Worth a Look

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

In Minnesota, Change Play’s Title Or Lose A Production?

Arts Integrity Initiative: If you happen to have been giving any thought to producing Langston Hughes’s 1935 play Mulatto at the Ames Center in Burnsville MN, save yourself some time and either move on to another play or another venue. Why? Because the Ames Center is uncomfortable with the word “mulatto,” and won’t approve it in the title of an offering in their building. Hughes’s stature, and the fact that the Black Repertory Group in Berkeley play produced the show as recently as 2015, probably wouldn’t make any difference.

Posted by David at 4/06/2017 03:05:00 PM

Spiel Chicago Episode Seventeen: Lavina Jadhwani

PerformInk: Lavina Jadhwani is a director, playwright and casting director who is fascinated by the art of the mash-up. She recently adapted Uncle Vanya for Rasaka Theatre Company, the midwest’s first South Asian American theater company where she previously served as Artistic Director. Lavina spoke with me about the kind of work that’s important to her, as well as her work as a casting director.

Posted by David at 4/05/2017 04:53:00 PM

Harry Shearer: Why My 'Spinal Tap' Lawsuit Affects All Creators

Rolling Stone: Behind the ambitious, creative talent that is Hollywood lies a darker side of the entertainment industry little appreciated by the ordinary moviegoer. It's an opaque world of film financing, revenue accretion and minimal profit share. If exposed, as our Spinal Tap lawsuit against Vivendi aims to do, fans will no doubt be horrified at the shameful gravy train that rolls for corporate rights holders at the expense of creators. So far, challenges to media conglomerates' comfortable status quo provoke little more than derision, since the power balance is so skewed in their favor. But, for how much longer?

Posted by David at 4/05/2017 04:40:00 PM

Lighting Through The Glass Ceiling Reflections on Tharon Musser

Rosco Spectrum: Oceans of words have been written about Tharon Musser, her beginnings at Yale, her first success with José Quintero’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, her work with the Michael Bennett-lead “dream team,” her three Tony awards, her introduction of the computerized console on Broadway, and the small army of Tharon Musser assistants that are now successful, professional lighting designers. There had been a titan or two before Tharon, such as Jean Rosenthal and Peggy Clark, and there were several successful contemporaries – but only Tharon was “the Dean.”

Posted by David at 4/03/2017 06:14:00 PM

CMU augmented reality app shows East Liberty as it used to be

TribLIVE: It would be easy to walk right by the vacant storefront along Penn Avenue in East Liberty.

There's a brightly colored mural painted over large metal doors. A vinyl sign says the storefront is for lease.

But the building's history is lost to the passerby.

An app under development by a team of Carnegie Mellon University theater students intends to change that.

Posted by David at 4/03/2017 06:14:00 PM

Worth a Look

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

Ars Nova’s Brilliant Career

The New Yorker: n a Monday night this winter, at a gala in a Beaux-Arts former bank downtown, the young playwright Rachel Bonds, whose luminous “Sundown, Yellow Moon” is currently onstage uptown, made a showstopper of a speech, on a night not lacking in potential showstoppers. The event was a fund-raiser for the nonprofit Off Broadway theatre and artist incubator Ars Nova. It had a Russia-in-winter theme—bear-shaped ice sculpture, stilt walkers, faux-fur hats—in honor of the company’s first Broadway transfer, Dave Malloy’s “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.” It featured songs from the show, performed by Malloy, Josh Groban, Denée Benton, and others. But when Bonds spoke people made sounds of amazement: as Ars Nova’s playwright-in-residence, she said, she was paid a salary and given benefits. Good benefits. “I actually went to the dentist,” she said, to “ooh”s. “I also had my first child.” Prenatal care, delivery, everything, was covered by her Ars Nova health insurance. “He’s eight weeks old, and it’s my first night away from him,” she said. “So that tells you how much Ars Nova means to me.” After her speech, she went out to the street and got a car home. Inside, the party raged on, with vodka and accordions.

Posted by David at 3/29/2017 01:01:00 PM

At Seattle Opera, the real drama is offstage

KUOW News and Information: In mid-March, Seattle Opera general director Aidan Lang’s assistant called his scene shop manager Michael Moore to request a meeting.

Moore had no idea of the bombshell Lang was going to drop.

Posted by David at 3/30/2017 03:21:00 PM

Disrobing “The Foreigner” at a Minnesota High School

Arts Integrity Initiative: Context is everything.

If you ask the average parent whether, in the abstract, they want to hear a student, any student, saying the n-word from the stage of their local high school auditorium, the answer (hopefully) would be no. Put that word in its full context in the musical Ragtime, or in the plays of August Wilson, and those familiar with the works may feel differently.

Posted by David at 3/30/2017 03:26:00 PM

Diversity for Dummies

HowlRound: The first thing to say about this “Quick Start” manual is that I’m a dummy myself. In all the years I’ve grappled with diversity, the one constant has been recalibration. What was diverse ten years ago is privileged today, and today’s diversity models will become obsolete in the coming years. Historically disenfranchised groups are just now finding their voices after decades, even centuries, of silence. Diversity requires periodic check-ins, assessment, and retuning.

Posted by David at 3/29/2017 01:11:00 PM

Invisible Disability in Theatre: Why I May Not Want to Tell You I Have a Disability

HowlRound: Working in the theatre with an invisible disability can be challenging. While most buildings have a ramp to allow a person who uses a wheelchair to get into the building and there may be handrails in the bathroom for patrons with mobility challenges, an artist with an invisible disability like my Tourettes Syndrome (TS) or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) doesn’t need a change to a physical structure. Instead I need accessibility into people’s minds. However since my disabilities are “invisible,” how are theatre administrators or directors supposed to know that I have a disability or the kinds of accommodations that I need?

Posted by David at 3/29/2017 01:07:00 PM

Worth a Look

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

Think of the Children Before Scrapping the NEA, Says Mike Huckabee

Hit & Run : Reason.com: The $148 million allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts is fiscally trivial in the context of a $4 trillion federal budget. By the same token, however, the NEA is culturally trivial, a point that Mike Huckabee inadvertently makes in a Washington Post op-ed piece urging Congress to preserve the program.

Posted by David at 3/24/2017 03:19:00 PM

It’s A Time For Disobedience: MIT Media Lab Will Pay $250,000 To Support It

Fast Company: “You don’t change the world by doing what you’re told.” So says Joi Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab, on the nomination form for a new type of award: a prize for disobedience.

The award–a $250,000, no-strings-attached cash prize, funded by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman–will go to a person or group responsible for an “extraordinary” example of disobedience for the good of society. While that might take the form of traditional civil disobedience, Ito defines disobedience broadly.

Posted by David at 3/24/2017 03:20:00 PM

Cheerleading company can get copyrights, pursue competitors, Supreme Court says

Ars Technica: The Supreme Court issued a 5-2 opinion (PDF) today allowing cheerleading uniforms to be copyrighted. The case, Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands, is expected to have broad effect in the fashion world and beyond. A group of 3D printing companies had also asked the high court to take up the case, asking for clarity on how to separate creative designs, which are copyrightable, from utilitarian objects that are not.

Posted by David at 3/23/2017 02:48:00 PM

The Company That Launched Broadway’s Great Comet Reveals the Key to Finding Groundbreaking Art

Playbill: Ars Nova has earned a reputation for developing groundbreaking new work that defies the boundaries of traditional theatre—think Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which the company debuted Off-Broadway four years before it hit Broadway’s Imperial Theatre this past fall.

Since its founding in 2002, the organization has continued to showcase emerging artists with fresh voices and produce innovative new theatre. Last week, Ars Nova paired with WP Theater to present Rachel Bonds’ new play with music, Sundown, Yellow Moon, which opened Off-Broadway to critical acclaim.

Posted by David at 3/22/2017 05:34:00 PM

What Theatre Artists and Administrators Should Know About Sexual Harassment

HowlRound: Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (beneath the root of a tree, at the bottom of the ocean), you know that sexual harassment in the workplace has been a topic in the news lately. What performers and other theatre professionals may tend to forget is that while they are artists, they are also “acting” as employees, be it of a theatre company or an individual producer. And, as employees, they have certain rights under federal, state, and sometimes city employment laws.

Posted by David at 3/21/2017 03:24:00 PM  

And a bonus article this week:

Tests Show CMU Water Supplies Are Safe

www.cmu.edu/news: Following extensive testing, Carnegie Mellon University has determined that drinking water supplies throughout its campus facilities are safe and free of elevated lead levels.

Posted by David at 3/22/2017 05:05:00 PM

Worth a Look

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

Yes, women are still getting screwed in Chicago theaters

On Culture | Chicago Reader: Gender Breakdown, Collaboraction's angry and absorbing ensemble piece about inequity in the theater community, is rooted in something equally dramatic, but a lot drier: a ten-month research project undertaken by Kay Kron, an actor, writer, and, currently, development associate at Chicago Children's Theatre, as the "capstone" project for the DePaul University master's degree in nonprofit management she'll complete this year.

Posted by David at 3/06/2017 05:28:00 PM

Classical ballet has a diversity problem and its stars know how to fix it

www.usatoday.com: As an African-American soloist with the United Kingdom’s Royal Ballet, Eric Underwood says he is often asked why the ballet world isn’t very diverse.

It’s complicated, Underwood says. Race, income, social hierarchies and other factors often conspire to create a situation that excludes people of color from serious pursuit of dance.

Posted by David at 3/14/2017 04:04:00 PM

Musical Theater Can Create Political Action, Right?

Clyde Fitch Report: In a moment when Americans are looking for means of resistance in all aspects of political, cultural and daily life, musical theater seems like, well, one of our less effective weapons. Yet the musical is often referred to (perhaps disparagingly) as a populist art form. What, then, are the possibilities for musicals to harness the power of the people? How effective are musicals at, for example, documenting contemporary, real-life stories? Can they stir audiences to take direct action? Can they organize communities? With a team of writers, musicians and composers, I’m developing and directing a new project that I believe will explore the potential of musicals to meet us where we are.

Posted by David at 3/09/2017 11:33:00 AM

Don't dismiss Universal's new, interdisciplinary take on theme park rides

www.themeparkinsider.com: Universal has developed a lot of screen-based attractions, so it should stop developing new rides that use screens and build nothing but animatronic dark rides, to keep fans happy.

Am I getting this right?

Posted by David at 3/09/2017 11:36:00 AM

A California Movie Theater is Trying to Appeal to Families With Playgrounds

Movie News | Movies.com: Imagine you go to see Disney's new live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast and while the show is playing there are kids running around and climbing on a jungle gym and going down large slides all around you. That's what could be the experience at some "Cinepolis Junior" theaters in California trying to appeal more to children, and with them whole families.

Posted by David at 3/08/2017 04:03:00 PM

Worth a Look

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

PURF research reveals theater concussions

OHIO: Compass: There’s no tackling or helmet-to-helmet hits in theater, but actors and stagehands are just as susceptible to head injuries as those on the field.

Assistant Professor of Athletic Training Jeff Russell and Brooke Kapple, BSAT ’16, noticed a growing trend in head injuries while working in the Science and Health in Artistic Performance Clinic (SHAPe Clinic). Students working in theater, including set builders, soundboard technicians, actors and stagehands, frequently visited the clinic complaining of concussion symptoms.

Posted by David at 2/27/2017 01:53:00 PM

Collaboraction’s ‘Gender Breakdown’ tackles the tearful truth of discrimination through laughter

www.chicagolandmusicaltheatre.com: For any woman who’s been told she’s not pretty enough, not thin enough, not white enough, not feminine enough, not “enough” to succeed in theatre…and for any man who has stood by and watched this happen, this show is for you.

Posted by David at 2/27/2017 01:58:00 PM

The Mill’s incredible Blackbird at GDC : The future of Virtual Production

fxguide: Filming cars was never going to be same again, after The Mill introduced the Blackbird. Their car invention was truly an incredible cutting edge production tool. It addressed a fundamental problem: automotive car availability on location. But when filming with the Blackbird, the problem was trying to make decisions creatively without the actual target car visible on set...

Posted by David at 3/02/2017 02:27:00 PM

Two High School Shows That Couldn’t Be Saved

Arts Integrity Initiative: When incidences of high school theatre censorship arise, the point at which they occur, and when that breaks out beyond school walls, can be central to efforts to reverse the decision. At other times, one finds webpages like the one above, from Danville Area High School in Pennsylvania in late January.

The recent debate in Cherry Hill NJ over Ragtime is an excellent case in point. The decision by the school administration to alter all “offensive” language in the play, without permission from the licensing house or the authors, arose while the show was in rehearsals, six weeks before performances were to begin.

Posted by David at 3/03/2017 03:35:00 PM

Billions Season 2 Taylor Gender Nonconforming Character

www.refinery29.com: The mere fact that the writers of a popular prestige drama with an A-list cast (that also includes Paul Giammatti and Malin Akerman) created a non-binary character is in itself groundbreaking. The fact that a gender-nonconforming actor who hadn’t affixed that label to themselves yet ended up playing that role? Dillon calls it coincidence; I call it one of the most incredible cases of synchronous casting in Hollywood history.

Posted by David at 3/03/2017 03:48:00 PM

Worth a Look

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

The NEA Is Vital, Democratizing: Teresa Eyring Corrects the Record

AMERICAN THEATRE: I’m writing on behalf of Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the professional not-for-profit American theatre, in response to your Weekend Edition Saturday interview with David Marcus on February 11, 2017. You’ve opened the door to a meaningful conversation about the value of public funding for the arts, and I hope you’ll be willing to consider some additional information and the opportunity to take the conversation even deeper. We were also concerned about some misleading statements that were made in the course of the interview and wanted to take the opportunity to address those here.

Posted by David at 2/24/2017 03:20:00 PM

Women Directors Might Just Get the Hollywood Ending They Have Been Hoping For

American Civil Liberties Union: This week, Deadline reported that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is in negotiations with the major movie studios to settle agency charges of systemic sex discrimination against women directors.

The EEOC began a wide-ranging investigation of Hollywood’s hiring practices in 2015 after the ACLU and ACLU of Southern California notified the agency of evidence we had gathered showing that sex discrimination against women directors was “standard operating procedure” among movie studios and television networks.

Posted by David at 2/20/2017 12:59:00 PM

Marriott’s ‘Mamma Mia!’ Rosie takes on body shaming in ‘Sun-Times’ review

www.chicagolandmusicaltheatre.com: I’ll start this by saying, reviews are reviews. If you read ’em, you’re dancing with the devil. You may like what you see and you may not. I read them because I’m a spaz and I can’t handle not knowing what’s out in the universe regarding my person.

I’ve been called lackluster. I’ve been called a budding star. I’ve been called the best in the show. I’ve been called the worst in the show. I do a little dance with the devil every time, digest the words and eventually (good or bad) they fall away.

Posted by David at 2/21/2017 01:52:00 PM

What the Debate Over That "Big River" Review Really Means

Clyde Fitch Report: It’s rare that a piece of theatre criticism kicks open debate in the way that the New York Times’ Feb. 9 review of the Encores! revival of Big River did. Although Laura Collins-Hughes gave a largely positive account of the 1985 Tony-winning musical, which is based on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Posted by David at 2/22/2017 01:09:00 PM

‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ Nominated for Costume Award

Variety: For the first time, an animated feature has been nominated for a prize at the Costume Designers Guild Awards, to be presented Feb. 21 at the Beverly Hilton.

Designer Deborah Cook used her talents to bring to life ancient Japanese characters for the stop-motion film “Kubo and the Two Strings,” created by Oregon’s Laika Studios and distributed by Focus Features and UPI.

Posted by David at 2/23/2017 02:46:00 PM

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Chicago Theatre’s Gender Breakdown (It’s Not Good)

AMERICAN THEATRE: A new independent study shows that when it comes to gender parity, Chicago’s theatre scene still has room for improvement. Chicago-based artists Kay Kron and Mariah Schultz conducted the study as part of Kron’s master thesis at DePaul University. According to their findings, in the 2015-16 season, out of 250 plays at 52 theatres, 25 percent were written by women and 36 percent were directed by women.

Posted by David at 2/16/2017 03:02:00 PM

V-Day in TrumpLand: Exploring the Relevance of “The Vagina Monologues”

THE INTERVAL: In 1996, activist, performer and writer Eve Ensler debuted her play The Vagina Monologues in the basement of the West Village’s Cornelia Street Café. The show became a major hit, and Ensler used her success to combat violence against women on an international scale. In 1998, she created V-Day, “a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls,” and, to celebrate V-Day’s 15th anniversary in 2013, she founded 1 Billion Rising, “the biggest mass action to end violence against women in human history.” As part of the V-Day movement, Ensler allows college and community theatre productions of The Vagina Monologues to be licensed for free during the month of February, with the understanding that proceeds from these benefits will be donated to charitable organizations aligned with V-Day’s mission.

Posted by David at 2/16/2017 03:16:00 PM

A Battle for Contextual Criticism

Exeunt Magazine: New York theater criticism is having a week. Where is my fainting chair and good strong drink?

It’s been a while since we had a bona fide criticism kerfuffle but I wish this one did not exist. The dispute that arose this week somehow queries whether contextual criticism is “serious” criticism. I can’t quite believe I have to defend the merits of theater criticism which responds to the work’s place in our time.

Posted by David at 2/16/2017 03:01:00 PM

What Has Equity Won in Los Angeles?

AMERICAN THEATRE: The decisive blow came last December. After years of vociferous wrangling, legal and otherwise, a federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed a lawsuit filed by Ed Asner and a group of plaintiffs against Actors’ Equity Association, which contested the union’s actions in its campaign to organize the region’s small theatres, with the goal of requiring them to pay minimum wage to actors. And so on Dec. 14, a predetermined deadline for Equity’s new 99-Seat Theatre Agreement kicked in, and the old L.A. 99-Seat Plan—a pact that for nearly 30 years had allowed Equity members to work in theatres under 100 seats in L.A. County for small performance stipends, as essentially volunteers, leading to a local theatre scene that blossomed in quantity, if not in numbers of paid work weeks for union actors—was kaput.

Posted by David at 2/14/2017 02:07:00 PM

As Trump Mulls Funding Cuts For The Arts, An Artist Argues Against The NEA

NPR: NPR's Scott Simon talks to David Marcus, a senior contributor to The Federalist and the artistic director of a theater company in New York City, about defunding the National Endowment for the Arts.

Posted by David at 2/13/2017 01:02:00 PM

Worth a Look

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The 23rd Thea Awards: This Year's Most Innovative Entertainment Design Projects

Entertainment Designer: The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) announced the 23rd annual Thea Award recipients at the annual IAAPA event in Orlando. The award is one of the industry’s most prestigious honors, and recognizes achievements in technology, design, theming and immersive experience. “As TEA heads into its 25th anniversary year, our annual Thea Awards reflect an industry that is increasingly global and technically sophisticated.

Posted by David at 2/06/2017 04:09:00 PM

The N-Word on Stage

HowlRound: Jordan Cooper was reading the autobiography of Lucille Ball in Bedford Junior High in his hometown thirty miles outside of Dallas, Texas, when a passing classmate knocked it out of his hands and said, “What you reading,” and then added what we are going to call the n-word.

“I pushed him against the wall,” Cooper recalls. They were both brought to the principal’s office.

Less than a decade later, Cooper, now 22, is an actor and playwright living in New York, who recently starred in a play he wrote, Ain’t No Mo’, that repeats the n-word some thirty times.

Posted by David at 2/10/2017 05:01:00 PM

#101Wednesdays - The Great Escape (...Or Not...)

NFPA Xchange: “Escape rooms” seem to be popping up everywhere. For a fee, you’re locked in a room with a group of friends. The goal is to escape from the room by searching for clues and solving a series of intellectual challenges within a given time-frame. Businesses use them as a fun team-building activity. Others go just to test their wits and see if they can solve the challenges before time runs out. It’s a great concept… except for the being locked in a room bit.

Posted by David at 2/09/2017 01:54:00 PM

Here's How Hollywood Views Women

The Frisky: Last year there was a fairly amazing Twitter account being shared regularly. Run by Ross Putnam, a screenwriter, @femscriptintros garnered quite a bit of buzz for posting the short intros awarded female characters in major Hollywood films.

Posted by David at 2/06/2017 04:07:00 PM

OSF tours canceled due to immigration concerns

KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2: “It’s certainly already affected us negatively cause we want to increase tourism in Southern Oregon.”

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival brings hundreds of people a year to Ashland from across the country, and around the world.

A group of students from Canada were set to visit this season, but recently canceled because of the immigration order.

Posted by David at 2/08/2017 02:22:00 PM

Worth A Look

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

Writers Guild East Blasts Proposed Anti-Union ‘Right to Work’ Legislation

Variety: The Writers Guild of America East has blasted proposed federal legislation that would allow workers to opt out of paying union dues.

The new bill, H.R. 744, was introduced this week by Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Joe Wilson (R-SC), would extend “right to work” to all states nationwide.

“One of the strange perennial rituals of Beltway Washington is the introduction of legislation to destroy the only effective voice American workers have on the job,” said WGA East President Michael Winship and Executive Director Lowell Petersson.

Posted by David at 2/03/2017 05:46:00 PM

Still in transition: DC theaters, seeking leaders of color

New Pittsburgh Courier: Who would have bet that the country would have elected a Black president before any of Washington’s biggest theater troupes had an artistic or executive director of color?

“It’s not necessarily from any ill will, but more from ignorance,” says Jennifer L. Nelson, who led the now-defunct African Continuum Theatre Company until 2006 and is a resident director with the rapidly evolving Mosaic Theater Company. “And a lack of inclination to change.”

Posted by David at 2/01/2017 12:25:00 PM

SAG-AFTRA Draws More Than 500 to Videogame Strike Rally

Variety: SAG-AFTRA drew more than 500 supporters Thursday to a spirited rally as its video game strike moves into its fourth month.

“We are not going to stop until we have a fair contract for our members,” said David White, SAG-AFTRA national executive director. “This is not just about money. It’s about fair working conditions and secondary compensation.”

Posted by David at 2/03/2017 05:52:00 PM

More Than Booth

HowlRound: Part 1: Why Every Theatre in America Should Have an Active Shooter Plan
Real tragedy lies in the fact that out of all of the moments, and milestones that have occurred in American theatres, perhaps the most noteworthy occurred on a spring evening in 1865 during a performance of Our American Cousin. Despite the centuries of breathtaking performances and soul-revealing cultural revolutions that have characterized theatre history, schoolchildren’s first exposure to theatres historically is as the setting for Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Between the passage of time and the cringe-worthy, “But how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” jokes, it is easy to relegate the concept of real-life theatre gun violence to a time when horse-and-buggy was the favored mode of transportation.

Posted by David at 1/30/2017 10:55:00 AM

An Interactive Visualization of Every Line in Hamilton

polygraph.cool: When I first heard of Hamilton, I was doubtful ("a hip-hop musical?"). But from the moment I sat down to listen the whole way through, I was done for.

I was obsessed. I had the soundtrack on repeat for months, it was all I listened to in my waking hours. I listened so much I had favorite lines and favorite songs. I analyzed the lyrics; I reveled in the layers of complexity, the double entredres, the clever word plays.

Then my obsession hit a peak; I kept wondering, what would a visualization of Hamilton look like? I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Posted by David at 1/30/2017 10:49:00 AM