Conservatory Hour

Monday, Nov. 2

Discussion of the production Three Days of Rain

4:30pm in the Checco Studio A

Frequently revived plays reap rewards for theatergoers, companies

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "For theatergoers like Dave Henning, familiarity breeds content.
Henning, who lives in Reserve, has been to multiple performances of 'Forever Plaid' and various editions of 'Late Nite Catechism.'
'It's like watching a favorite old movie on TV,' he says. 'It's fun to see it again.'"

Summer Theater Producer John Kenley Dies at 103

Backstage: "John Kenley, a theater producer who ran a legendary summer stock circuit in Ohio beginning in the 1950s that attracted numerous Broadway and Hollywood stars, has died, a family friend said Thursday. He was 103."

'Xanadu' to Spread Disco Love on New U.S. Tour

Yahoo! News: "The Tony-nominated musical Xanadu is set to lace up its skates for a U.S. tour, which will officially launch in Costa Mesa, CA."

Playing with fire: UN turns Gaza shelling into theatre

The Guardian: "It is the start of a remarkable 20-minute, one-man play intended for Israeli audiences but so far unwelcome in Israeli theatres. It tells the story of the main UN warehouse in Gaza, a storage point for food and aid for a million Palestinians, and how it was hit repeatedly by Israeli artillery shells, some loaded with white phosphorous, during the Gaza war – how it was set ablaze and burnt to the ground."

Gold, Romance Merge in Sparkling ‘Finian’s Rainbow’

Bloomberg.com: "There’s a little bit of everything in the musical “Finian’s Rainbow”: Romance and satire, whimsy and cynicism, fairy tale and political diatribe. It is, above all, good. Revived last season in concert form by “Encores!’’ and duly enlarged, it has now transferred to Broadway."

The Week in Tools: Toolmonger Top 5

Toolmonger: "It’s been a busy week here at Toolmonger. If you’ve been spending time in the shop — you should! — and you haven’t had a chance to keep up with Toolmonger this week, we suggest you start with these posts, which our readers helped to select"

Aligning the Stars for Opening Night

NYTimes.com: "Would the producers of a Broadway show move their opening night so you could attend? That’s what separates the A-list from everyone else, people."

Slime Canada! Toronto Premiere of Toxic Avenger Opens on Halloween

Playbill News: "Though Canadians don't get the same signature whiff of New Jersey that many New Yorkers do, the camp rock musical The Toxic Avenger changes all that when the production opens in Toronto Oct. 31."

Indie Film seeks crew

Craigslist: "I am in need of the following crew members to shoot a 30minute short film for film festivals. This is true independent film making. No big budget just hard work and creativity."

'Neil Simon Plays' closes on Broadway

Variety: "The Broadway revival of 'Brighton Beach Memoirs,' part of what was to be a double-bill titled 'The Neil Simon Plays,' will close Sunday,November 1, just a week after it opened."

Game on at Bricolage

Post Gazette: "Lines blur between virtual and real worlds in 'Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom,' opening at Bricolage Theatre Company tonight."

Theatre Factory creates own vision of 'On Golden Pond'

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "When filmgoers think of 'On Golden Pond,' they no doubt recall Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda in their movie roles as Ethel and Norman Thayer, the aging couple who faithfully return to their summer cottage each year to discuss their lives together."

IATSE vs Bloomberg News’ (and others) bias.

Backstage at BackstageJobs.com: "A recent article in Bloomberg.com revealed that the top 5 IATSE stagehands at Carnegie Hall made an average of $430,543, with the Prop Master earning $530,044. These are high amounts to pretty much anyone. What is not mentioned in the original article [though I could swear it was at first] is the fact that these stagehands are working an average of 80 hours per week. All the pay over 40 hours each week would be paid at time-and-a-half, or double time. This does not include instances where meal or other break related penalties might have come into play, including during the first 8 hours of the day or 40 hours in the week."

One actor, 23 parts, and a storyboard

Berkeley Rep Blog: "In Tiny Kushner, a collection of five short plays by Tony Kushner, Jim Lichtscheidl takes a memorable turn through East Coast Ode to Howard Jarvis: a little teleplay in tiny monologues. Jim plays nearly two dozen characters in a fast-paced story about a real-life tax-evasion scheme born in the Midwest that spread through New York City public employees like a bad disease."

Scope Creep and SMART Freelancing

Men With Pens: "What I am questioning is a wicked little freelancer money-suck that runs rampant in business. It sneaks in when you aren’t looking. It slowly drains you and you don’t even realize it. It’s the creature that turns every profitable project into a total loss. And all of you have had this beast feed off your business at one time or another.
It’s called scope creep."

Should Able-Bodied Actors Play Disabled Characters?

Jezebel: "An advocacy group is protesting the casting of Abigail Breslin as Helen Keller in a Broadway's upcoming revival of The Miracle Worker, arguing that a deaf or blind actress should have gotten the chance to play the part."

We ask that you now turn off all cell phones and pagers. Enjoy the show!

Technology in the Arts: "Corwin wrote a great post a month or two ago about the new technologies that museums have started to implement to increase interactivity with their patrons. I thought it might be interesting to explore the performing arts side of things."

5 Good Image Search Engines Apart From Google Image Search

Make Use Of: "When the right picture is everything, you need to go deep into the web and comb through the millions that are out there. Image search is just like normal search and similarly painstaking. Making it less so are the dedicated image search engines."

Broadway musical Victor/Victoria dances again in Asia

Reuters: "A Singapore theater company is staging 'Victor/Victoria' for the first time in Asia, more than a decade after it left Broadway and with jazz singer Laura Fygi in the role that actress Julie Andrews made famous."

New York theatres: Leaner the better

The Economist: "MANHATTAN’S West 40s have always been a battleground: between tourists and locals, musicals and plays, adults and children. Around 65% of the tickets for Broadway shows are bought by tourists from outside New York’s metropolitan area. A reliable choice for a family on the town has long been a splashy musical with some hearty laughs. But the recession is bringing about changes, some of which may be for the better. These days, the expensive tickets are for maudlin Danish princes, not singing mermaid princesses."

'What show did you see?' How performances vary night to night

chicagotribune.com: "This just in: Theater shows change from night to night.
I was reminded of this obvious but oft-underappreciated fact in New York last week. In that town, critics see shows on three or four press nights. I saw the new 'Brighton Beach Memoirs' on the same night as the little group of New York critics I trust. When I read all the reviews a couple of days later, I found different emphases and varieties of tone, of course, but I had almost exactly the same view of the strengths and weaknesses of the show. I saw another Broadway show, 'Memphis,' on a different night and didn't feel that way at all."

Stage reviews: 'Oak Trees,' 'Patience' sure to delight theatergoers

Post Gazette: "North and south, east and west, the many smaller theaters of Pittsburgh provide a substantial supplement to the offerings of the professionals. To some audiences, they may also be better-known, as with these two, the long-established Little Lake Theater (now in its 61st season) and Pittsburgh Savoyards (in its 71st )."

Real, virtual worlds intersect in Bricolage's 'Neighborhood 3'

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Neighborhood 3 is a community where distinctions between virtual and actual reality are intriguingly murky. It's as difficult to tell them apart as it is to separate the living from the living dead."

Pittsburgh Musical Theater students tackle 'Les Miserables'

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "People attending the all-student version of the classic musical 'Les Miserables' at the Byham Theater this week will be amazed by the professional quality of the voices they hear, the director says."

How to Get Answers from a Distance

Web Worker Daily: "In the age of continuous connectivity, many a web worker may feel a sense of wry irony in the fact that often, when we need answers on something, the person we need those answers from is uncontactable."

Weather and Outdoor Events

Ramblings of a Techie: "It is that time of the year when there is a proliferation of outdoor events. So what areas of OH&S should we be looking at. There are some more inherent risks associated with outdoor events and concerts. So we need to be more aware and alert during this period. There are more factors that can cause problems. So what are the obvious ones?"

Disney to build new L.A.-area movie facility

Reuters: "The Walt Disney Co. plans to build a 12-stage production facility at its Golden Oak Ranch in the Santa Clarita Valley, northwest of Los Angeles, primarily to serve the production needs of ABC Studios."

Whispers Offstage? Could Be Actor’s Next Line

NYTimes.com: "Ticket holders at this week’s first previews of Matthew Broderick’s new Off Broadway play have been privy to a second drama: watching the veteran theater actor try to learn his lines, with help from a prompter sitting in the front row."

Advocacy Group Opposes ‘Miracle Worker’ Casting Choice

NYTimes.com: "Two weeks after a group of deaf actors protested the choice of a hearing actor for a deaf role in an upcoming Off Broadway production, the issue has surfaced again: Should producers have chosen a deaf or blind child actress to play Helen Keller in this winter’s Broadway revival of “The Miracle Worker”?"

SAG Members Vote Down Video-Game Deal

Backstage: "Members meeting in caucuses Oct. 26 and 27 in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco voted the proposal down 42-73."

City Theatre's gory 'Jekyll and Hyde' bursts with energy

Post Gazette: "Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and the City Theatre have rescued melodrama from politics and put it back on the stage where it belongs."

Baritone delivers a superb 'Falstaff'

Post Gazette: "Technically it is impossible to steal the show when you are already the main character. But somehow that's what baritone Mark Delavan did with his brilliantly funny portrayal of Sir John Falstaff in the Pittsburgh Opera's production of Verdi's 'Falstaff.' A commanding presence vocally and visually in the production that opened Saturday night at the Benedum Center, you didn't want Delavan to leave the stage."

Broadway to revive 'Promises, Promises'

Post Gazette: "Forget 'Mad Men.'
The '60s will live again on Broadway next spring in a revival of 'Promises, Promises,' the musical based on the Academy Award-winning movie 'The Apartment.'"

Students collaborate to stage 'Les Miserables' at Byham Theater

Post Gazette: "More than 150 students from 20-plus local schools will bring the French Revolution to life at the Byham Theater, Downtown, tomorrow, kicking off a four-day run of 'Les Miserables.'"

Review: Sets, costumes impress in 'Count Dracula' spoof

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "The University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre production of 'Count Dracula' raises more giggles than goosebumps.
That's deliberate."

Review: Intense 'Oak Trees' examines family dynamics

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "A web of artfully controlled family dynamics unravels when a long-lost son — or someone claiming to be him — appears on the doorstep."

Review: Flirtatious 'Falstaff' has the audience swooning

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Laughter rang out repeatedly Saturday night at the Benedum Center, Downtown, when Pittsburgh Opera presented the first of four performances of Giuseppe Verdi's 'Falstaff.'"

'Into the Woods' uses fairy tales to look at action's consequences

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Denise Pullen, Seton Hill University associate professor of theater, can understand if her students share the sentiments of a storybook character in the musical 'Into the Woods.'"

Review: City Theatre's intense 'Jekyll' examines our dark places

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "There's more than one way to tell the same tale.
For evidence, you need look no farther than City Theatre's production of 'Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,' which opened Friday night.
Most of us think we know Robert Louis Stevenson's Victorian-era tale, 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' about the well-meaning scientist whose experiments unleash his dark alter ego.
Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation provides us with yet another view of Henry Jekyll that's highly theatrical, yet less romantic and more complex than we've seen in countless film versions or Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse's popular musical.
There's a fair measure of violence to be found."

Feeding the Hungry

Carnegie Mellon University: "Carnegie Mellon’s 16th Annual Food Drive, sponsored by Staff Council, will take place Monday, November 2 through Friday, November 13. The drive benefits the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, a non-profit organization located in Duquesne that collects, stores and distributes food and household products to nearly 350 charitable agencies in southwestern Pennsylvania through soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, day care and senior centers for low-income people and special care facilities."

One of a Kind

Carnegie Mellon University: "One of the oldest and largest student theatrical groups in the country, Carnegie Mellon's Scotch'n'Soda boasts 150 active members from seven colleges and 30 majors.
Tackling five to seven shows a year can seem like a full-time job. But you'd be hard pressed to find a group member who doesn't consider it a labor of love.
'We're a social organization that just happens to do theater,' said Alex DiClaudio (TPR'09, HNZ'11)."

Is Film Dead? Find out at the Three Rivers Film Symposium on November 13

Pittsburgh Art + Technology: "As part of the Three Rivers Film Festival, the second annual Film Symposium will look at the state of the film medium and its alternatives. Celluloid’s demise has been predicted for decades, with video advancing in picture quality, sound, portability, and affordability. Yet film has itself improved over the years, and 35mm film remains the standard of attainment for video. Will high-definition (HD) video, in some form, finally eclipse film?"

CALL FOR DESIGNERS, ARTISTS & TECHNOLOGISTS: Let’s Create an Art & Tech Corridor at this Year’s 3 Rivers Arts Festival

Pittsburgh Art + Technology: "This year is a brand new year for the Three Rivers Arts Festival. Under new management, the folks at the festival have asked us for a proposal to infuse leading edge technology into the art show this June."

‘Sex and the City’ Writers Collaborate on a Stage Soap

NYTimes.com: "In the five years since the last original episode of HBO’s “Sex and the City,” the four women who wrote many of its scripts have only grown closer, serving as bridesmaids when one of their number was married and gathering for a weekly dinner they nicknamed Sushi and Story to talk about writing projects and catch up on gossip."

Big City - Once Homeless, Terri White Is Back in ‘Finian’s Rainbow’

NYTimes.com: "Midway through “Finian’s Rainbow,” which opens Thursday on Broadway, the stage veteran Terri White delivers a bluesy, rasping version of the song “Necessity.” The character wants to play, to rest her “head in the shade,” but, Ms. White belts out, turning to the face the audience directly, “the rent ain’t paid!”"

Anne Bogart - October, 2009

American Theatre Wing: "Director Anne Bogart discusses the formation of her SITI Company and why, after 16 years of existence, they're only now staging their first New York season at Dance Theatre Workshop. She also talks about her family's heritage in the Navy and how theatre played a role in her life as she moved from school to school (including two years in Japan), and why theatre and the Navy are alike; her 'All About Eve'-like assumption of the direction of her first show, while in high school in Rhode Island; the profound effect of seeing Macbeth at Trinity Rep; her journey through four colleges over five years on her way to a degree; her early work in New York, including sit-specific theatre on a shoestring; her time running the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU, including her acclaimed production of South Pacific set in a veterans' mental institution; her 'great and horrible' year as artistic director of Trinity Rep; how the SITI Company married the teachings of Tadashi Suzuki and the 'Viewpoints' system of performance; and why she sees Violence, Terror, and Eroticism as central to the task of directing."

Light Reflection and the Angle Of Incidence

On Stage Lighting: "The title sounds like an action movie but we are looking at some lighting theory of reflection, the angle of incidence and interaction of light with different surfaces. Plus the comforting constancy of physics and being able to predict what happens to a stage lighting beam once you’ve let it fly."

Lessons From the World's Best Project Managers

BNET: "How many times have you said, “I wish I knew then what I know now”? Many a project manager has had the same thought. We asked the managers behind big ventures, including the development of the battery for General Motors’ Chevy Volt, Facebook’s home page redesigns, and Method’s growing line of green cleaning products, for the most important lesson they’ve learned for launching projects with maximum success."

Professional Email Addresses

Men With Pens: "New freelancers make a few mistakes that no one will tell you are mistakes, because they don’t want to offend you, or they may have already disregarded you because of this stupid mistake and don’t wish to become mired in the soup of your (sure to be squalid) company.
Now, I know your company is neither squalid nor soup-like, and I have no fear of offending you. I am, in fact, sure that I will offend you, but I embrace this honor with open arms and live not in dread.
Come now! We shall discuss the ineptitudes of others! (For I am sure that you do not do any of these things, and if you do, I am sure you will not admit to them until you have safely remedied them quietly behind the scenes.)
So. You need a professional email address."

Despite All the Corpses Milling Around, Things Are Quite Lively at This Mall

WSJ.com: "Hundreds of pale-faced zombie wannabes gather here to lurch and stumble through the mall that served as the setting for George Romero's 1978 horror classic 'Dawn of the Dead.' The zombies wear dazed looks and blood-splattered clothes as they limp past stores like Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria's Secret. The hungry ones bellow for brains."

An Interview with ‘History for Hire’ Movie Prop Supplier Jim Elyea

Collectors Weekly: "Jim Elyea co-runs History for Hire, a prop house in Hollywood, California, and has provided props for a variety of movies, television shows, and music videos. Recently, Jim spoke with us about the different types of props and the different eras that History for Hire covers, as well as the steps he takes to make sure an item or scene setting is historically correct. Jim can be contacted via the History for Hire website."

Rastor to Vector Image Software

Technical Direction Tidbits: "Arbor Image has two products that are interesting for drafting; Draftsman Cutting Shop and Draftsman 2002. These programs take rastor images (like a photograph or scanned in drawing) and covert it to vector art."

What happens when two competitors combine forces.

PRODUCER’S PERSPECTIVE: "There are few industries like ours where our greatest friends can be our fiercest competitors. It makes for some awkward opening night parties."

Hobart Trek 180 Cordless Welder

Toolmonger: "If you want to know how the welding supply industry is reacting to the cordless market, take a gander at the Trek 180 battery-powered MIG Welder. It’s awesomeness in a 52-lb. box."

Carnegie Hall’s Gillinson Calls $530,000 Stagehand ‘Old Story’

Bloomberg.com: "Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director, Clive Gillinson, said the $530,044 pay last year for a unionized stagehand is “an old story” and declined to say whether he would seek to reduce earnings in future."

British Companies Adopt Digital Theatre

Backstage: "Five leading British theatrical companies have signed on to a new online service called Digital Theatre that will make stage productions available for high-definition download."

Association Marks 20 Years of Greening Hollywood

Backstage: "With local, organic food, minimal electricity use and on-site composting, the Environmental Media Association's 20th anniversary party might be the green standard for future Hollywood awards shows."

Governor Cites Credits as Runaway Prod'n Cure

Backstage: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was taking credit Monday for keeping the production of at least three dozen movies and TV shows in California, which passed a controversial series of tax incentives for the industry in February as the state fended off bankruptcy."

Diversity Awards to Honor 'Glee,' 'Parks'

Backstage: "The cast of Fox's 'Glee' will be presented the Favorite New Television Cast Ensemble Award at the Multicultural Motion Picture Assn.'s 17th annual Diversity Awards on Nov. 22 at the Beverly Hills Hotel."

Powerful Carnegie Hall, Broadway Union Nabs Downtown Stagehands

Bloomberg.com: "Stagehands at the nonprofit Joyce Theater voted 12 to zero to join Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Half that number are full-time workers; the rest are part-time. The powerful union struck Broadway in 2007 and negotiated a contract at Carnegie Hall that resulted in a props supervisor earning $530,044 last year."

Yale School of Drama Announces New Projection Design Concentration

Lighting&Sound America Online - News: "Yale School of Drama (James Bundy, dean; Victoria Nolan, deputy dean) will offer a new concentration in projection design under Wendall Harrington, within the design department (Ming Cho Lee, Stephen Strawbridge, co-chairs) beginning in the fall of 2010, the first such course of graduate theatre training in the United States."

IATSE Offers Concessionary Agreements to Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lighting&Sound America Online - News: "Lyric Opera of Chicago and representatives of IATSE have announced today that they have reached concessionary agreements on a number of employment contracts."

Three Days of Rain

This week in the Helen Wayne Rauh Studio Theater:

“Three Days of Rain”

directed by Marya Spring Cordes

Wednesday, October 28 at 8 pm

Thursday, October 29 at 8 pm

Friday, October 30 at 4 pm and 8 pm.

Tickets will be available one hour before each show.

Pig Pen

To the Men and Women of the Purnell Community,

We'll be performing the revised version of "The Old Man and The Old Moon"

in the Rauh this Friday night, October 30th, after Three Days of Rain closes (circa 11 pm) ...

Come check it out and help support us and the senior showcase!

5 dollars at the door. Tell your friends and enemies.

With Love,

-PigPen

http://www.PigPenTheatre.com/

Book Signing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Three Carnegie Mellon Drama Professors to Read from and Sign Copies of Their Books


Contact:
Ali Haimson
ahaimson@andrew.cmu.edu
412-268-2967

When:
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
4:30-5:30pm


Refreshments will be served.
Where:
Carnegie Mellon University Bookstore
Upper Level
5032 Forbes Ave.
University Center

More info:
The event’s facebook page: http://bit.ly/2u0EMU
Carnegie Mellon University Bookstore’s website: http://www.cmu.edu/bookstore






About the event:

Carnegie Mellon School of Drama professors Janet M. Feindel, Michael M. Chemers and Wendy Arons will be reading from and signing copies of their respective books at the Carnegie Mellon University Bookstore. Light refreshments and drinks will be provided. In May 2009, Janet Feindel released The Thought Propels the Sound, a book outlining her successful approach to training vocal techniques to performers. Michael Chemers released Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show in November 2008, and co-authored a new translation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata earlier that year. Wendy Arons is the author of Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women’s Writing: The Impossible Act, which was published in 2006.


About the authors:

Janet Madelle Feindel’s career as a voice/text/dialect and Alexander specialist includes coaching alongside Cicely Berry on the critically acclaimed The Merchant of Venice, starring Academy Award recipient F. Murray Abraham, which played in NYC off Broadway and at the RSC Complete Works Festival, England. She has coached at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Canadian Stage Company, the Shaw Festival and others, as well as film and television productions including the US Queer as Folk. She holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, as well as being a tenured faculty at the CMU School of Drama. Her articles have appeared in Canada’s Globe and Mail, The Alexander Congress Papers (STAT, UK), Canadian Theatre Review, The Performer’s Voice (Plural Publishing) and her play A Particular Class of Women is published by the Canada Playwrights Press. She presents at conferences and teaches internationally. She spent the 2009-2009 academic year as Visiting Professor at UCLA.

Michael Mark Chemers first came to Carnegie Mellon in 2003 as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Center for the Arts in Society, and joined the School of Drama faculty in 2004. He is the founder and director of the School’s Dramaturgy BFA Program. Michael holds a PhD in Theatre History and Theory from the University of Washington (2001) and an MFA in Playwriting from Indiana University (1997). With J.A. Ball, he adapted a version of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata which has been revived at universities across the US. His playwriting has received many national awards and has been performed across the country. He has over two decades of experience in dramaturgy.

Wendy Arons joined the faculty of the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University as Associate Professor of Dramatic Literature in 2007. Previous to that time she taught at the University of Notre Dame in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre. Her research interests include performance and ecology, 18th- and 19th-century theatre history, feminist theatre, and performance and ethnography. She is author of a book, various articles, as well as chapters in a number of anthologies. She has worked as a professional dramaturg with a number of leading directors, and has translated a number of plays from German into English. Arons is currently writing a second book that investigates performance practices associated with the agricultural sustainability movement. She is currently Director of the Performance and Ecology Public Art Initiative at CMU and is curating the Pittsburgh Eco-Drama Festival in fall 2009 as part of that initiative.


About the books:

The Thought Propels the Sound

"[Feindel's] book synthesizing pertinent knowledge and reducing it to the information most practical for voice and speech trainers is excellent, and overdue. It should be of great value in helping directors and voice trainers enhance the health and endurance of their actors' voices while enhancing their ability to express artistic emotion... The information in this book provides an invaluable introduction to the state of the art, and it should be read by anyone involved in voice training."
--Robert T. Sataloff, MD, DMA

Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show

“As a wide-ranging historian and dramaturg in a hands-on conservatory of theatre arts, Chemers knows that freakishness illuminates the conditions underlying all successful performance, because peculiarity, however stigmatized, can bestow eminence when effectively marketed. From the marriage of Tom Thumb to the firing of Frog Boy, Staging Stigma uncovers a history that will interest students of performance studies, disability studies, and American studies.”
--Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater, Yale University

Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women’s Writing: The Impossible Act

“This book is a magnificent contribution to the discussion of gender performance back in the day of its literary and dramatic codification in bourgeois modernity. Arons examines the actress playing the antitheatrical, ‘natural’ woman as a site of female subversion, gender anxiety, and a disconcerting discourse on sincerity. This is a must-read for those who think gender performance is only a post-modern concept. Scholars of the novel, dramatic theory, and eighteenth century gender studies will profit from this nuanced study on the drama of performed naïve femininity.”
--Jeannine Blackwell, Dean of the Graduate School, University of Kentucky


About Carnegie Mellon University Bookstore:

Carnegie Mellon University Bookstore is one of only two independent college bookstores remaining in Pittsburgh. We sell: textbooks and general books, clothing, gifts, stationery, art supplies, computers and electronics. Our aim is to serve the Carnegie Mellon campus community by providing the products that they need to succeed.

--
Book Department Manager
Carnegie Mellon University Bookstore
412-268-2967

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Creating Sustainable Theatres: Part 1

Live Design: "Following up on Bob Usdin’s excellent piece on the greening of the entertainment industry in the “Green Issue” (“How Green Is Green?” August 2008), I want to explore the broader picture, including the facility itself and the surrounding community."

Flight Simulator For Peter Pan

LiveDesign: "When designer Bill Dudley and his wife, director Lucy Bailey, met with producers in 2007 about a revamp of Peter Panproposed for a tent in Kensington Gardens in London, Dudley saw an opportunity to bring the vision of projected scenery he had been perfecting for five years full circle, literally."

"Ben Hur Live" Lit by Patrick Woodroffe using Martin Gear

PLSN: "For Ben Hur Live, staged recently at London’s O2 Arena, Patrick Woodroffe used a lighting rig of more than 200 Martin MAC 2000 Wash XB, MAC 2000 Profile and MAC III Profile moving heads for an epic musical stage production involving a cast of 400 and scenes that include a ship battle and chariot race."

Film industry feels the Olympics crunch

VancouverSun: "As if the rising Canadian dollar and the better tax incentives elsewhere weren’t bad enough, the British Columbia film industry faces another obstacle that may drive business elsewhere: the Winter Olympics."

Baltimore Women's Film Festival: Elena Moscatt's creates her niche right here in town by writing a series for the Web

baltimoresun.com: "If moviemaking won't come to Baltimore, Charm City's own budding moviemakers will make it happen, using all the means at their disposal - digital technology, eloquent locations and craft friendships developed in the years when this city had an amazing 2 1/2 film crews at work on movies such as 'Liberty Heights' and 'Cecil B. Demented,' and TV shows such as 'Homicide.'"

Star Wars music comes alive on stage

Houston Chronicle: "Age 63 is an odd time to begin acting like a rock star, but actor and teacher Anthony Daniels finds himself doing a show in one city, followed by travel, rehearsals and another show in another.
Daniels, best known for playing C-3PO in the Star Wars movies, is currently touring the country narrating Star Wars: In Concert, a lavish production that projects clips from the movie onto massive screens with John Williams' score performed by an orchestra. The stage veteran -- who lives in London except for when he serves as a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh -- talked about stage, screen and wearing a robot suit."

Crews work fast to make Century II 'Wicked'

Wichita Eagle: "Before witches sing and monkeys fly, before Munchkins dance and wizards bellow, before the curtain rises tonight and Kansas gets its first look at the gravity-defying musical 'Wicked,' there's work to do."

Build It With Tax Incentives, and Hollywood Will Come

WSJ.com: "All summer long, this sober Midwest city rubbed shoulders with actors such as Forest Whitaker, Adrien Brody and Elisabeth Shue. No fewer than four Hollywood productions were shooting in town.
'It was very surreal,' says Michael Braun, a 25-year-old bartender at the Continental, a restaurant near the state capitol. He recalls watching Nick Stahl in the HBO series 'Carnivale' one day before work and then serving the actor dinner at the bar that night. 'You don't expect that in Iowa,' Mr. Braun says."