Sunday, March 27, 2016

Worth a Look - Jumbo Spring Break Edition

Here are a few posts from the last two weeks of Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Stephen Sondheim: 'Commercial theatre limits variety of musicals'

Carousel, News | The Stage: Stephen Sondheim has suggested the “financially fragile” nature of commercial theatre is restricting the variety of musicals that get produced.

The celebrated composer and lyricist – known for his work on musicals including Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Gypsy – said producers in the UK and the US depend on show templates proven to be bankable, and rarely take risks on other styles or new ideas.
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ESPN Asked to Pay More Than $15 Million Annually to License Ambient Stadium Music

Hollywood Reporter: In response to ESPN's demand that a New York federal court determine a reasonable license fee for the performance of songs on its cable sports networks, licensing agency BMI is noting the "vast amounts of music played loudly and prominently in stadiums and arenas," ambient noise that is often picked up by the broadcaster's microphones and heard by its viewers.
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Guest Post: Why Are People Concerned Directing Is "Too Much" for Women? We Can Handle It, Thanks

Women and Hollywood: When I was a little girl my mother worked in an unheated factory five days a week and cleaned houses on weekends. Never once did anyone tell her, "Well, that’s too big a job for a woman." Nor was she told, "You need a self-sacrificing partner at home to do that job." She certainly never heard, "Oh, you can’t combine that with raising children."

People are always happy to hand a woman a mop, frying pan or sewing machine for a minimum wage job. They never ask if it'll be "too much" for her to handle.
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New Jack City 25th Anniversary Oral History

ambrosiaforheads.com: Twenty five years ago this month, New Jack City opened to the public. The film, starring Wesley Snipes, Allen Payne, Ice-T, and Chris Rock, was Hollywood’s first and arguably its most enduring cinematic glimpse at the crack cocaine epidemic. At a time when Operation Desert Storm dominated the news cycle, mainstream America was blindly stepping over the junkies, and reading past the inner-city murders in the obituaries.
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A Career Option for the Theatre Major: Drama Therapy

HowlRound: As my son George graduates this spring from the University of Tampa as a musical theatre major, he dreams about earning a living performing on stage. But statistics show a very small percentage of actors will actually be able to accomplish this. My uncle’s motto in life was “Always have a Plan B, so theatre majors that enjoy working with people might want to consider a career in drama therapy.
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Marriott Theatre faces criticism over 'Evita' casting

www.timeout.com: The Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire is facing controversy over the casting of its upcoming production of Evita, which was announced earlier this week.

Chicago actor Bear Bellinger, who has not been shy on social media about discussing issues of race in Chicago theater, published an open letter on Facebook this morning stating that he had seen the casting announcement for Evita and "was shocked to see that only one person of Latin heritage had been cast in it."
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Klingon Language, Pointy Ears, 'Mood and Theme' of Star Trek All Copyrighted, Paramount Claims

Hit & Run : Reason.com: Paramount, the studio that owns the Star Trek franchise, is suing the producers of a crowdfunded Star Trek fan film, Axanar, over "thousands" of copyright violations.

At first, Paramount did not specify these, so the producers being sued argued the suit should be dismissed because Paramount failed to list the specific copyright violations. Paramount returned with an amended lawsuit that listed their specific claims, ranging from the use of "phasers" to the appearance of various Star Trek aliens like Vulcans.
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ESTA Places Five Documents Into Public Review

Stage Directions: ESTA has made five documents available for public comment. Two of the documents are from the control group (RDM over IP networks, and ACN over TCP/IP networks), two are from the rigging group (manual counterweight rigging best practices, and boom and base assemblies) and one from the electrical working group (mounting devices for hanging fixtures).
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USITT Names Gateway 2016 Class

Stage Directions: USITT selected 12 theatre artists from groups underrepresented in live entertainment production for their Gateway mentorship program at USITT 2016 in Salt Lake City. Part of USITT’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiative to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion in the backstage arts, the Gateway Program pairs 12 emerging artists with professional mentors from similar backgrounds and career paths to maximize each mentee’s experience at the USITT Conference & Stage Expo and beyond.
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Behind the Scenes of Cirque du Soleil's Broadway Debut

Out Magazine: Having dazzled audiences world-wide, Cirque du Soleil now has its sights set on Broadway. The company will make their Broadway debut with Paramour, a new musical that begins previews at The Lyric Theatre (213 West 42nd Street) on April 16. In anticipation of the spectacle in store, we caught up with ensemble member Broadway veteran, former Survivor competitor, and devoted fiancé Reed Kelly to get the inside scoop on the show and how he balances work and his relationship.
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Sunday, March 06, 2016

Worth a Look

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

Consent on Campus: A 'Nightline' Event

Nightline | 02/25/2016 - ABC.com: Consent on Campus: Can Consent Education Help Prevent Sex Assault Among College Students?; Consent on Campus: What Does Giving Sexual Consent Mean?
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Where have Boston’s artists gone?

The Boston Globe: WHEN I WAS IN COLLEGE IN PITTSBURGH, my apartment senior year was alleged to have once been rented by Andy Warhol, when he was studying commercial art at Carnegie Institute of Technology. The staircase was narrow and unlit, ready to give out at any moment, and the unit’s floors were about as sturdy and level as the Joker’s lair. The freezer was so impacted with frost that the peas we eventually discovered during a thaw may well have been left behind by Warhol himself. Sadly, there was no canned soup.
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Who Would Want to Teach in a Room of Armed Students? Texas Is About to Find Out 

jezebel.com: Late last year, Texas passed Senate Bill 11 which officially allows students to carry concealed weapons on campus. The bill, which goes into effect on August 1, has already had a dampening effect on campuses: Earlier this month, the president of the Faculty Senate at the University of Houston warned professors not to “go there if you sense anger,” as a safety measure for faculty.
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Game-changing new theater app, developed by a black woman, gets ready to launch

DC Theatre Scene: 12@12NOON provides an SMS platform of dramatic writing for playwrights and audience members to set up, react, and interact with theatrical productions in a powerful and moving way. Karen is an accomplished playwright, produced locally at Theater J and Metrostage, but she’s also the head of BWPG’s Cyber Narrative Project, and I talked with her about the origins of this app and it’s huge potential.
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Data Artist Proves Just How Unique Shakespeare's 154 Sonnets Really Are

www.huffingtonpost.com: Humans are creatures of staggering complexity, each of the billions on the planet different from the rest in innumerable ways. Our uniqueness can't simply be reduced to one sign or symbol -- but when it must be, perhaps to verify the use of our credit card, something as succinct as a scribbled signature of our name will do.

Can literature, like humanity, make use of such a shorthand?
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Sunday, February 28, 2016

Worth a Look

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

Sam Jacob: "The copy is both despised and feared"

www.dezeen.com: Conservation is often misunderstood as a practice concerned with the past. Really though, like the best science fiction, the subject of conservation is the present. Or more exactly, it is the site of intersection for ideas about the past, framed within the morality and ideology of the present. Its tools and techniques, for example, are both highly traditional and cutting-edge. Think of the conservation studio like a cross between an emergency room and a medieval workshop. A place where X-rays and linseed oil converge. And now, of course, where digital technologies too join the deployed to image, scan and otherwise document the artefacts of human culture.
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2 decades later scholars to assess August Wilson’s shocking ‘race’ speech

Theater Cues: Twenty years ago, at the 1996 Theatre Communications Group (TCG) annual conference at McCarter Theatre Center, Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright August Wilson delivered the event’s keynote address and blew the lid off the place.

I was there covering the three-day event for the Asbury Park Press as it’s Theater Writer.

“The Ground on Which I Stand” was simultaneously cheered and booed. I couldn’t believe the gamut of emotions from outrage to shouts of encouragement, people walking out and others nodding heads in agreement and applauding. The reactions to the speech which addressed questions of race, diversity, and cultural identity in the American Theater broke down along racial lines.
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John Oliver's Attack on Hollywood Whitewashing Is Both Sad and Hilarious

io9.gizmodo.com: Sometimes you sit in front of your TV and realize you’re watching something important. It happens quite often on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Sunday’s episode was no exception. In addition to an incendiary piece about abortion laws, Oliver attacked Hollywood whitewashing.
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Copyright Office Decides To Rewrite Copyright Law Itself, Blesses A 'Making Available' Right That Isn't There

Techdirt: The Copyright Office has decided to take a stance on copyright law that requires two slightly odd things. First, it requires ignoring what the Copyright Act actually says and then, separately, it requires pretending that the law says something that it clearly does not say. That's pretty incredible when you think about it.
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Playwright Lynn Nottage: theatre is the last bastion of segregation

Stage | The Guardian: American playwright Lynn Nottage has criticised the lack of racially diverse stories being produced on major stages and described theatre as the “last bastion of segregation”.

Nottage was in London to receive the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female playwrights at a ceremony at the National Theatre in London, one of three black women shortlisted for the global prize.
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Monday, February 22, 2016

Worth a Look

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

The Same Four Operas Are Performed Over And Over

FiveThirtyEight: The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2016-17 schedule this week, and it still can’t quit its old standbys. Just three days into its new season, which starts in September,1 the Met will have already returned to its most-performed work:2 Puccini’s “La Bohème.” About a month after that, Verdi’s ”Aida” will take the stage. Two-and-a-half months after that: Bizet’s “Carmen.” The three most-performed works in Metropolitan Opera history will all appear next season, as is so often the case.
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New Research Shows That Women Get Less Credit When Working In Teams

Fast Company | Business + Innovation: Teamwork makes the dream work, or so the old leadership bromide would have us believe. The catch is that all members of said team deserve credit for playing their part. However, a new study from a Harvard researcher indicates that in group work—as in pay, leadership, board representation, and other areas—there’s an inequity between women and men.
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ESTA's Technical Standards Program Volunteers Recognized for Service

Lighting&Sound America Online - News: ESTA's Technical Standards Council announces the recipients of the third annual Above & Beyond Awards designed to recognize outstanding Technical Standards Program volunteers. The awards celebrate those volunteers that have made a significant contribution or effort that advances the Technical Standards Program. The TSP exists because hundreds of individuals from across the industry volunteer their expertise and significant amounts of time throughout the year to write standards that increase safety, solve problems, and make life easier. These awards are particularly meaningful to the recipients because the nominations are made by their peers within the Technical Standards Program.
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Diversity in theatre: why is disability being left out?

Stage | The Guardian: True diversity in British theatre is scandalously overdue. It will bring huge benefits both creatively and organisationally, but I’ve long argued that until we get over a tick-box mentality in the arts nothing is going to really change, and that British theatre risks becoming increasingly irrelevant.
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How Emily Lazar Became the Only Female Mastering Engineer Ever Nominated for a Grammy

www.elle.com: This year, Emily Lazar became the first woman to be nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. That means that Lazar's work as mastering engineer on The Bird and the Bee's album Recreational Love marks the first time in 58 years we've had a female nominee in the category. It's not the first time that Lazar, who owns and runs New York-based mastering studio The Lodge, has made history for women during the Grammys, however: She's previously been the first female mastering engineer nominated in two other categories, which is both impressive and concerning. (There's such a dearth in the industry, in fact, that Grimes recently namechecked Lazar as the only mastering engineer on record.) Lazar, who has worked on over 2,000 albums, with everyone from David Bowie and Sonic Youth to the Foo Fighters and Madonna, spoke to us about her experience, and what it means to make Grammy history.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Worth a Look

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

Creating While Female: How Women Artists Deal with Online Abuse

Broadly: Never before have female identified artists had a greater platform to showcase their work. With over 7 billion Internet users worldwide—400 million on Instagram alone—gallery owners and record label executives are no longer the gatekeepers of the female artists' visibility.

Women can now cultivate their own businesses, sell their own merchandise, network, advertise, and empower and inspire people independently online. Social media has given women something female artists throughout history never had: access. However, with that access comes a new sort of vulnerability: Women who use the Internet to promote their own work often have to put up with aggressive online harassment, especially if their art focuses on their sexuality or their identity.
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Exposing the employment ploy at concert promoter Live Nation

LA Times: Brian Hill is a 28-year-old stagehand from Atlanta who's been planning to address Wednesday's annual shareholders meeting of the giant Beverly Hills-based concert promotion firm Live Nation Entertainment.

Hill has been hoping to explain that Live Nation condemns stagehands in his home region to poverty-level wages while depriving them health and retirement benefits. Conditions in many venues are dangerous and unhealthy — sometimes the workers aren't even given water to drink. Safety training is all but nonexistent.
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Northwestern Burlesque makes changes after concerns about inclusiveness, diversity

The Daily Northwestern:With Northwestern Burlesque surpassing 100 cast members for the first time this year, participants raised concerns that its solo and small group performances do not sufficiently represent different races, body types and experiences.

Following the concerns, the show’s directors said they are working to make the show feel more inclusive.
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'Jubilee,' an iconic showgirl spectacular, takes its last steps in Las Vegas

Las Vegas Review-Journal: They seemed to sense this one might be the last, even if they didn't know how long it would last.

On the eve of the opening of "Jubilee" in July 1981, its sky's-the-limit producer, Donn Arden, told a journalist, "(T)hey allow me enough budget that no one in this decade anywhere in the world will be able to top what we've done, because of inflation and the moneys that are required to do major productions."

In 2004, Tony-winning lighting designer Ken Billington did lighting updates on Bally's "Jubilee," and mused, "Shows like this don't exist anymore. Could anyone even afford to do one nowadays?"
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Warner Music Pays $14 Million to End 'Happy Birthday' Copyright Lawsuit

Hollywood Reporter: The music publisher will also not stand in the way for a judge to declare the song to be in the public domain.

Sing the song, blow out the candles, eat the cake and unwrap the gifts.

According to a court filing on Monday, music publisher Warner/Chappell will pay $14 million to end a lawsuit challenging its hold on the English language's most popular song, "Happy Birthday to You."
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Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Worth a Look

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

Let’s Talk About Who Bears Responsibility For Cultural Appropriation

The Frisky: Monday’s piece “Beyonce is Not Appropriating in Hymn For The Weekend” sparked some expected backlash and I would really love to address some of the concerns that were raised in the comments section out of respect for my readers.

I want to stress the fact that Beyonce’s participation in the video was utterly and absolutely exploitative. The video reduced India’s beautiful and complex culture to a stereotype. I do not want that to be overshadowed by the conversation about appropriation. Whether or not the video was disrespectful is not up for debate– it was.
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Muslim teen wants to be first professional hijabi ballerina

NY Daily News: This Muslim dancer is raising the barre.

Sydney schoolgirl Stephanie Kurlow wants to become the first hijabi ballerina in the world - and to open a dance school for girls of all backgrounds to pirouette in her footsteps.

“Dancing is like flying for me. It makes me feel free,” the poised 14-year-old tells the Daily News.
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What’s My Line?

David Simon: Most of the time, writing for film or television – if the writer retains a producer’s title on the set – is a straight, simple negotiation: Here’s the page. Say the lines. Yes, like you mean them, as a good actor would. You’re a good actor, right? Of course you are. That’s why we wanted you. So, you talented, photogenic prick motherfucker, say the fucking lines the way they were fucking written and then we can all go to the bar pretending to be friends.

Okay, so it isn’t quite that totalitarian.
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Cardiologist hopes to decrease cardiac death in touring professionals

WWAY TV3: One Wilmington cardiologist is hoping to make a difference in the music industry.

Doctor Damian Brezinski recently created a nonprofit called ‘Keep the Beat Alive’. The organization is dedicated to decreasing premature cardiac death in touring professionals.

Brezinski’s friend and patient Chris Musgrave spent more than 20 years in the music industry, but one day would be turning point for him.
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Broadway's FIDDLER ON THE ROOF to Donate Portion of Ticket Sales to Flint, MI This Month

www.broadwayworld.com: The producers of the hit Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof announced this morning that the production will donate $2 from every full-price ticket purchased to the show for all February 2016 performances to The United Way of Genesee County's Flint Water Fund, which directly provides aid the Michigan city's residents, currently suffering from a critical drinking water contamination crisis.
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Sunday, January 31, 2016

Worth a Look

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

Billie Joe Armstrong Warns of Censorship After School Cancels 'American Idiot'

The New York Times: In what could be a scene straight from the punkish musical “American Idiot,” a Connecticut high school has canceled a planned production of the show, citing its sex, drugs and foul language.

Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer of Green Day, and a co-writer of the book for the musical based on his band’s 2004 rock opera of the same name, responded on Instagram, calling the decision by the school, Enfield High, an issue of censorship.
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The Shittiness Of IP Law Has Taught The Public That Everything Is Stealing And Everyone Is Owed Something

Techdirt: In an article that's actually a bit (but just a bit) more thoughtful than the headline applied to it ("How Corporations Profit From Black Teens' Viral Content"), Fader writer Doreen St. Felix tackles the cultural appropriation of creative works. Sort of.
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New York Jets Cheerleaders Win $325,000 Class-Action Settlement

jezebel.com; The New York Jets are paying out approximately $324,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by the team’s cheerleading squad over low wages.
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New York Attorney General Calls For Caps On Ticket Resale Prices, Outlawing Of Scalper Bots

Consumerist: When you go to buy tickets for a popular concert or sporting event, you likely know that you’ll ultimately have to make your purchase from a ticket reseller who will mark up the price to try maximize their profit. But the New York state attorney general is calling on the state legislature to put new rules into place that would protect consumers from scalpers who swoop in and buy up every ticket before they are available to actual fans.

“Ticketing is a fixed game,” said NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman today, as his office released the results of a three-year investigation [PDF] into the event ticketing industry.
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How Big Is The Gig Economy? The Government Is Finally Going To Find Out

www.fastcompany.com: The gig economy has launched a healthy "future of work" panel circuit amid a roaring debate over whether apps like Uber, Postmates, and Handy—which hire an army of independent contractors instead of employees—represent a return to the sweatshop or a new freedom to work when and how one pleases. But all sides of the debate face the same dilemma: When they propose a new policy or launch a new initiative, they have only a vague idea of how many workers it could impact. There is no current government data that specifically catalogs this group of workers.
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Sunday, January 24, 2016

Worth a Look

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

Write Something Funny: Why Comedy is Vital to the Future of Theatre

HowlRound: There is something wonderful about a theatre full of laughter.

I’ve experienced moments of tragedy as an audience member so tense that you would shush a pin for dropping, have been enraptured by spectacle storytelling, and have had my personal values challenged by deep intellectual pieces that sit with me for weeks.

But there is something different about a theatre full of laughter.
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Phil Willmott: Let’s be proud of fringe theatre again

Opinion | The Stage: I've been thinking it's time we became proud of the words 'fringe theatre' again.

It’s a sad fact that there are a gazillion more people who want to make their living in theatre than the industry’s commercial and subsidised sector can sustain. For many of us, at some time or another in our working lives, there’s no alternative but to volunteer our downtime to be in fringe shows if we want to play a great role, work on a great play, bulk up our CV and showcase our talents.
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The Play Lovers' Guide to BroadwayCon! Your Itinerary For A Theatre-Filled Weekend

Playbill.com: BroadwayCon isn't just for fans of musical theatre. We've got the breakdown of everything to see and do for the fans of straight plays, so you can make the most of your weekend.
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Theatre’s Technical Jobs: Much More Than Meets the Eye

AMERICAN THEATRE: We’re living in what is sometimes called the Information Age—an apt name for the constant flow of facts and data in which we swim, all made possible by ever-accelerating breakthroughs in computing. The catch, of course, is that, in a society where the one constant seems to be technological change, we may have too much information to process, too many systems to learn—and much of it will be obsolete by the time we’ve taken it in.

“You could probably have a full-time job just keeping up with the changes in technology,” says Erik Lawson, who started as an audio engineer and is now a sound designer based in New York City.
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AMERICANNot in Our Theatre: The Fight Against Sexual Harassment

AMERICAN THEATRE: On Jan. 30, 2015, after a long day in rehearsals, Chicago actor Lori Myers posted the following on her Facebook page: “It is very discouraging to me to continuously hear stories of sexual exploitation concerning young women in our theatre community. These women were sometimes underage, manipulated, and traumatized. If your friend, sister, daughter, or coworker was working under a sexual predator—what would you do about it?”
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Monday, January 18, 2016

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from Last Week's Greenpage that mightbe worth your time...

Bowie's magical wardrobe led his fans into strange new musical landscapes

theconversation.com: There is no real need to reiterate that Bowie was a fashion icon. That, if this week’s posthumous tributes are anything to go by, is a given. Nor is there any further call for a detailed account of his greatest looks; his talent for reinvention; his impact upon the aesthetics of his culture; or the influence he continues to exert upon contemporary designers. All of this has been amply covered elsewhere.
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‘Midnight Rider’: Randall Miller Attorneys Defend Request for Release

Variety: Randall Miller’s legal team said in a court filing on Tuesday that there was nothing unethical with his motion for an early release nor does it signal a breach of his plea agreement for charges related to the Feb. 20, 2014 train accident on the set of “Midnight Rider.”
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Judge Allows Graffiti Artist's Lawsuit Over Katy Perry's Met Gala Dress

Hollywood Reporter: The renowned street artist known as "Rime" wins the right to pursue a well-known fashion designer for ripping off his mural.

In November, we asked the question: Is anything worn by pop superstar Katy Perry protected by the U.S. Constitution? Well, it appears as though the answer to this question is a firm "no."
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Submitting Like a Man: My year resubmitting scripts as a dude

HowlRound: Strap on your balls and grow some chest hair: for the next year, I will be submitting like a man: resubmitting every script I have written, but under a man’s name.

Let me explain.

From the day I graduated NYU nine years ago with a shiny new BFA in Dramatic Writing, I started submitting plays. There are many ways one can build a resume as a playwright, and submitting to calls for scripts was the one I chose. A few months in, I started keeping a list of all the submissions I was doing. Part organization, part paranoia—I wanted to have a record of where I’d sent my stuff.
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SM as Whistle-Blower

Stage Directions: You are rehearsing a show and the director wants to change the script. What should you do? What can you do?

Stage Directions editor Jacob Coakley interviewed Howard Sherman about new productions being inspired/borrowing/stealing from older or original productions of the same show. It is a terrific interview, especially when Sherman makes points about authorial intent and what we are teaching aspiring artists and audiences about intellectual property in art.
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