A Call for Exciting Trans Theatre

HowlRound Theatre Commons: I’ve noticed a troubling trend in the world of transgender theatre. When I hear about a show with a trans character, even starring a trans actor, I rush to see it, wondering, What new frontiers of gender and identity will we be exploring tonight? And, almost very time, the answer is: None.

CBS Claims It’s Fighting Sexual Harassment. Its Actions Say Otherwise

Variety: At this point, a new breaking sexual harassment case at CBS isn’t exactly a surprise. Over and over again, powerful CBS company men from producers to executives to the ex-CEO himself have made headlines for propagating decades of harassment and abuse, with dozens of witnesses affirming that the pattern was business as usual.

Funny, Raunchy, and Tender: Philip Gates’ ‘A/B Machines’

Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama: “Feel free to take a selfie,” the ushers chimed to guests entering the Helen Wayne Rauh Studio Theater, indicating three photo booths in front of a silver tinsel curtain, set for Philip Gates’ A/B Machines, adapted from the work of Pittsburgh native Andy Warhol. The tinsel dropped to reveal the three performers: Hagan Oliveras, Henri Fitzmaurice, and Patrick Davis, spotlit amidst a visual homage to the 1960s and it was immediately evident that this production would be unlike any piece of theater the audience had seen before

Atlanta’s Found Stages is Having a ‘Frankenstein’s Ball’ (Q&A)

noproscenium.com: Nichole Palmietto is a director, producer and developer of new plays. She is a co-founder and executive director of Found Stages, an Atlanta-based theatre company whose mission is to take plays out of theaters and into real-world spaces, often incorporating technology in the process by producing podplays and text message plays.

Egypt's Puppet Show Al-Aragouz Joins UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List

The Theatre Times: Egypt’s most famous and oldest traditional children’s puppet show, El-Aragouz, was accepted to be a part of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

The intergovernmental committee gathered for a week in Mauritius for their annual event, in which they consider the traditional knowledge and skills that need to be safeguarded by adding them to the list.

Why High School Musicals Should Be As Respected As Sports Programs Are

www.theodysseyonline.com: When I was in middle school and high school, I felt like I lived for the musicals that my school orchestrated.

For those of you who don't know, a musical is an onstage performance wherein actors take on roles that involve singing, and often dancing, to progress the plot of the story. While it may sound a little bit nerdy to get up in front of an audience to perform in this manner, this is something you cannot knock until you try it.

Year in Review: A look back at the theatrical productions that dazzled us in 2018

ArtsATL: From sinking ships in high-spectacle musicals to heartfelt family dramas, the shows on Atlanta’s stages were as diverse as our beloved city. New faces popped up in unfamiliar spaces, and ArtsATL‘s theater critics were on the job, seeing hundreds of shows this year. Take a look at our picks for the productions and performers that deserve a little extra time in the limelight this year.

Our 24 favorite stage moments of 2018

DC Theatre Scene: We thought back on all the 464 plays seen in our area to find our favorite scenes of the year as part of our series of 2018 Wraps. We asked: what moments still linger with you and received these personal responses. We’d love to know about your favorite moments or performances.

Eight of 2018’s Most Affective Local Dance Performances/Productions

Dance + Live Performance | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: In a year filled with many fine local dance performances and programs, here are eight that touched area audiences’ hearts and minds in very different ways.

How Rodgers And Hammerstein Revolutionized Broadway

NPR: We're going to hear from Todd Purdum, author of the book "Something Wonderful: Rodgers And Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution," which tells the story of their partnership. Purdum loves their music, but he's best known as a political reporter. He covers politics and culture for The Atlantic, is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and senior writer for Politico. We're going to hear some Rodgers and Hammerstein cast recordings. Purdum also selected a couple of Rodgers and Hammerstein interview excerpts that we'll hear.

Clever Cosplayer Designed a Helmet That Makes His Eyes Intensely Glow Like Thor's Do

io9.gizmodo.com: You know someone or something is about to get an Asgardian-level beatdown when Thor’s eyes start to glow. It’s an effect in the movies that’s created by visual effects artists in post-production, but YouTuber KyleofAsgard has figured out how to create in real life with a custom-built Thor helmet and special contact lenses.

This Yente Found The Perfect Match, Performing 'Fiddler On The Roof' In Yiddish

NPR: Actor Jackie Hoffman grew up hearing Yiddish, but not really speaking it.

"I spoke what my mother calls kitchen Yiddish," Hoffman says — words here and there that she picked up from conversations between her mother and grandmother.

The language had always been a part of her life, but when she landed the part of Yente the matchmaker in a Yiddish language version of Fiddler on the Roof, she panicked. "It was intimidating," Hoffman admits.

Creative Technology Middle East provides projection mapping for reopening of Abu Dhabi’s Qasr Al Hosn

InPark Magazine: Qasr Al Hosn is the oldest and most significant heritage site in Abu Dhabi. It is the first structure to have been built in the capital and after more than 11 years of restoration, the site has now reopened its doors as a museum to the public, showcasing the development from a community reliant on fishing and pearling to the modern Abu Dhabi we see today.

Alcorn McBride strengthens customer and TEA ties during IAAPA Attractions Expo 2018

InPark Magazine: Alcorn McBride experienced one of its busiest shows ever at IAAPA 2018 where it debuted a new product, forged new partnerships and strengthened its ties to the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA).

Production Notes: On-Screen Tears

Nevada Film Office: When filming emotional scenes for a production where tears would help make the story more compelling, actors must be able to produce tears on cue. For some actors, they can achieve this through a technique of method acting called “memory driven tears” in which they are able to use real emotions they felt from past experiences to create a flood of tears.

Comedians and College Students Are Not Enemies

www.vulture.com: I wonder if Jerry Seinfeld knows that when he famously said colleges are too PC for stand-up comedy, he sparked a wholly unnecessary feud between stand-up comics and college students. At least in the comedy world, that’s how it feels. Earlier this month, the fire was stoked with the news of student organizers cutting former SNL writer Nimesh Patel’s set short at a Columbia University event.

50 Years of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

Make-Up Artist Magazine: Anybody who had the good fortune of meeting Stuart Freeborn knew he was a born storyteller. Freeborn, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 98, was a frequent visitor to IMATS London, where he was often surrounded by a crowd of spellbound listeners, right up until the moment he was packed into the back of a car to go home.

For actors and other theater workers, minimum wage is often the maximum, too

Datebook: In any other industry, the announcement of an across-the-board, $15 hourly wage wouldn’t be a big deal. Why celebrate a company for paying the legal minimum wage everyone else pays? And how was it ever allowed to pay less?

Yet for many working in the nonprofit theater industry, minimum wage is a welcome change.

Lepage Still White-Washing as 'Kanata' Opens in Paris

www.clydefitchreport.com: This past weekend, Robert Lepage’s Kanata premiered in France. Lepage’s company, Ex Machina, isn’t co-producing. Lepage is still directing, without remuneration.

Some back-story is needed to understand why this is still a problem. Let’s go way back.

Do We Really Need to Watch Shows in Silence?

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Growing up in Honduras, I picked up my knowledge of theatre etiquette from the movies (thank you Pretty Woman and Citizen Kane). I learned that I shouldn't talk, that I should unwrap my candy before the show and that I should sit as still as possible and wait for my cues to applaud and, perhaps, laugh or cry (though never too loudly). For years, I believed I should shun anyone who showed any signs of life while attending a performance.

Successful restoration project shows potential for woodworkers

Woodworking Network: About 35 years ago, a client asked me to reproduce a carved historic element that had deteriorated and fallen off the façade. I gave him my usual answer, “Yes!” even though I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it. At first I was a bit intimidated, but then I became intrigued. I have a unique skill set as a woodworker, sculptor, and artist, and I knew I was up for it.

‘Midnight Rider’ Case: Hillary Schwartz Asks For Shortened Sentence

Deadline: Midnight Rider’s first assistant director Hillary Schwartz, who in March 2015 was sentenced to 10 years probation for criminal trespass and felony involuntary manslaughter for her role in the death of 27 year-old camera assistant Sarah Jones, this morning asked a Georgia Judge to end her probation now. The Judge has not yet ruled on the motion (read it here).

Why I Broke Up With The American Theater

The Lark: As I waited for medical professionals to wheel me into the operating room, shivering under two blankets, I felt scared. I felt alone, and, for the first time, I wondered why I was there.

The obvious answer was I got injured while working on my last show. I suffered three herniated discs in my neck, and a badly injured back. It started as a back injury which I told stage management about twice. But I understood how stretched stage management was so, when nothing was done, I kept going. Until the major injuries happened.

Eliza Dushku: I worked at CBS. I didn’t want to be sexually harassed. I was fired

The Boston Globe: The narrative propagated by CBS, actor Michael Weatherly, and writer-producer Glenn Gordon Caron is deceptive and in no way fits with how they treated me on the set of the television show “Bull’’ and retaliated against me for simply asking to do my job without relentless sexual harassment. This is not a “he-said/she-said” case. Weatherly’s behavior was captured on CBS’s own videotape recordings.

Season of the Female Music Director

The Interval: When Meg Zervoulis was a high school student, she saw The Full Monty on Broadway. The show was conducted by Kimberly Gigsby, who was also the music director. As conductor, Grigsby was fully visible to the audience and, according to The New York Times, was wearing a backless gown at the request of the producers; meanwhile the members of the orchestra were in jeans and t-shirts.

Dispute over actors of color leads to ‘All My Sons’ director leaving Broadway revival

The Washington Post: A seasoned Broadway director has parted company with a forthcoming Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” because, he says, the late playwright’s estate declined to let him cast two black actors in a pair of sibling roles normally played by white actors. The dispute illuminates how the sincerest efforts at colorblind casting can sometimes spark creative rifts.

San Diego Opera planning 'hackathon' on cutting-edge stage technology

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Hackathons have become an annual tradition for engineering and other students at UC San Diego. Now, the cutting-edge style of these cross-discipline innovation summits is coming to the world of opera.

Next July, San Diego Opera will host what is believed to be the nation’s first large-scale arts-themed Opera Hack event at the Microsoft campus in San Diego.

Is It Time to Rethink "Men's" Class?

Dance Magazine: Next semester, there'll be a new course name on the syllabus of Boston Conservatory at Berklee: "Constructed Gender Identities in Classical Ballet: Men's Variations."

But this is not a new course, just a new title. The old name is one you might recognize: "Men's Class."

Taking the Swastikas out of High School Musicals

Tablet Magazine: Earlier this month, the principal of New York’s LaGuardia High School (aka “the school that Fame is based on”) attempted to remove the swastikas from a student production of The Sound of Music.

Students immediately rebelled. According to the parent of a student in the play, “The principal had been invited to rehearsals early in the process but didn’t go. She finally saw a rehearsal on Tuesday, December 4th. The play was opening two days later. She wanted to get rid of the swastikas. The drama and tech students were outraged. ‘It’s the Sound of Music! What do you mean, take out the swastikas?’ And Jewish parents were saying, ‘You’re whitewashing history!’”

Permanent projection mapping installation celebrates Toledo’s legacy as “Glass capital of the world”

InPark Magazine: The newly opened Renaissance Toledo Downtown in Ohio is delighting tourists and residents alike with a dazzling new permanent projection mapped public art installation on the hotel’s façade entitled “MindBlown Toledo.” Commissioned artist group Integrated Visions Productions(IVP) and its systems integration partner, Atlanta Soundworks, Inc.(ASW), selected Christie® HS Series laser projectors, Christie Pandoras Box and Christie Mystique™ Install to light up the 6,000 square foot digital mural with projection artworks that celebrate Toledo’s heritage as the glass capital of the world.

Megan Fox and the 'unlikable' women #MeToo left behind

www.nbcnews.com: Megan Fox knows you want her to shut up. At the height of her fame in the late 2000s, it often felt like major Fox interviews were mostly a chance for the press to rake through her quotes for faux pas. It was not at all uncommon for news outlets to call her “crazy,” sometimes right in the headline. Women’s media treated her with disdain, as the living embodiment of a plastic, synthetic, frat-boy-friendly beauty ideal: Jezebel crowned her “the patron saint of sexyface,” compiled a list of her "50 Best (& Worst) Bon Mots," and, when Fox joked about having “a powerful, confident vagina,” ran the story under the headline “But Can It Act?”

How to Make Your Own Logo Design (Do It Yourself Guide)

business.tutsplus.com: So you want to make your own logo. Well, you’ve come to the right place. Though often simple in style, logos are deceptively difficult to create. That’s because they’re not just a combination of pretty graphics with fancy fonts, but actual symbols used to identify a business.

The Hardest Effect I Ever Pulled Off

www.vulture.com: For nearly as long as we’ve had motion pictures, we’ve had illusions to put in them — and they’ve never come easy. The year 1893 saw the first public viewing of a kinetoscope film, Blacksmith Scene, and just two years later, early filmmaker Alfred Clark executed what is commonly regarded as the first special effect. In a gruesome short about the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, Clark stopped the film just as the blade was about to chop off Mary’s head, instructed the actors to freeze, took the one playing Mary off the set, replaced her with a dummy, and started the film again before bringing the poor dummy to its decapitated fate. Around the same time, the pioneering Georges Méliès developed a similar switcheroo, then went on to even mix live-action and animation in 1902’s legendary Le Voyage dans la Lune. The race to innovate hasn’t stopped since, and it has always involved pushing the medium to its limits.

#NFTRW 12-2-2018

Review Roundup: See The Critics Verdict On TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD On Broadway

www.broadwayworld.com: Based on an event that occurred in Alabama in the 1930s, Harper Lee's enduring story of racial injustice and the destruction of childhood innocence centers on one of the most beloved and admired characters in American literature, the small-town lawyer Atticus Finch.

Female directors provoked and excelled in leading roles

The Boston Globe: Cher has never been one to mince words, and she offered some typically blunt reasoning as she urged participants at a January Women’s March to vote for change. “If you want a job done right,’’ she said, “get a woman.’’

That maxim seems to have supplied the working template for Boston theater in 2018. This was a year when women, prominently including women of color, directed a hefty percentage of the impactful stage productions that are likely to linger in the memory as we head into 2019.

The Artists of Cathedral of Saint John the Divine's Residency Program

Artsy: Nestled in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine is not only the largest cathedral in the world, but likely also one of the most active. Though officially Episcopal, the cathedral has been known to host guests of all religious backgrounds and has a full calendar of cultural events—from organ recitals and art exhibitions to an annual holiday crafts market.

Parents Shocked By High School Play With Ku Klux Klan Uniforms

www.theroot.com: During a brief period of incarceration when I was 12 years old, I learned some valuable life lessons. I was serving three days of in-school suspension for a locker-room fracas that broke out when I punched a classmate who called me a racial slur because I had secured the co-starring role in our junior high production of Huckleberry Finn.

Nuncrackers

Pittsburgh in the Round: Nuncrackers is a Christmas concert that takes the form of a musical (book, music, and lyrics by Dan Goggin). It takes place in the convent basement/public access studio of the Little Sisters of Hoboken, New Jersey. The nuns paid for the studio upgrade with the Publisher’s Clearing House winnings of Sister Mary Paul (Kirstin Repco) who is also the strongest vocalist of the group. Given Kim Marston’s set design skews more cellar than a studio, it clearly wasn’t a very substantive check.

Chris Werner Creates Immersive “NightGarden” with Help from Over 360 CHAUVET Professional Fixtures

PLSN: By day the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden outside Miami is alive with vibrant color from the thousands of flowering plant species that bloom within its 83 acres. This holiday season, the world-renowned facility continues to glow even when the sun goes down, thanks to “NightGarden,” an illuminated walk-through exhibit produced by Kilburn Live that invites visitors to step into an enchanted world of purple palms, holographic butterflies, talking trees and other dazzling creations.

Die Hard N’at is for die-hard Pittsburghers

Theater Reviews + Features | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: Watching Die Hard N’at, the latest live show from the Midnight Radio crew at Bricolage, made me think back to a Pittsburgh night in 2002 when I drove by a billboard featuring someone named Mario Lemieux, a man I guessed, from his wearing hockey gear and holding a hockey stick, was a hockey player.

A star flutist has sued the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Her case could change how orchestras pay men and women.

Washington Post: On a winter day 14 years ago, the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced that it had finally found a new principal flutist. The search had not been easy. Two hundred fifty-one players had applied, 59 were called to Symphony Hall to audition, and when it was over, only one remained.

Elizabeth Rowe, just 29, had landed in one of the country’s “big five” orchestras. And as a principal, she occupied a special seat, the classical musical equivalent of cracking the Yankees’ starting rotation.

“If I could have a dream job, this was it,” Rowe says.

Do you love ‘Love Actually’? Then here's everything you need to know about ‘Love Actually Live’

Los Angeles Times: It’s possible that someone could respond with complete indifference to the news of a holiday production called “Love Actually Live,” opening Wednesday in Beverly Hills.

There may well be Christmas shoppers who, upon passing the banners at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, do not lose control of their vehicles. Pedestrians who wonder, “What’s that?” as they stroll toward Crate & Barrel down the street.

The Evolving Fusion of AR, Public Art, and Virtual Public Space

AMT Lab @ CMU: Public art in commercial and recreational structures is a means to bring communities together and directly connect people with the physical space around them. Typically, public art is presented in the form of murals, sculptures, architecture, and environmental art. In addition to social bridging, public artworks can serve as identity-markers for particular locations, mediums to express distinct points of view, and vehicles to inspire personal and social change.

Making Theatre in Non-Traditional Venues

HowlRound Theatre Commons: As a theatre director, developing the world of the show and defining the way an audience interacts with it excites me. Because my undergraduate training didn’t extend beyond the studio theatre environment, during my first years as a director in New York City, as I attempted creating work in non-traditional spaces, I made lots of mistakes. It wasn’t until I developed Oh Heroine How I Love You! as part of my master’s at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London that I was rigorously pushed to investigate how to properly merge theatrical world-building with an already existing site.

In The Unseen World: Performing Storytelling In The World Of Indigenous Peoples

The Theatre Times: In the new theatre research LabO located in the Ottawa Art Gallery, a group of students and friends came to watch the final portion of a research project presented by indigenous artists collaborating with Vivi Sørensen, a freelance artist who is preparing her directors diploma for the Master’s program in Fine Arts at the University of Ottawa. Sorensen, an Inuk actress from Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, and a graduate of the Danish School of Performing Arts have integrated Myths from northern people into her storytelling techniques.

TuYo Theatre aims to reinvigorate Latinx theater in San Diego

The San Diego Union-Tribune: The five prime movers behind the new Tuyo Theatre are in the middle of trying to articulate the happy accidents and artistic affinities that brought them all together, when a single word seems to bubble up in the room: chispa.

Restored Frankfurt Old Town Opens with Drone and Proteus™ Show

LightSoundJournal.com: Prior to 1944, Frankfurt had one of the most beautiful and largest medieval half-timbered old towns in Germany. Recently restored to its former beauty, the architectural treasure was opened in September with a cultural program that included a unique nighttime drone show supported by lighting effects from Elation Proteus Hybrid™ moving head fixtures.

Suzanne Foellmer: Choreography As A Form Of Protest

The Theatre Times: Erdem Gündüz’s Standing Man was originally a response to the ban on public assembly imposed after the 2013 protests in Gezi Park in Istanbul. Gündüz just stood there, looking at the Atatürk monument and not leaving. Others later followed his example and stood next to him. The action quickly went viral on social media. Maybe it wasn’t extreme in expression, but in any case, it was a very much an act of resistance to which the police didn’t know how to respond.

#NFTRW 11-25-18

NFTRW Weekly Top Five

Here are the top five comment generating posts of the past week:

Triggered: A Defense of Theatrical Content Warnings

www.newcitystage.com: Trigger and content warnings: they are a topic of debate in all kinds of circles and have popped up frequently in my own circle largely because of the play “Downstate” at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. There is a lot of criticism targeted at trigger warnings. They can be seen as infantilizing an audience. Yet when it comes to offering people a chance to consider their own feelings, it shows that the theater takes respect of its audience into consideration.

Posted by David at 12/07/2018 11:27:00 AM

How to Network When In-Person Contact Stresses You Out

lifehacker.com: Talking to strangers in a crowded room where everyone wants something from each other is a true nightmare, and at times it’s the most direct path to career development. But there is another way to network—from behind a computer screen.

Posted by David at 12/04/2018 02:36:00 PM

Roundtable: The Wild, Weird & Fun World Of Technical Riders

ProSoundWeb: “What’s the strangest (weird, interesting, funny, etc.) thing you’ve ever seen requested on a rider?” Let’s see what our panel of audio professionals has to say.

Posted by David at 12/07/2018 11:06:00 AM

Less Is More Or Less Is Less: The Balancing Act Of Designing Big Musicals In Small Spaces

The Theatre Times: When you think of the ways that musicals have traditionally been produced you conjure up images of these large-scale, traditional, “wing and drop” shows. When I was a young designer just starting out, I soon discovered that many of the theaters that were hiring me to work on these musicals were unable to recreate them at that level. They either didn’t have the fly loft or didn’t have the wing space and they seldom had the budget. So naturally, the show had to be reimagined.

Posted by David at 12/07/2018 11:02:00 AM

Disney's New Beauty and the Beast Ride Is Amazingly Lifelike

io9.gizmodo.com: Disney’s Imagineers—the company’s term for the artists, designers, and engineers who create its theme park attractions—are about to revolutionize the art of turning the studio’s animated films into rides that bring visitors right into the movie. Tokyo Disneyland is in the process of building a Beauty and the Beast ride with animatronic characters that are like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

Posted by David at 12/07/2018 11:01:00 AM

Triggered: A Defense of Theatrical Content Warnings

www.newcitystage.com: Trigger and content warnings: they are a topic of debate in all kinds of circles and have popped up frequently in my own circle largely because of the play “Downstate” at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. There is a lot of criticism targeted at trigger warnings. They can be seen as infantilizing an audience. Yet when it comes to offering people a chance to consider their own feelings, it shows that the theater takes respect of its audience into consideration.

How 'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' brought New York City back to the 1950s

nypost.com: Recreating the New York City of the late 1950s for Emmy-winning “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is a process of elimination, imagination and transformation. It takes a lot to make pesky Soul Cycle signs vanish and turn a library into a bustling department store.

Facing the Real Monsters in 'King Kong'

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: While writing The Making of King Kong, Lisa Clair almost abandoned the project. "It is too big, it is too scary," the recent graduate of Brooklyn College's playwriting program recalls thinking. She wasn't frightened of the oversize title ape; she was wary of the piece's giant themes: racism and sexism. The 1933 King Kong film is now understood as a coded exploration of interracial relationships and the evils of colonialism. In crafting her play about the making of that movie, Clair wanted to make its subtext the text so she could unpack those complex ideas. But, as a white woman, she worried whether she was "equipped" to enter the conversation.

Review Roundup: Critics Weigh In On Menier Chocolate Factory's Revival Of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

www.broadwayworld.com: This joyous and heart-breaking story of the travails of Tevye the milkman, his wife and five daughters features such classic songs as "Sunrise, Sunset," "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" and remains a heart-warming celebration To Life - L'chaim!

The first London production of Fiddler on the Roof opened in February 1967 at Her Majesty's Theatre; and the most recent London production opened in May 2007 at the Savoy Theatre with Henry Goodman as Tevye.

Roundtable: The Wild, Weird & Fun World Of Technical Riders

ProSoundWeb: “What’s the strangest (weird, interesting, funny, etc.) thing you’ve ever seen requested on a rider?” Let’s see what our panel of audio professionals has to say.

Winning Together: “The One Thing I Wish Live Mix Engineers Would Do Is…”

ProSoundWeb: One recent day I got to thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great to come up with an idea for an article that would write itself?” It led me to pose the following question to friends on Facebook: “Musicians – what’s the one thing you would like to ask sound engineers/technicians to do differently?”

CMU Presents Drama Master Class to Florida Students

www.cmu.edu/news: Melody Herzfeld continues to reap the benefits as the recipient of the Excellence in Theatre Education Award (EITEA) at the 2018 Tony Awards.
As part of her prize, Herzfeld, drama teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, hosted Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama Professor Don Wadsworth and CMU alumna Chante Adams, who presented a master class to Herzfeld’s students in mid-November.

It was the first time a master class was offered to an EITEA winner’s school.

Less Is More Or Less Is Less: The Balancing Act Of Designing Big Musicals In Small Spaces

The Theatre Times: When you think of the ways that musicals have traditionally been produced you conjure up images of these large-scale, traditional, “wing and drop” shows. When I was a young designer just starting out, I soon discovered that many of the theaters that were hiring me to work on these musicals were unable to recreate them at that level. They either didn’t have the fly loft or didn’t have the wing space and they seldom had the budget. So naturally, the show had to be reimagined.

Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think Of Bryan Cranston In NETWORK On Broadway?

www.broadwayworld.com: NETWORK is directed by Tony and Olivier Award winner Ivo van Hove (A View From the Bridge, The Damned), adapted by Tony and Olivier Award winner Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) and based on the Academy Award-winning film by Paddy Chayefsky. Network is presented in association with Dean Stolber.

Disney's New Beauty and the Beast Ride Is Amazingly Lifelike

io9.gizmodo.com: Disney’s Imagineers—the company’s term for the artists, designers, and engineers who create its theme park attractions—are about to revolutionize the art of turning the studio’s animated films into rides that bring visitors right into the movie. Tokyo Disneyland is in the process of building a Beauty and the Beast ride with animatronic characters that are like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

SAG-AFTRA Blasts BBH Ad Executive as ‘Hypocrite of the Week’

Variety: SAG-AFTRA is keeping up the pressure on the advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, calling one of its top officers “hypocrite of the week.”

The union, which is in the third month of a strike against BBH, made the announcement Thursday about BBH’s global chief strategy officer and New York chairman Sarah Watson.

“Conflict Of Interest” Charge Leveled In IATSE Local 871 Elections

Deadline: The election of officers and board members at IATSE Local 871 is heating up with three weeks to go until ballots are counted. Presidential candidate Crystal Hopkins told Deadline that her opponent, Doug Boney, has a “conflict of interest” that makes him “unable to be a full-time representative of our local.” Boney claims that Hopkins’ “vague and inaccurate statement may be due to her lack of experience in union governance.”

Give the Gift of Excellent Actor Mic’ing this Christmas

Church Production Magazine: If you're reading this article, you probably know full well that microphones can make or break your Christmas production. Wireless mics play a unique role in the audio chain. If they fail, they take down the entire chain with them, and the audience focuses on strange sounds—or no sound—instead of the performance itself.

The Use Of Children In Milo Rau’s "Five Easy Pieces": Exploitation, Or Confrontational Theatre?

The Theatre Times: This summer, as I was about to embark on initiating my fifth divisive performance with children and teenagers, the question about the ethics of engaging them in theatre for adults reintroduced a well-known fever and dilemma. The use of youngsters is a silver bullet that most of us get hit by; the effect is similar to using music to glorify a dramatic moment which may otherwise be too weak to stand on its own: it cracks our hearts open, and our cold, conscious judgment is mesmerized by the strong effect of our instinctive emotional reaction.

The History Of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Theatre Nerds: “I closed my eyes, drew back the curtain to see for certain what I thought I knew. Far far away someone was weeping, but the world was sleeping, Any Dream Will Do”. On November 30th, 2018 it was announced to the public that Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat would be returning to the West End in 2019 next summer.

For The Love of Theatre–How The First Black Othello Changed My Life

The Theatre Times: Producer and Editor Titilola Dawudu talks about the moment that inspired her love of theatre, and led to the creation of the all-new monologue anthology Hear Me Now: Audition Monologues For Actors of Colour.

Radical Inclusion of Parent Artists

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Women in theatre are warned not to have children because motherhood will derail their career. If they choose to become mothers, they are warned to keep pregnancies secret from potential employers. Once those children arrive, parents are discouraged from asking for what they need, despite the prohibitively high cost of childcare and intense rehearsal and production schedules, especially considering artists generally get paid low rates. But there’s a movement happening in theatre communities all over: parent artists are bringing these particular challenges they face into the light and are advocating for change.

The Rise and Fall of the Women's Restroom Lounge

CityLab: At the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, thousands of people lined up to see one of the event’s most talked-about attractions. For a penny, visitors could not only see this modern marvel up close, but they also had the opportunity to test it out, pulling chains that demonstrated how the new technology worked. It was a mahogany-seated flushing toilet in a women’s restroom.

Pantone's Color of Year 2019 is Living Coral

www.fastcompany.com: The reign of Millennial Pink–that literally and figuratively cool hue whose blue undertones flattered no one–seems to be coming to an end at last. In its place? We have Living Coral. It’s Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2019, following the company’s annual, wide-ranging analysis of color trends across culture.

Point Park’s Conservatory Dance Company to christen new PNC Theatre with star-studded production

Dance + Live Performance | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: It took more than two years to renovate Point Park University's new state-of-the-art Pittsburgh Playhouse, adding the 550-seat PNC Theatre and a 2,738-square-foot soundstage, among other new features. The space opened in October, but this week marks the first production in the new spot, with a stellar program featuring student dancers and four world-renowned choreographers — including Tyce Diorio of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance fame.

Here's a new concept for nighttime entertainment at water parks

www.themeparkinsider.com: How can you keep a water park open at night? Water and darkness are a bad mix for safety, so keeping pools and waterslides open at night requires quite a bit of lighting power. That's not a big deal for hotel pools and the other relatively small installations, but it becomes an overwhelming issue for sprawling water parks, which is why most of them close when the sun goes down.

The Choreographer Who's Done Nutcracker Four Times

www.dancemagazine.com: Choreographer Val Caniparoli started his ballet career by performing in Lew Christensen's The Nutcracker with San Francisco Ballet in 1971. Today, he still performs with SFB as Drosselmeir, in the company's current version by Helgi Tomasson.

It takes Caniparoli a lot of concentration to stick to the choreography.

The Curran at a Crossroads

KQED Arts: When the Curran Theater reopened in early 2017 after two years of renovation, owner Carole Shorenstein Hays declared her vision to create an innovative arts space in San Francisco.

Even before the Curran was able to open for full productions, it made do—and made headlines—in 2015 with a series of experimental and off-kilter works called Curran: Under Construction.

5 Things to Listen for When Choosing a Microphone

Pro Audio Files: Purchasing a microphone can be daunting. Even inexpensive microphones cost hundreds of dollars, and high-end microphones cost thousands. On top of that, there are a lot of options on the market and each one is a little different than the next.

2 Milly will sue Fortnite creators for allegedly stealing his dance

Business Insider: Brooklyn rapper 2 Milly plans to sue "Fortnite" creator Epic Games for allegedly copying and profiting off of a dance he created, the "Milly Rock."

2 Milly has been vocal about his distaste for the game's monetization of popular dances in interviews with Insider and CBS News. The "Milly Rock" dance originally arose in 2014 from the video for 2 Milly's song of the same name, "Milly Rock."

Do You Speak Tech? Report From An Interdisciplinary And Cross-Cultural Partnership

The Theatre Times: The answer to the question posed in the title would be: “Yes, we do speak Tech…or at least, better than we did at the beginning of the European Theatre Lab (ETL).” The marriage between theatre and technology seems as complex as any real-life relationship and, in order to make it work, it needs pretty much the same ingredients: time, commitment, mutual trust, and a bit of love.

How To Disappear Completely: My Year Of Working Without Corrective EQ

ProSoundWeb: A few years ago, I embarked on a quest to remove the last few bands of corrective parametric equalization from the input channels of my front of house mix for Umphreys McGee (UM). I spent two full years working out how to give up corrective EQ, and now I feel ready to explain how I did it.

Disabled Artists Launch National Disability Theatre

AMERICAN THEATRE: A group of disabled theatre artists have announced the creation of National Disability Theatre, a company that will produce fully accessible live performances. The company will exclusively contract actors, designers, directors, and staff who have disabilities.

TOP 10 museums and cultural venues of 2018

www.designboom.com: 2018 saw the opening of several much-anticipated museums and cultural centers around the world. bold designs characterize the buildings, as established names in the field of architecture have collaborated with some of the biggest cultural institutions across the globe to bring their creative visions to life. stretching out into dundee’s river tay, kengo kuma’s geometric V&A dundee museum is inspired by scotland’s dramatic cliffs, while álvaro siza designed a series of concrete structures for an arts complex in south korea.

Is There a Link between Creativity and Mental Illness?

Artsy: Plato and Aristotle thought about it. And like many of the matters they considered, which we still ponder now, it’s the sort of question your pompous college classmate would’ve called “eternal.”
It’s a question that’s still applicable and widely debated: Is there a link between mental illness and creativity? In other words, does suffering through some disconnection from reality confer upon the sufferer greater powers of creativity? From a psychiatric viewpoint, the answer is no, definitely not.

Female Genre Writers Are Creating Their Own Production Company

The Mary Sue: Lindsey Beer. Nicole Perlman. Geneva Robertson-Dworet. These three women are among the most well-known female genre screenwriters, with titles like Chaos Walking, Captain Marvel, and Guardians of the Galaxy under their belts. Together, they’re working towards bringing more female-written stories to the screen with their new production company, Known Universe.

Limestone Mine Hosts Second ‘Subsurface’ Art Event

90.5 WESA: Pittsburgh is familiar with unusual venues for music and performance art. Over the years, it’s seen art rock in a junkyard, and theater both on a river barge and in an empty swimming pool.

Subsurface was likely a milestone, though. The Carnegie Mellon University event last year was probably the first ever around here held in the labyrinth-like setting of a limestone mine.

Jerry Saltz: How to Be an Artist

www.vulture.com: Art is for anyone. It’s just not for everyone. I know this viscerally, as a would-be artist who burned out. I wrote about that last year, and ever since, I’ve been beset — every lecture I give, every gallery I pop my head into, somebody is asking me for advice. What they’re really asking is “How can I be an artist?”

RMU faculty to teach remaining Filmmakers courses

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Faculty from Robert Morris University’s Media Arts department will teach the remaining classes that 17 nontraditional students need to finish their coursework and earn a certificate from Pittsburgh Filmmakers School of Filmmaking and Photography.

Holiday Gifts Every Live Sound Engineer Will Love

Live Design: Surprise! It’s December. Did the holiday season sneak up on you again? Don’t panic: The elves at Live Design have your back. Whether you’re looking for functional features or the awesomely impractical, we have great ideas for every live sound engineer on your shopping list.

Subsurface: CMU's second annual underground art and music exhibition is beautiful and bizarre

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: For the second year, Carnegie Mellon University bused roughly 200 audience members to an Armstrong County limestone mine about 50 miles northeast of Pittsburgh to experience an art installation and concert deep among the twisting tunnels.

TheatAR Project Brings Childhood Classic to Life with AR

www.cmu.edu/news: TheatAR, a semester-long student initiated project in the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), combines stage actors and animation to create a first-of-its-kind experience in the retelling of the classic “Peter Pan.” Through a Microsoft HoloLens, an animated Tinker Bell interacts with Peter and Wendy upon their first meeting, bringing her mischief and mannerisms once reserved for movies to a theater audience.

Cleaning It Up: Methods For Controlling Low-Frequency Energy In The Mix

ProSoundWeb: Recently, a colleague and I were working on a show in a highly reverberant space. Although we only had a few vocal microphones on stage, the room was an acoustic challenge, with a really nasty 80 Hz mode that rang like a bell for more than 2 seconds.

Tradition Reimagined: A Review of the Joffrey Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” at the Auditorium Theatre

www.newcitystage.com: The Joffrey Ballet is one of many dance companies to recognize and respond to this cultural need in its redesign of this treasured classic. Now in its third season, Tony award-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s “Nutcracker” was envisioned specifically with Chicago viewers in mind. The new version is set within the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and was inspired by a historic picture of a wooden clapboard shack on the construction site of the fair’s White City.

How to Network When In-Person Contact Stresses You Out

lifehacker.com: Talking to strangers in a crowded room where everyone wants something from each other is a true nightmare, and at times it’s the most direct path to career development. But there is another way to network—from behind a computer screen.

Dance Theatre of Harlem at 50: Inside Company Rehearsals

www.pointemagazine.com: "Keep the rhythm going," calls Robert Garland, Dance Theatre of Harlem's resident choreographer, from the front of the studio. Five company women pulse through a series of syncopated pony steps, upright arabesque sissonnes and funky, Motown-inspired dance moves. It's an open rehearsal in early September, and the company is giving curious audience members a sneak peek at Garland's upcoming world premiere—one of several new works this season as DTH celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The Rockettes and Race: A Very White Christmas

The New York Times: On Wednesday, as it happened, I went to see the “Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes,” which is something you can do at 11 o’clock in the morning in late November in Manhattan. I was by myself. My son, like so many children growing up in New York and fed with its imperious cultural attitudes, would sooner eat a head of escarole than choose to see something dependent on the word “spectacular” as a noun.

Wheelchair Concertgoer Demands More Inclusion In Australia

www.ticketnews.com: Buying a ticket to an event should be a seamless experience, but for disabled concertgoers, this is rarely the case.

In Australia, wheelchair users struggle trying to buy tickets to a show and are often placed elsewhere from their companion. One advocate, Stephanie Travers, is trying to change the way the system works with a growing anti-discrimination campaign.

7 Ways To Screw-up Your Flame Retarding

Guild of Scenic Artists: A Scenic Artist’s main job is to “execute the designer’s ideas and concepts of a show using a myriad of techniques like painting, carving and texture work.” However, we also have a second job – making the scenery safe in case of fires. This extra task often falls onto our shoulders because we are the last stop for a scenic element before it gets loaded into the space. We also want to make sure that whatever fire-resistant treatments also don’t ruin our hard work.

Vivienne by Silver Theater at the Glitterbox

Pittsburgh in the Round: Designed as a showcase for playwrights, directors, and actors of the “over forty” set, The Silver Theater Project continues its Salon Play staged reading series with Vivienne at The Glitterbox Theater on December 8thand 9th.

Review Roundup: The Critics Weigh In On THE CHER SHOW On Broadway!

www.broadwayworld.com: The Cher Show, a new musical based on the music icon Cher officially opens on Broadway tonight!

Superstars come and go. Cher is forever. For six straight decades, only one unstoppable force has flat-out dominated popular culture - breaking down barriers, pushing boundaries, and letting nothing and no one stand in her way.

Marya Sea Kaminski Steps Out with a Tempest for Our Times

Pittsburgh in the Round: Taking the reins at Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Artistic Director Marya Sea Kaminski summons Shakespeare for her directorial debut of her innovative adaptation of The Tempest, January 24-February 24, 2019. Her production next conjures a wintry world in the O’Reilly Theater following the Regency merriment of Pride and Prejudice and the gritty realism of Sweat in her first season and the company’s 44th year.

Podcast: Daniel Morena Discusses Powering Audience Engagement with Artificial Intelligence

AMT Lab @ CMU: Artificial Intelligence opens new avenues for museums to engage audiences, and create a plural vision of the museum. In our latest podcast Daniel Morena, of 32Bits, discusses the Iris+ AI exhibit integration used at the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

See Every Single Vermeer in Google's AR Museum

gizmodo.com: It used to be that the fastest, easiest way to view the paintings of Johannes Vermeer was a Google Image search. Now you can just download an app and view the 36 works widely attributed to the artist in an augmented reality museum from the comfort of your home.

11 Tips on How to Resolve (Almost) Any Conflict in the Workplace

www.lifehack.org: It takes a lot to lead people who have the same desire, dream, and vision. It is even more challenging to lead transformation and change in people who are deeply entrenched in tradition and have a rigid way of thinking. As a result, it is not uncommon for conflict to arise in the marketplace due to a difference in opinion and communication styles.

However, not all conflicts in the workplace are bad.

When South Africa Banned Pink Floyd's The Wall After Students Chanted "We Don't Need No Education" to Protest the Apartheid School System (1980)

Open Culture: When Apartheid states get the blessing of powerful nations, lobbies, and corporations, they seem to feel empowered to do whatever they want. Such was the case, for a time, in South Africa, the country that coined the term when it put its version of racial segregation in place in 1948. The Apartheid system finally collapsed in 1991, decades after its counterpart in the U.S.—its undoing the accumulated weight of global condemnation, UN sanction, boycotts, and growing pressure from citizens in wealthy countries.

Second City, the famed comedy troupe, has its own workplace anti-harassment training

Chicago Tribune: In a large conference room in a suburban Dallas office park, three dozen employees of an American manufacturing company are standing in a circle, tossing around a bunch of imaginary balls. Some are red, they are told - others are aqua, yellow or green. But before long the balls turn into "dirty tissues," "dead roaches" and even a "sleeping baby." Each time a staffer "catches" an imaginary item, he or she is supposed to say what it is and then say "thank you," but the niceties are drowned out by laughter over the seemingly nonsensical exercise.

Aaron Sorkin on Adapting Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

www.vulture.com: “I have something very exciting to talk to you about.” That’s how Scott Rudin, the EGOT-winning producer, began a phone call to me three years ago. The last three times he’d called me to say, “I have something very exciting to talk to you about,” I ended up writing The Social Network, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs. So I was listening.

How a Swarm of Drones Ended Up in the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular

gizmodo.com: If you haven’t seen the Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes, you can probably picture the iconic line of dancers kicking in unison, like a salute to American entertainment from a century ago. Well, this year the show got a surprising update: drones.

Dozens of tiny autonomous quadcopters built by Intel float over the Rockettes during the finale of the new show, and the effect is almost magical.

A Room Of One’s Own: A Theatre Translator In Residence

The Theatre Times: Translation can sometimes be a lonely profession. It is ironic that, although we work with texts that come from all over the world, many of us do much of our work in our own homes, sometimes not even meeting the writers we work with or the people who commission us face-to-face. It can also be a precarious profession. Just like freelancers of all professions, our income fluctuates and we rely on generating a flow of work in order to make our choice of career feasible. One of the counterweights to these challenges over recent years has been the translation residency.

Review Roundup: COME FROM AWAY Lands in Los Angeles

www.broadwayworld.com: COME FROM AWAY tells the remarkable true story of 7,000 stranded passengers and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them. Cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night, and gratitude grew into enduring friendships.

Ease On Down the Road: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About THE WIZ

Breaking Character: The 1978 musical The Wiz is one of the most beloved and treasured classic musicals of all time. Being a re-imagined version of another world-renowned classic, The Wizard of Oz, how can’t it be? Not to mention, the original film had a star-studded cast featuring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and many more pop culture icons of the decade.

Alabama School Will Perform ELF JR. With Largest Child Cast of a Broadway JR. Musical Ever

www.broadwayworld.com: Over 500 North Mobile county children from McDavid-Jones Elementary School in Citronelle will make history when they perform a production of Elf The Musical JR.on December 5th on the Citronelle High School football field. The production will feature the largest cast ever of children in a Broadway JR. musical, according to the licensor Music Theatre International.

Point Source Audio Sounding Board Blog: Mic Concealment Made Easy

Stage Directions: One of the challenges that face both designers and technicians is how to hide a microphone on an actor. In their hair or in their costume; there weren’t a lot of good solutions to this challenge, until Point Source Audio created its EMBRACE™ Earmount microphone solution. As a customizable mic’ing solution that is engineered for concealing, EMBRACE has earned praise from end-users, as well as two patents from the U.S. Patent Office.

If You Don’t Know Your Noh From Your Kabuki, You Can Still Enjoy Japanese Theater

The New York Times: For Western theatergoers, critics included, watching Japanese stage productions can be a humbling experience. Too few make it abroad to allow a complete view of Japan’s distinguished theater tradition: With context missing and a limited frame of reference, the plays can seem mysterious. A useful rule of thumb is to admit ignorance — and embrace the unknown.

Making a Sea of Waves with Some Serious Custom Automation

Stage Directions: The Dutch National Opera & Ballet (Amsterdam) shows us how they created a sea of waves on stage for their production of Das Floß der Medusa.

Is The New York Theater Scene Serving Disabled Artists And The Disabled Population?

thetheatretimes.com: The New York theater scene is often thought of as the pinnacle of progression, where the newest shows that explore relevant topics are produced and then showcased around the world. Within the past few years, disability awareness and activism has sparked concerns about the lack of disability representation in media, and rightly so.

Playing with Scale: How Stage Designers Use Set Models Exhibit at the National Theatre

Stage Directions: Playing with Scale: How Stage Designers Use Set Models is a new free exhibition at the National Theatre that explores how designers use set models for theatre-making. Playing with Scale unfolds the idea of a scale model and explains the importance of models as a design tool. This free exhibition is in the Wolfson Gallery and it’s open now and runs through March 23, 2019.

Friday Essay: 50 Shades Of Shakespeare--How The Bard Sexed Things Up

The Theatre Times: It’s hard to imagine a more literary or successful author than William Shakespeare, formerly of Stratford-upon-Avon. Around the world, his plays are widely taught and expensively performed. Journalists and scholars look to him for social and political insights. In Washington DC, notionally the capital of the free world, the Folger Shakespeare Library stands near the Capitol building and the Library of Congress as a grand memorial to the Immortal Bard.

#WorldsAIDSDay 2018, Still Affecting Theater Community. Watch Javier Munoz talk about HIV

New York Theater: Today is World AIDS Day. Since last World AIDS Day, there have been some 38,000 new HIV infections in the United States alone. More than 1.1 million people in the US are living with HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control. (Basic HIV Statistics from CDC)

The death from AIDS of theater artist Michael Friedman last year at the age of 41 was a shocking reminder that, yes, people still die from AIDS — and yes it is still affecting the New York theater community.

What It's Like to Be Part of Heidi Latsky's ON DISPLAY

www.dancemagazine.com: There is someone less than a foot away from me, just off of my right shoulder, observing the way I'm holding my hand strangely, but perhaps gracefully? I hope my nails are clean. My arm is starting to tremble. I'm not even sure how much time has gone by. I let my arm gently, almost imperceptibly, fall, allowing my shoulder to melt with it, and stop myself mid-breath. "I am...right here," I say to myself with my director's voice in my head. I am ON DISPLAY.

NFTRW Weekly Top Five

Here are the top five comment generating posts of the last week:

How to Emotionally Detach From Criticism

lifehacker.com: You’ll never make everybody happy—and the people that aren’t happy are liable to tell you why. Criticism is part of the price of being human. But even though we know that, it’s hard to deal when the negative stuff starts rolling in. Share an opinion on the internet—or just report some inconvenient facts (ask me how I know)—and you may have hordes of people telling you what a bad person you are. Here’s how to stop criticism from ruining your day.

Posted by David at 11/30/2018 01:12:00 PM

How Restaurants Got So Loud

The Atlantic: Let me describe what I hear as I sit in a coffee shop writing this article. It’s late morning on a Saturday, between the breakfast and lunch rushes. People talk in hushed voices at tables. The staff make pithy jokes amongst themselves, enjoying the downtime. Fingers clack on keyboards, and glasses clink against wood and stone countertops. Occasionally, the espresso machines grind and roar. The coffee shop is quiet, probably as quiet as it can be while still being occupied. Even at its slowest and most hushed, the average background noise level hovered around 73 decibels (as measured with my calibrated meter).

Posted by David at 11/30/2018 01:10:00 PM

No Retractable Blades

Prop Agenda: What is a retractable knife? We have all seen them at novelty shops or with Halloween costumes. When you push the blade against a surface, it slides up into the handle. When you pull it back, a spring inside forces the blade back out of the handle. With enough speed, it appears that the knife blade is plunging into your body as someone stabs you.

Posted by David at 11/30/2018 01:08:00 PM

Museum Aims To Be A Model For Making Collections Available Via 3D Printing

WVXU: The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis was one of the first museums to offer free 3D printing of its art collection, all in an effort to make it more accessible to the public. It now hopes to be a model for other museums around the country.

Posted by David at 11/30/2018 01:09:00 PM

How to overcome your excuses for not prioritizing sleep

www.fastcompany.com: Not getting enough sleep at night? You’re not alone. According to research by the Harvard Business Review, 43% of business leaders don’t get enough sleep at least four nights a week. Yes, you read that right–for the majority of the workweek, you’re probably working with someone who’s running on fumes, metaphorically speaking.

Posted by David at 11/27/2018 12:29:00 PM

Advanced Small Console Techniques: Maximizing The Available Feature Set

ProSoundWeb: Everyone loves a big console. Even when they’re small in size, like modern digital consoles, we favor consoles that have everything we need to solve any problem that may come up.

But what about those times when, for whatever reason, a big console is not available?

That’s the time for ingenuity and some special techniques that maximize the usefulness of the available feature set. Some people call these “workarounds,” but the term I like is “tricks.”

“Bathtubs Over Broadway,” Reviewed: Can a Musical Sponsored by a Toilet Manufacturer Be a Work of Art?

The New Yorker: From the title alone, it’s obvious that “Bathtubs Over Broadway,” a new documentary by Dava Whisenant that opens this Friday, will be a delight. Its subject is the industrial musical—plays produced by corporations for their employees to enjoy at nationwide or regional sales meetings and conventions. Steve Young, who was, for more than twenty years, a writer for David Letterman, became obsessed, in the mid-nineties, with these shows—in particular, with LPs of them, which were pressed solely to be distributed to employees as souvenirs.

How to Emotionally Detach From Criticism

lifehacker.com: You’ll never make everybody happy—and the people that aren’t happy are liable to tell you why. Criticism is part of the price of being human. But even though we know that, it’s hard to deal when the negative stuff starts rolling in. Share an opinion on the internet—or just report some inconvenient facts (ask me how I know)—and you may have hordes of people telling you what a bad person you are. Here’s how to stop criticism from ruining your day.

How A24 Became the Coolest Brand in Hollywood

www.highsnobiety.com: Today, indie film house A24 announced a selection of scented candles inspired by different movie genres. Created in collaboration with Joya Studio, the genre candles forgo theater smells like popcorn and worn velour seats in favor of aromatic alternatives named horror, western, thriller, noir, adventure, and musical after the movie genres.

How Restaurants Got So Loud

The Atlantic: Let me describe what I hear as I sit in a coffee shop writing this article. It’s late morning on a Saturday, between the breakfast and lunch rushes. People talk in hushed voices at tables. The staff make pithy jokes amongst themselves, enjoying the downtime. Fingers clack on keyboards, and glasses clink against wood and stone countertops. Occasionally, the espresso machines grind and roar. The coffee shop is quiet, probably as quiet as it can be while still being occupied. Even at its slowest and most hushed, the average background noise level hovered around 73 decibels (as measured with my calibrated meter).

Text Settings: Exploring the Features and Benefits of AutoCAD

AutoCAD Blog | Autodesk: Text in an AutoCAD drawing is the means by which you communicate information. The ability to give text in an easy-to-read format is critical for good communication. The methods for accessing and formatting text provide greater efficiency and control of the text objects in your drawings.

Museum Aims To Be A Model For Making Collections Available Via 3D Printing

WVXU: The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis was one of the first museums to offer free 3D printing of its art collection, all in an effort to make it more accessible to the public. It now hopes to be a model for other museums around the country.

Hope in the Shadows

HowlRound Theatre Commons: “Why is this the only way we learn women’s history?” This question was the last note I scribbled in my notebook while watching Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me at New York Theatre Workshop this past October.

Though broad in scope, this is an intensely personal question for me. I’ve spent the last four years studying the history of female solo performance in America, and I’ve often wondered why it took writing a dissertation on the topic to learn anything about women’s political, cultural, and social history in the United States.

No Retractable Blades

Prop Agenda: What is a retractable knife? We have all seen them at novelty shops or with Halloween costumes. When you push the blade against a surface, it slides up into the handle. When you pull it back, a spring inside forces the blade back out of the handle. With enough speed, it appears that the knife blade is plunging into your body as someone stabs you.

He's Still in School and Already Making an Auspicious Dual Debut

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: "When my mom was my age, she was going through a divorce, had two kids and was working three jobs," says 29-year-old playwright Jeremy O. Harris. "So having two productions in New York while getting an MFA feels like a cakewalk because those things are very cushy."

Founded by a 24-year-old artist, Wicked Pittsburgh promotes local creatives while raising money for charities

www.nextpittsburgh.com: Don’t let the name fool you: Wicked Pittsburgh is a charitable organization.

The new artist collective supports local nonprofits while helping creative types promote and sell their wares. So far, Wicked has donated to 10 charities thus far, including 412 Food Rescue, Allegheny County Parks Foundation and Meals on Wheels.

“We aren’t here to make money; quite the contrary. We’re here to give it all away. Then search for more and give that away,” says Wicked co-founder Mike Schwarz.

25 Things You Didn’t Know About the Christmas Spectacular (and the Rockettes!)

The Rockettes: The Christmas Spectacular is a holiday tradition unlike any other—from watching us Rockettes perform time-honored classic dance numbers (“Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” anyone?!) to Santa Claus taking you on a 3-D sleigh ride while Radio City Music Hall turns into an immersive winter wonderland—it’s a 90-minute extravaganza that’s sure to put fans of all ages in the Yuletide spirit.

Designing Valley Of The Heart

www.livedesignonline.com: The current Mark Taper Forum production of Luis Valdez's play, Valley Of The Heart, by Center Theatre Group in LA, has won the hearts of the critics with its masterful writing and beautiful designs by John Iacovelli (sets), Lupe Valdez (costumes), Pablo Santiago (lighting), David Murakami (projection), and Philip G. Allen (sound).

Who Designs and Directs in LORT Theatres by Gender

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Of the 2617 director positions over the five years examined, 68.1 percent were filled by he directors, and 31.9 percent were filled by she directors. Of the 772 directors, 68.8 percent were he directors, and 31.2 percent were she directors. Over the five seasons, directors averaged 3.4 shows, with he designers averaging 3.4 shows, and she directors averaging 3.5 shows.

Pennsylvania Subsidized Creed II With $16 Million in Tax Breaks, Even Though It Mostly Takes Place in California

Hit & Run : Reason.com: Pennsylvania taxpayers helped subsidize the filming of Creed II with $16 million in tax credits, despite the fact that the movie relocates its main characters (and perhaps the future of the long-running, iconic Rocky series) from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

It's an apt metaphor for film tax credit programs in general—which are sold as a way to create local jobs in the movie business or as a way to get a state's top tourist destinations featured on the big screen—but mostly end up benefitting Hollywood production companies.

7 Must-Have Mods For 3D Printing, CNC Routing, and Lasering

makezine.com: While we all know our printers, routers, and lasers will work well out of the box and wouldn’t want to get in the way of their superior craftsmanship, some of the more wild and crazy of our brood will dive in to modifying them. These mods can improve not only the quality of the finished product, but in some cases improve the experience of using the tool in the first place. With the often open source nature of these modifications, the entire community benefits from these improvements.

Tools of the Trade Reviews the Fein Starlock MultiMaster

Remodeling | Multi-Tools, Tool Tests, Fein Power Tools: The mother of all oscillating multitools first appeared in 1967 in the form of an oscillating saw. Used by medical personnel to remove plaster casts, the saw could cut through the plaster and gauze, without cutting the skin below. The company responsible was the German manufacturer Fein.

How to & Why You Should Embrace Social Media by Ryan Ratelle

The Producer's Perspective: Like it or not, the advent of smartphones coupled with the unstoppable rise of social media has literally put the power of the people into the palm of our hands. This new form of media has given birth to billions of new user-created television networks, editorials, and music labels – all accessible (and scrollable) in tiny hand-held devices. Every minute of the day, people play multiple roles as creators, critics, commentators, gurus, and advocates. It’s a game-changing force that has radically altered the way we receive and share information, advertise, and interact.

Watch Lin-Manuel Miranda Teach Broadway Slang

New York Theater: Sure, you know what mugging is, and ingenue. But what is screlting? Or 2 Dow Shay? What do theater people mean when they use the word “corpse.” Lin-Manuel Miranda explains 15 theater terms, illustrating some with specific examples. He sings for “Money Note.” He looks baffled for “Going Up.” For “Showmance,” he tells a story about how Christopher Jackson met his wife.

DeWalt DCB104 Simultaneous Charger Review - Four Ports, All Sorts, Even The New Giant FlexVolt!

Home Fixated: Thanks to the growing number of powerful cordless tools, many job sites are much more efficient and productive than they used to be back in the dark ages of (shudder) power cords. Cordless drills, reciprocating saws, LED site lighting, and even miter saws and table saws are all ready to leap into action, without having to search out and fight for available outlets.

The Dickens you say – a review of “The Old Curiosity Shop”

'Burgh Vivant: A gambling grandfather (Patrick Conner) loses everything except the love of his granddaughter, Little Nell (Caroline Lucas), in Charles Dickens’s “The Old Curiosity Shop.”

Mrs. Jarley (Kendra McLaughlin) and her carnival barkers (Jonathan Visser and Ken Bolden) describe the tragic circumstances of Nell’s life, briefly narrating her tale.

Initial plans unveiled for USA Expo 2020 pavilion during ceremony in Dubai

InPark Magazine: While the official opening of the U.S. pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai -the next World’s Fair- on October 20, 2020 feels far away, Pavilion USA 2020, the partnership responsible for the United States’ National Pavilion, has been making important headway in the design and planning of the landmark building destined to represent more than 325 million Americans.

‘The Ferryman’ on Broadway: How The Animals Get Onstage

www.vulture.com: Among a cast of dozens playing an extended Northern Irish family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and even babies, the breakout stars of The Ferryman may well be the animal actors. Jez Butterworth’s play is set in a 1980s farmhouse on the eve of a harvest, and the characters freely interact with the livestock, including a live bunny, a Netherland Dwarf rabbit named Pierce, and, in a brief-but-striking moment, an Emden goose named Peggy.

Focus show in London spotlights boom in world production

Variety: With global production booming at a breakneck pace, execs from content companies, film commissions and location providers who will be descending from more than 60 countries on London’s Dec. 4-5 Focus show really have something about which to cheer.

We Had a Convening About Comedy in Theatre and People Couldn’t Stop Farting

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Do you remember laughing at something so hard that it made you pee a little? Do you remember having an intense emotional release triggered through seeing something funny? What about experiencing a moment where comedy has disoriented and destabilized you and/or a culture, or where you have felt how sharp and precise comedy strikes at the heart of societal and personal problems? Do you remember how healing laughter can be? Do you remember joy?

Impact Attractions launches at IAAPA with world’s first sustainable play attraction

InPark Magazine: Impact Attractions, a newly formed joint venture between The Weber Group and Infinite Kingdoms including industry attraction leaders Denise Weston, Rick Briggs, Brian Morrow and Janelle Picard, invites guests to “PLAY WITH THE EARTH”.

“As we future cast on what guests and clients will want for new experiences, the idea of developing a play attraction that was based on the goal of net zero energy impact to the earth was born” says Denise Weston inventor of Impact Attractions, “never before has the industry delivered an attraction that allows guests to play with the earth and make a positive impact while being entertained”.

In Focus: Tips, Tricks & Punts

ProSoundWeb: Working as a monitor engineer can be challenging, and I’ve had a fair share of hard lessons over the years with equipment (or lack thereof), facilities, artists, and more.

Success is largely a matter of being able to manage a lot of moving parts.

5Q: Johanna Town, Lighting Designer & ALD Chair

www.livedesignonline.com: Lighting designer Johanna Town is the current chair of the Association of Lighting Designers (ALD) in the UK. Her recent projects include Frankenstein at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and Love & Information in Sheffield Studios. Live Design chats with Town about her goals for the ALD and her design work.

Rigging Safety: The Epitome of Loving Thy Neighbor

Church Production Magazine: At its core, rigging safety is about putting others first. We can’t easily hang thousands of pounds in the air without a terrifying concern: “Have I done this safely so that those below will be free from harm? Can I close my eyes at night knowing I have done everything morally, ethically and legally possible to keep others safe?”

'Game of Thrones' security heightened during filming for final season

www.usatoday.com: Winter is coming ... and apparently, so is additional security.

HBO fantasy juggernaut "Game of Thrones" has been filming Season 8, set to premiere in April 2019, and the scripts and final plot lines have been kept tightly under wraps.

18 Best Web & Graphic Designer Resume Templates for 2019

business.tutsplus.com: Sometimes, the toughest design work you'll try to do is for yourself as a client. You can be the best graphic designer around, but building your own resume is just too tough. Since you're applying for a design-centric job, it's crucial that your resume looks like a top designer created it.

Every job will have a deep pool of applicants and it's your job to get to the top of the stack. You can do that by building a professional resume that highlights your skills and puts your best foot forward.