but she works with them all the time.  If we hadn't been fortunate we probably wouldn't have wound up using them, but when we went to see their stuff at the Pittsburgh Home Show we became enamored with a suite of appliances they'd brought to the show as display items and they cut us a good deal.

For what it's worth, we also found our original contractor (who lead us to Sparkle) at the home show.  If you're doing a renovation there's no better one stop shop.

Last on this hit parade is another mad Designs referral: Typhoon Lighting.  Most of the lighting in the renovation turned out to just be recessed cans.  Sparkle handled that scope of service.  But there were two more prominent fixtures: one for over the stairs and one for over the dining room table.  Mrs. TANBI and I did a lot of online shopping for what we eventually bought, but Typhoon handled the purchase for us and were great about helping us find what we wanted.

So that's the cast of our renovation.  I hope those folks are around should we choose to do more work in the future.

Three Fourths

It's the fourth of July!  We had dinner and brought the boy home to sleep.  During the day I did yard work to get ready for having people over tomorrow.  Sitting listening to the fireworks going off outside I got to thinking about past Fourths.

It's really amazing to me how few previous fourths I remember.  I can recall going to fireworks at DHS and at the HPHS athletic field, even going to Lake Forest once or twice.  I can recall the years I worked at Gilson.  But considering how old I am there are fairly few that stick out.

Three that do come to mind:

When I was twelve July 4 found me and my dad in Estes Colorado.  We were doing a cross country drive back from California to Chicago after the whole family had spent some time in LA.  I remember we went to see Superman 2 at a local movie theatre.  My dad thought it was stupid and for the rest of the trip would burble: "Not God.  Zod."  At least it made an impact.  We watched fireworks from the theatre parking lot.

In what I think was the summer after high school graduation I got to go to the Fort Sheridan fireworks and sit with some of the higher ranking officers.  One of my friends dads was one of the five highest ranking officers on the base.  Their seats were very, very close.  That was the first time I think I saw a ground display.  They must not have done them at the other shows I went to.  Being close up really changes fireworks.

Maybe three summers later I got even closer.  The summer I worked at Northwestern we had a shop party on the 4th.  Evanston does their fireworks at the beach right next to the Performing Arts Center and at the appointed time we headed up to the roof of the proscenium theatre.  This time we weren't just close, but we were pretty much level with many of the shells.  Very cool.  On top of that, the vantage let us see up and down the lake and to a bunch of exhibitions inland.  We must have spent an hour trying to place a municipality with each display.

Of course as I'm typing other years are coming to mind: working a turnaround in Maine, going to fireworks at Desert Breeze in Las Vegas.  There's no big conclusion here, just three fourths.

Do You Use RSS?

I think that RSS is one of the things that contributes to the slim pickings here on the TANBI site.  My subscriptions accumulate at a rate of about 800 articles a day.  Really it has gotten a little out of control.  These days most of the time I just click through the que looking for things for the greenpage.  I used to use Google Reader, and when they killed that off I switched to Feedly.

Reader had this feature that I really miss with Feedly.  On the older platform a user created an additional feed with their tags.  That way I could have a tag #Greenpage and there would be an address I could share with others and they would see everything I tagged - even if I didn't eventually publish it on the other page.  I probably identify more that double the articles I actually use.  It'd be nice to be able to point people to the full list should they have an interest.

Recently I've found myself wanting a feature that neither the old or the new platform delivers.  I would really like to have an expert system crawl everything currently unread and group articles with common content.  I subscribe to many feeds with overlapping content.  I guess I could just pick one and delete all the like feeds, but I feel like I would miss content that way.  But it would be useful if the app would automatically boggle the stories down so that I only saw what was unique from each site.  That way if I were interested in a particular story all the coverage would be in one place.  Even better, when I'm not interested I could dismiss all the common articles at one time.

I'm fairly sure the analytics for this aren't too complicated.  Many of the search engines turn up news stories this way on their results page.  I wonder how hard it would be to apply the same idea to an RSS account.

Heavy Duty Airport Fire Truck

So every now and then I get the chance to spend some time with one of my friends sons - sometimes more than one son.  The kids developed a fairly instant attachment to my Lego collection.  It's been kind of a long game holding on to the pieces through to use for the next generation.  Seems like I'm gonna make it now and that the boy will get to inherit the lot of it.  But in the mean time it's nice to see someone getting some use out of them.

Lego playdates take one of four forms so far.  Sometimes the kid or kids just play with pieces and any of the models we left together last time.  Sometimes we try to build an old set. I have a lot of the original instructions, but it's hard to make a set with all the pieces jumbled up.  Sometimes we build a new set.  This occasion has given me an excuse to buy a bunch of new kits.  I'm doing my best not to spend all my money I swear.  The fourth variation is where I build something new for them.

This is the latest iteration of the latter.  I present the "Heavy Duty Airport Fire Truck":

The truck is sort of minifig scale - sort of.  I'm still wrapping my head around the proportions there.  The idea here was just to build something based on these wheels.  So once I had the wheels and the fenders the rest of the truck came into scale.  From the side you can see the tanks for fire foam, the side entrance, side mounted ladders, and roof mounted mars lights.

Yes, I did pull out our P-Touch for some additional detailing.

The truck also has a hinged ladder.  It's really more of an arm than a ladder, with a hose and an operator position at the end.  The original version didn't have the flip up roof, but on the second look at the truck I added the top ladder extension, a flip roof and second layer of bricks to make the cab minifig scale, and the step bumper on the back for equipment and firefighters.

I have to say I think this is one of my more successful builds.  But regardless of what I think, my apprentice seemed to enjoy it and that really matters more than anything else.

We even got a chance to see if it really worked:

Ellipses...

Gonna make a run at a post per day for July.  Not getting a great start...  Can you believe this week at the Supreme Court?  Me either...  We're back to teaching for the summer: precollege drafting and technical production...  The Areo decision feels like a real setback, especially seeing as how the whole point of the thing was to follow the law explicitly...  Trying to get the boy on a different schedule so Mrs TANBI and I can actually eat dinner.  It's a difficult transition...  I wonder if the buffer zone ruling will wind up changing the rules in Pittsburgh...  So far so good with the new car...  The Hobby Lobby decision seems wrong to me on so many levels...  Even with a phone in my pocket all the time I feel like I am not taking all the photos I should be...  Current home project is fitting out the office - although that job consists mostly of stalling...  I've got an online 30 Hour OSHA course picked out.  Just have to actually do it...  Heard the other day that Jay Glerum has passed.  Sad day for riggers...  We're having people over on Friday - if anyone comes over on Friday...  I built my first Lego Technic model - not a standard brick in the whole kit...  Put a 150-200 word standard on the prekies doing greenpage comments.  If it works out well I'll add that to the regular year assignment...  Today is the anniversary of my dad's passing.  I wish he were still around... 

Fathers Day 2014

Marisa said to take notes so I would remember my first fathers day.

Leo and Marisa let me sleep in.  I always sleep in.  Then Marisa went to the store and Leo and I watched #nerdland - or more like I watched and Leo watched me.  We went for a late brunch to Tender in Lawerenceville.  They were doing only their second brunch (the first was mothers day).  We wound up a little segregated because the place isn't so much stroller friendly.  So we were in the back room with one other couple and their stroller.  I had a very nice rum cocktail and then some excellent fried chicken.  Marisa had a special brunch cocktail: the Marcia, Jan, & Cindy and then some excellent salmon (maple cured with pickled beets).  The waiter was nice enough to shoot our first fathers day photo above.

Leo had nothing but behaved very well anyway.  We were joking that he should have a cocktail, something with milk... and vodka - maybe a white russian... oh oh oh: breast milk and vodka = babushka!  Yeah, Leo had nothing.

When we got home I got great cards from Marisa and Leo.  Leo and I got matching Cubs hats and tickets to a Bucs/Cubs game in September - in the all you can eat section!  So even though the holiday was today we will get to celebrate again in September (and Leo has that long to grow into his hat).

Couldn't help but think about my dad some today.  Still miss him much.

I hope I do at least as good a job as he did!

Spring 2014 PTM Thesis Presentations

Here we are at the end.  All the reviews are complete and we move on to grad thesis presentations.  This year we had four and three of the four are finished (which isn't is left as an exercise for the reader).

All four students this year settled on a "project thesis."  At some point we'll have to decide how successful that was from a program standpoint.

First up, Grad3 PM/SM Cat...

... Cat's project was the budget planning process for an entire regional theatre season.

Next up, Grad3 PM/SM Jamila...

... Jamila's project was the complete organization of a proposed "First Night Braddock" festival.

Moving on to Grad3 PM/SM Jess...

... her project was complete SM packages for a musical mounted as both a sit down and a tour.

Rounding out the year is Grad3TD Luke...

... Luke's thesis was a soup to nuts technical package for a stock, flexible stage lift system: hydraulic and electromechanical.

Nice group of projects in the end.  Here's wishes of good luck for all of them as well.

Seniors... Seniors...

The "victory lap" session:

Job seeking PM/SM AJ...

... damn that's a lot of pictures.

Job seeking SM/Sound Designer Becca...

... I'm sensing a theme.

Vegas bound PM/SM Shannon...

... yes, more pictures.

Job seeking PM/SM/Set Designer Sophie...

... with tiny thumbnail pictures.

Disney bound PM/SM Tim...

... whose photo arrangement and wardrobe are consistent.

 And rounding out the session is PM/SM Zoe...

... who did the sort of minimalist crit board thing.

Good luck to all!