I used to be a whole lot better at doing this... The plumbers working on our house screwed up the hot water the other day. I figured it out with the help of decades of This Old House viewing... I'm really unhappy about the AG's performance. I thought we were better than this. I guess we're not... Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. It feels like it happened really quickly. Spring semester always does... College Ultimate Regionals are at CMU this Saturday. We bought tickets to see Endgame this Saturday afternoon. Oops... Backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace... I'm probably going to take a break from my diet for a little while. I hope it doesn't see me putting on too much weight... Thinking about a staycation for the top of June. We'd get away, but there is just too much going on... There's sheetrock going up in the basement. The project is really starting to look like something... Four days before Semester Reviews I am going to issue a new schedule with a major revision. I hope not too many people get upset... My boss got a promotion and a co-worker just got an award. Pretty good week for the SOD faculty... We have appeared to have gone directly from needing the heat to needing the AC. A couple of weeks for open windows would have been nice... There are DP slots available for this summer's Drama Precollege if you know a high school sophomore or junior that might be interested... Still waiting to tee up Love, Sex, Robots on Netflix. I'm not sure what I am waiting for... That moment when Parker walked into that fab shop in PNG and the owner recognized him and gave him run of the place may be the high water mark for reality TV...
Thursday, May 02, 2019
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Worth A Look
Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...
The Story Behind Hollywood Writers vs. Their Agents
The Atlantic: In the summer of 1962, MCA Inc.—the giant Hollywood talent agency so dominant in its field that industry insiders called it The Octopus—acquired a majority stake in Decca Records and Universal Pictures, giving it control of a full-fledged movie studio and a major recording company. For the better part of a decade, MCA had already been the country’s largest creator of television programming. The agency was known for controversially “packaging” its star actors with writing and directing clients into ready-made shows for one-stop, near-monopoly sale to the networks.
Radiohead inquest recommends licensing companies that build temporary stages
CBC News: A coroner's inquest into the death of a drum technician who was crushed when a stage collapsed before a Radiohead concert in Toronto is recommending that companies that build temporary stages for events undergo licensing.
Jurors examining the circumstances surrounding the death of Scott Johnson also suggest that riggers who work on performance venues in Ontario go through a certification process similar to what's in place for electricians.
Life@CMU Measures Student Stress, Depression
www.cmu.edu/news: Carnegie Mellon University is turning to its strength in research to help enhance the student experience.
Commissioned by the Office of the Provost and the Task Force on the CMU Experience, the Life@CMU Project examined student behavior over the course of a semester, and looked at how factors such as stress and sleep affected, and in some cases predicted, students’ well-being. Results of the study, which were presented during a recent campus forum, will be used to guide future student experience initiatives.
A Look into Theatre’s FutVRe
HowlRound Theatre Commons: VR and AR are two different monsters. VR hardware is bulky—think HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. The headgear is attached to wires, and the system requires a complex camera setup to track the user moving through the room. VR also utilizes controllers to help the user interact with their environment. AR hardware is physically much smaller—think Google Glass. While the ultimate goal of AR is everyday use to augment our reality, the goal of a VR experience is to create an entirely new one.
Earth Day | Environmental Impact of Music Festivals
www.livedesignonline.com: It’s no secret that the live industry has room for improvement when it comes to environmental impact—from the carbon footprint created by fleets of trucks zig-zagging around the country (not to mention the thousands of fans traveling to each event) to the mountains of discarded plastic and paper goods at events.
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Ellipses...
In what must be the absolutely least surprising announcement of the day Joe Biden is running for President... The kids are trying to set up credit ultimate for a week from Saturday. I hope I am up for it... The last Thursday of the month can absolutely sneak up on you if you don't regularly street park... The 600 calorie days hit the worst at lunchtime I think. After that is mid afternoon. Dinner hasn't really been a problem... I was back at West Penn today. Several years after the bulk of my thing I still don't really like these places... If one more person needs an early crit this spring I can collapse an entire session. I'm not sure it would be a good idea if I do... I'm reading the Three Body Problem series. The book I am reading now is not happy. More and more I think I accidentally stumble into really unhappy stories... The house renovation continues, mostly plumbing and electric this week. The further into it we get the more we remember points of abrasion the last time... I need this thing tomorrow that I know I've known I would need tomorrow for like 14 weeks. And yet, here it is today. Some things are hard to change... I'm pretty sure I have seen the writing on the wall for Semester Reviews. I'm not sure how long it will take though... The political state of things these days is really depressing. I think whatever your views are you cannot be too thrilled with the way people are conducting themselves... I'm starting to give real thought to what is going on this summer. It is likely time to put the summer schedule into my calendar... Duluth Trading Company emails every day. I think this is less likely to make me buy something and more likely to make me never pay full price for anything... The problem with asking for more money for your project is that you might get more money for your project - and then have to do a bigger project. It's not always about the money... I thought it was going to be warmer today...
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Worth a Look
Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...
Hollywood Writers Have Fired Their Agents; Here's Why
www.forbes.com: Fans of various television series and films who follow writers of said projects on Twitter were met with something very different this past Friday afternoon - a deluge of tweets featuring a form letter displaying those writers announcing a cutting of ties with their agencies. But, while Friday’s action may have been introductory for some, it’s actually the end of the beginning of a war that’s been brewing between writers and their representation for the past twelve months.
How Australian theatre rebalanced its gender disparity
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): In 2009, director Neil Armfield stood on the stage at Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre and announced, for his swansong season as artistic director of the company he co-founded, a season of shows almost exclusively written and directed by men.
It was a moment that prompted considerable scrutiny of industry-wide gender disparity.
In that year, at the eight best-funded Australian theatre companies — members of the Major Performing Arts Group (MPAG) — just 24 per cent of plays were written by women, and 24 per cent were directed by women. A staggering 86 per cent of productions had at least one man as writer or director.
Bioplastics bad for environment says recycling expert Arthur Huang
www.dezeen.com: Bioplastics could potentially be worse for the environment than conventional plastics, according to recycling expert Arthur Huang.
Switching to plastic made from plants instead of fossil fuels would require vast amounts of farmland, Huang said. This could could cause environmental problems and deprive humans of food.
What’s Your Vision for a Post-Carbon Arts Sector?
HowlRound Theatre Commons: Sounding an alarm in October 2018, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a special report to warn the world about the impact of the smallest decimal point changes in global warming temperatures above pre-industrial levels. The report also stated that, in order to prevent even larger scale human suffering than we are currently on course to collide with, the world has to commit to drastically reducing global emissions starting now until 2030, or face a point of no return for humanity. This hard deadline implies not just a profound shift in our current lifestyles, but also the creation of entirely new systems and cultural values for how our civilization operates.
Dialogue: The things that make you fall back in love with theatre
Exeunt Magazine: It’s April, and it’s surprisingly cold, and Fun Home STILL hasn’t got the West End transfer it so richly deserves. So what happens when everything feels a bit grey, and you stop feeling passionate about an artform you’ve spent large portions of your adult life waxing lyrical about? And what makes that feeling come back? In this group piece, Exeunt writers talk about the shifting emotional landscape of their relationship with theatre, and explore what it’s like to fall in, and out, of love.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Ellipses...
Someone calls my office multiple times each day and doesn't leave a message. I wish they would either leave a message or stop calling... I've been doing this one lecture/talk in various classes for like 15 years maybe. I just put it in Powerpoint yesterday... We used to have this bathroom upstairs at the house. Right now it is no longer a bathroom, its just a room. Soon it will be a bathroom again... We've gotten to the point in the academic year where all my calendars have calendars pinned on top of them... Two days ago it was in the 40s. Today it is supposed to hit 80. It probably has always been this way, but it sure seems odd... The Crazy Scheme assignments for next year were posted yesterday. So far there's been no grousing. But it is still pretty early... I still want to know why they changed the platform at the convention... This is CAD Mastery week in the Studiocraft class. It should have been like 3 weeks ago but break and USITT and various other things got in the way. It is better late than never I guess... Group chats are perhaps one of the worst unintended consequences of texting technology... We're budgeting the first show for next year and as usual the first thing they are looking to cut is the thing we most want to build... The news shows at night have become largely unwatchable for me of late. Tonight I guess I might give it a try... After more than a month off we actually got a podcast this week... The Big Burrito people have opened a new Italian restaurant. I guess we'll have to find a time for that... I don't want to jinx it but I think I might have found another grad student for next year at the last second... The guys working on our house decided to have a minor flood. Now we have to decide just how much is required in the way of repairs. We really didn't want the scope of the job to get any bigger. The completion date needs to be pretty firm... Not having parking at work throws all kinds of curve balls into scheduling appointments around work... I should be interested in the NBA Playoffs, but I'm not - and with the Penguins dropping out of the NHL Playoffs in the first round I might have to take a hard look at MLB. Go Cubbies...
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Worth a Look
Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...
ENOUGH! A Call to Action
Event Safety Alliance: This month the industry was faced with two separate but related eye-opening reminders. On April 6, 2019 the industry lost another veteran member of our family in a heartbreaking accident on the Coachella festival site. Less than a week later, an inquest into the 2012 stage roof collapse in Toronto that killed another member of our family returned 27 recommendations that, had they been in place, might have helped break the chain of causation in both events
NYC Casting Call Says ‘White Artists’ Will Be Paid Less Than ‘POC Artists,’ And Undergo ‘Mandatory’ Session Of ‘Anti-Racism Training’
Daily Wire: Underneath the "rehearsal" heading, the call stated that white actors who were cast in the show would participate in a mandatory "anti-racism training" session. That training session would not be mandatory for actors of other races.
Under the "compensation" heading, the call stated that actors of color would be paid more than white actors.
Burning Man Attendees RAGE After Bureau Of Land Management Blasts Festival's Environmental Impact
Daily Wire: Career "Burners" or Burning Man attendees are raging over a Bureau of Land Management environmental impact report that accuses Burning Man of being a major environmental nuisance, and requests the weeklong festival in the Nevada desert take major measures to control trash, drug use, and crowds before expanding to accommodate more attendees.
Protestors Take On Long Island High School Production of THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, Citing 'Racism is Not Entertainment'
www.broadwayworld.com: Newsday reports that protestors took to the streets outside Huntington High School in Long Island to protest the production of Thoroughly Modern Millie taking place inside, which they say is "racist against Chinese-Americans."
The Next 10 Years
AMERICAN THEATRE: As a new generation of artistic directors start their jobs leading long-running institutions and taking on the role of leaders both in their communities and nationally, we asked them where they hope to see the theatre field a decade from now. These new a.d.s span the nation; some have already started their new jobs, while others begin this summer. All are coming in both optimistic and clear-eyed, and all have very specific visions.
