Critic's notebook: A moment of silence after horrific tragedy

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: There’s power in silence.

Concerts around the city Saturday delayed their start for a few seconds to allow time to reflect on the wounded spirit of Pittsburgh. A moment of silence, a chance to collectively consider tragedy and loss, to look mortality in the eye and to ponder life’s deeper questions and mysteries, and to nod to that final silence we’ll all one day face.

And then, music filled that silence.

No doubt about it: The new iPad Pro is a computer

www.fastcompany.com: To show off what the new models are capable of, Apple provided a peek at an upcoming full-blown iOS version of AutoCAD, plus demos of Adobe’s ambitious new Photoshop and a console-like rendition of NBA 2k.

How to Work with Different Communication Styles in the Office

www.lifehack.org: We all have our own unique way of communicating with each other. This is true in our personal lives as well as at work.

We all have run into people at both work and play that we just don’t seem to get. Not only do we not hit it off with them, we honestly have a hard time understanding the point they are making. It can be very frustrating interacting with someone when it seems like we are miles apart in the understanding department.

SAG-AFTRA's new agreement opens doors for small-budget and indie games

Gamasutra: A groundbreaking new SAG-AFTRA agreement for low-budget and indie game productions has been unveiled, providing a one-size-fits-most framework for employing unionized actors—from mo-cap actors, to voice actors, to singers.

The enduring influence of Frankenstein on fashion

Vogue Paris: Imagine it. June 1816. A villa in Italy. A season soon to be dubbed “the year without a summer” already well underway – the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the previous year playing havoc with the heavens. A ragtag set of writers and friends looking for ways to occupy themselves during endless storms. Intense nightly discussions of medicine, literature, poetry. One night, a challenge set by a member of the group, Lord Byron: the devising of ghost stories. A terrible nightmare suffered a few days later by the then 18-year-old Mary Shelley, there with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their child. The bones of a book constructed from this nightmare. A book later to become one of the best known Gothic novels in the English language: a proto-science fiction epic depicting the destructive consequences of a doctor who plays at God and builds his very own being…

Behind the Mask

Make-Up Artist Magazine: It’s been four decades since writer/director John Carpenter told the story of Halloween, about a masked, mental hospital escapee named Michael Myers, who terrorizes the small town of Haddonfield and resourceful babysitter named Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis). The low-budget horror film was a sleeper hit, prompting a string of sequels and even a pair of remakes.

Behind the lens: What drones do beyond images

Construction Dive: Frequently used to capture images and video to show clients and use in marketing materials, drones are becoming more commonplace on jobsites, with 57% of respondents to a recent JBKnowledge 2018 ConTech report indicating their firms use the technology. Beyond capturing images and video footage, however, drones have tremendous data-collecting capability.

Meet the 145-foot wide construction robot from Hampton that doesn't want to steal your job

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: A driverless vehicle and a 145-foot-wide industrial construction robot have more in common than you’d think.

Jeremy Searock, co-founder of Advanced Construction Robotics, would know: He’s helped design both.

ETH Zurich builds a pavillion just using gravel and string

www.fastcompany.com: Rising in front of a museum in the historical heart of the Swiss city of Winterthur sits one of the strangest structures ever built: the Rock Print Pavilion. At first sight, its columns look to be made of rough reinforced concrete–or perhaps the gabions so popular among architects today. In fact, it’s made out of tiny loose stones tied with string.

The Incidental Contractor: Go In With Eyes Wide Open

ProSoundWeb: We’re currently in-between touring seasons. Cables and snakes have been tested and repaired, wood painted, and cases treated to fresh new stenciling.

All racks have been repackaged to their standard configurations, trucks subjected to annual maintenance, and warehouse floor swept – twice. Aside from a stray show here and there, for many hire companies, things are pretty quiet.

It’s Alive! Well, the Puppeteers Are

The New York Times: In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” creation is a work of breathless horror. In a rehearsal room here on a recent Saturday, creation was also breathless and very cold. (A fan had broken; the heating had quit.) Scarf-clad actors shivered as they raced around the stage, dodging extension cords, manipulating four overhead projectors. On a small table at the center, a monster slouched, waiting to be born.

Tour Diary: National Ballet of Canada's Jordana Daumec in Russia

www.pointemagazine.com: Hi all! My name is Jordana Daumec. I'm a first soloist with The National Ballet of Canada. I'm currently taking a break from packing my bags for our tour to Moscow and St. Petersburg where we'll be performing at Diana Vishneva's Context Festival! We are bringing some amazing ballets to Russia: Being and Nothingness by NBoC choreographic associate Guillaume Côté, Paz de La Jolla by Justin Peck and Emergence by Crystal Pite. The company is super excited to perform in these two amazing cities that have such a deep history in ballet.

Carnegie International Artist Is a Master Builder

Pittsburgh Magazine - November 2018 - Pittsburgh, PA: Alex Da Corte’s “Rubber Pencil Devil” (more about the name later) marks the artist’s monumental contribution to the 57th Carnegie International. This multimedia installation is not only one of the most visually spellbinding among the many offerings here, it’s also incredibly labor-intensive, requiring hands-on support from numerous assistants, with Da Corte working and overseeing as artist, auteur, wizard and châtelain.

Outsiders of Long Standing

AMERICAN THEATRE: At a time when many marginalized groups in the U.S. face intensified violence or discrimination—Latinx communities, immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, LGBTQ+ folks, disabled people—another group with a long history of persecution feels the threat from an administration that has winked at white supremacists and neo-Nazis: Jewish Americans. In the theatre, while many historically marginalized groups have made strides in terms of representation on U.S. stages, shows with Jewish themes seem to have had a fresh urgency and relevance in recent years.

How to Network So You'll Get Way Ahead in Your Professional Life

www.lifehack.org: Networking has been around for a very long time. From the early days of the Royal Society in the late 1600s when gentlemen gathered together to share scientific discoveries and make connections with like-minded people, to today where people connect to advance careers and share knowledge and career advice. It has been a way for humans to learn, discover and advance for hundreds of years.

Make Theatre, Not Waste

AMERICAN THEATRE: Around the world, hurricanes have grown in intensity and heat records are being hit on an annual basis. These extreme weather events, powered by climate change, has not spared theatres. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival had to cancel numerous shows and lost $2 million worth of revenue because of local wildfires, which get worse every year. The Alley Theatre suffered $18 million worth of damages from Hurricane Harvey.

3 significant resume mistakes to avoid

www.fastcompany.com: There’s some career advice you’ll hear over and over again–one of which is that recruiters will throw out your resume in the trash the moment they catch a typo or a spelling mistake.

But as somebody who has worked in recruitment for many years, I can tell you that this isn’t the case. I’m not saying that it’s okay to litter your resume with spelling errors, but there are much more important things you should be thinking about when writing your resume.

Famously secretive, MPAA pulls back the curtain on ratings — a little bit

Los Angeles Times: In the eyes of many filmmakers, the Motion Picture Assn. of America should be rated R — for reticent. The MPAA has long kept its rating methods a tightly guarded secret as it continues to wield enormous power over the types of explicit content that can been shown in U.S. cinemas.

SAG-AFTRA Responds to Sarah Scott Sexual Harrassment Complaint

Variety: In a message posted on the SAG-AFTRA website on Monday, the union did not address Scott’s specific allegations, citing the confidentiality requirements of its procedures. Instead, SAG-AFTRA posted an extensive member advisory Monday about how those procedures work.

Here's What Hiring Managers Actually Care About

lifehacker.com: You can’t jump into the mind of the person sitting across from you in an interview and know exactly what they’re looking for. But there are, fortunately, some basic qualities most hiring managers think are pretty important across the board.

How I Missed The Jeff Awards, or, The Misrepresentation of the Chicago Theatre Community

rescripted.org: Did you know the Jeff Awards were last Monday? If so, you’re already doing better than me. When I returned from working on Pipeline at Indiana Repertory Theatre, I said to a few friends I was planning on going to the Jeffs, which I thought was next Monday (today). I then had a quiet night in my home, scrolling through Facebook, reading scripts and hanging out with my cat, when my friend came over. “Hey!” She said, wine and cheese in hand – how any good friend should arrive at your door – “My boyfriend is at the Jeffs so he won’t be home for a while!” At this point, imagine me, going to the sunken place à la Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out.

Jason Blum Is Wrong About Female Directors in Horror

The Atlantic: The biggest name in horror filmmaking is indisputably the producer Jason Blum. That’s a fact only reinforced by the staggering opening weekend of his newest movie, Halloween, which made $77.5 million in its first three days—a record for the 40-year-old franchise. Blum’s company, Blumhouse Productions, finances small-budget genre films and gives directors full creative control; it has been behind Oscar winners like Get Out and Whiplash, as well as extremely profitable franchises like The Conjuring, Insidious, and Paranormal Activity. Working with Blum can provide a solid path to mainstream success, which makes it particularly dispiriting that a female director has never made a theatrical horror film for Blumhouse.

Annie

Pittsburgh in the Round: A sweet young red-headed orphan by the name of Annie sang her way into the hearts of many at the Byham Theater’s production of Annie. This particular show was performed by the Pittsburgh Musical Theater’s Richard E. Rauh Conservatory and CAPA, Pittsburgh’s performing arts high school. The students of CAPA made up the orchestra and the majority of the actors with a few others from schools in the surrounding area.

The International Gymnastics Federation Bans Cat Makeup For Gymnasts

deadspin.com: This morning, gymnastics fans awoke to the news that the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) had solved one of the most pressing problems facing the sport. No, they didn’t decide to address the abuse that has been running rampant on the women’s side of the sport for decades. Instead, FIG finally tackled the problem of one gymnast wearing cat makeup in her floor routine.

Ryobi 18V Bolt Cutter Model P592 – Bionic Squid Beak Of Doom

homefixated.com: What do you get when you cross an evil robotic giant squid with the power of Ryobi’s 18-Volt ONE+ platform? You get a tool that cuts chains, bolts, locks, fencing and metal rod up to 3/8″ diameter (1/4” for hardened steel) with the press of a button. All while making you feel like you’re wielding some sort of video game energy weapon. The Ryobi 18V bolt cutter makes butter of what could otherwise be a tiring job.

Business Is Boo-ing! The World of Extreme Haunts

The New York Times: On a recent Saturday night, ten anxious individuals were blindfolded and taken to a secret location in the desert, 40 minutes outside of Los Angeles. They were told that they would each be playing the part of a futuristic criminal who had been lobotomized and summoned to help investigators identify two bodies discovered on the grounds.

The American Society of Theatre Consultants Announces New Fellows and Members 2018

Stage Directions: The American Society of Theatre Consultants (ASTC) announces that at the Fall 2018 Forum meeting held in Chicago on Oct. 13, 2018, two members were recognized and awarded the title of ASTC Fellow for their outstanding service to the society and to the profession. Robert Long, FASTC of Theatre Consultants Collaborative, Inc. and Jim Read, FASTC of George C. Izenour Associates are recipients for 2018.

India Pale Ale Review: A Killing In A House of God

New York Theater: “India Pale Ale,” a play by Jaclyn Backhaus running Off-Broadway, suddenly becomes shockingly timely with the killing of 11 Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Halfway through the play, a character barges into a bar owned by his ex-girlfriend, distraught: “Like a bunch of people were shot at services….Your dad like…”

Aligning Values with Actions

HowlRound Theatre Commons: I have to tell you it’s very surreal to have a conversation with you about leadership transition because our executive director, Cynthia Rider, just announced to our company that she’s leaving. So Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is in dual leadership transition. The topic could not be more raw or relevant to my life.

'Fight Night' at Chicago Shakes is a funny show about politics — and you get a clicker to vote from your seat

Chicago Tribune: Here’s why you need to get out more and see international artists’ perspectives on our riven America and its fraught democratic processes. You will encounter things that no U.S. company would dare do.

Carnegie Mellon To Increase Student Aid with $50 Million Scholarship Commitment

www.cmu.edu/news: Carnegie Mellon University will dramatically increase the accessibility of its transformational educational programs by meeting more of the financial aid need of current and future undergraduate students thanks to a landmark commitment from two of its alumni. Cindy and Tod Johnson have pledged to contribute $50 million to an endowment that supports scholarships, as well as persistence activities that help students stay on their path to graduation.

Old Enough for Broadway? Picking an Age-Appropriate Show for Your Kid

www.broadwayworld.com: If you're planning a family trip to New York City and Broadway is on your must-list, you already know that there are many questions that make decision making complicated.

Is my child mature enough to appreciate a Broadway show?

Is this show age-appropriate for my kid?

Is my child even old enough to even get into a Broadway show?

“Karoo Moose – No Fathers” – Baxter Theatre Centre (Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts)

The Pittsburgh Tatler: I’m fairly certain that I’ll quickly exhaust my capacity to describe the phenomenal South African Baxter Theatre’s Karoo Moose – No Fathers, particularly since I am doing something that I never do on this blog, which is: I’m writing about a performance immediately after seeing it. But I want to post about Karoo Moose before it leaves town, because – to borrow the FoF’s own marketing language – “this is the one” everyone’s going to be sorry they missed when they hear others talking about it.

How HBO Is Changing Sex Scenes Forever

Rolling Stone: Last spring, Emily Meade was getting ready to give a blow job in front of a crew of people on the Bronx set of HBO’s The Deuce, and she wasn’t thrilled about it. The penis wasn’t real — it was a dildo — but she had never done this specific thing on screen before. Meade, who plays budding porn star Lori, worried about that image of her being out in the world. “What if my future kids see this someday?” she thought. She was a woman in a sexualized industry, playing the role of a prostitute in 1970s New York; surely her concerns were not new. But in the era of #MeToo, her sense that she could do something about it was. The time was ripe to think about safety in the workplace — particularly if your job revolved around sex.

What Do Broadway's Best Lighting Designers Actually Do?

www.forbes.com: No one applauds the lighting designer.

Theater audiences are regularly dazzled by the costumes and sets, stirred by a writer’s words, an actor’s sweat and tears, enthralled by a director’s coup de théâtre. They may be moved by a piece of music or moment of sound design.

Theater Company Focusing On Experiences Of Black Youth Opens Space In Homewood

90.5 WESA: After 10 years without a permanent home, the Alumni Theater Company (ATC) is celebrating its new performance space at Washington Boulevard and Hamilton Avenue on the border of Larimer and Homewood.

Interview: Virginia Madsen on 1985, #MeToo & Sexual Harassment

themuse.jezebel.com: “It’s expected that I’m going to have an opinion about things,” actor Virginia Madsen said Thursday in a Midtown cafe. We were meeting to discuss 1985, Yen Tan’s acclaimed black-and-white drama about a man named Adrian (Cory Michael Smith) who goes home to visit his family during the titular year, knowing it may be the last time he gets to do so because he has AIDS. Madsen plays Eileen, his mom who, in the words of Glenn Kenny’s New York Times rave review, is “almost desperately radiating affection.”

How Music Festival Artworks Are Created

Artsy: Art is often the unsung hero of music festival season. Less attention-grabbing than the headliners and less click-baity than the fashion trends, the horizon-breaking installations, colorful murals, and kinetic sculptures that dot concert landscapes tend to play a backseat role. But as anyone who has been to a music festival knows, it is the art that transforms a patch of dirt and grass into a place that feels light years away from a nearby parking lot or a surrounding city.

#NFTRW Podcast 10-21-18

NFTRW Weekly Top Five

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

Take the Hell Out of Hell Week

AMERICAN THEATRE: “Hell week” doesn’t actually have to be hell. Sure, it can mean long hours in the theatre, with first tech runs that can make even the most confident practitioners question if it will all come together. But it still doesn’t need to be awful. What’s the key to a more humane tech? It can be as simple as remembering that everyone involved is human.

Posted by David at 10/25/2018 12:19:00 PM

We Need to Talk About Non-Consensual Audience Participation

Dance Magazine: Some of my favorite experiences as both an audience member and a dancer have involved audience participation. Artists who cleverly use participatory moments can make bold statements about the boundaries between performer and spectator, onstage and off. And the challenge to be more than a passive viewer can redefine an audience's relationship to what they're watching. But all the experiences I've loved have had something in common: They've given audiences a choice.

Posted by David at 10/25/2018 11:54:00 AM

7 Cool Art Supplies You've Never Heard Of But Need to Try

mymodernmet.com: If you’re a creative person, there are few better feelings than trying new art supplies. It’s always fun to get a fresh tube of acrylic paint or a set of drawing pencils, but did you know that there are tools and materials that fly under the radar? They are innovative and sure to help in your art and design, but they tend to have a cult following.

Posted by David at 10/24/2018 12:51:00 PM

Team Turned Rami Malek Into Freddie Mercury for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Variety: The first time makeup, hair and prosthetics designer Jan Sewell met Rami Malek while prepping for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” she spent a lot of time studying his face. But she was also gauging how far the actor was willing to go to look like Freddie Mercury, the iconic rock star he plays in the Queen biopic from Fox, which opens in theaters Nov. 2.

Posted by David at 10/26/2018 02:07:00 PM

Don't make these 3 mistakes with your LinkedIn profile

www.fastcompany.com: If a picture is worth a thousand words, your LinkedIn profile picture is worth a lot.

Sure, you may have invested a lot of time capturing job descriptions, collecting solid recommendations, and identified tangible (and impressive) professional achievements. Those things are all critical and definitely showcase your professional track record. However, your profile photo also contributes to the first impression you make on a potential employer, recruiter, investor, or partner.

Posted by David at 10/25/2018 12:15:00 PM

LDI2018 Booth Awards And Debuting Products

www.livedesignonline.com: LDI2018 marks the 30th Anniversary of North America’s largest tradeshow and conference for design and technology for live events. Founded in 1988, with the first show in Dallas, TX, LDI has grown to host more than 350 exhibiting companies and close to 15,000 industry professionals.

Confusion persists about the mission and inner workings of #MeToo-borne Time’s Up

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Bound by fury, 300 women in entertainment came together last fall in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal to form a loose-knit coalition with big ambitions.

The group quickly raised $12 million and vowed to fight discrimination and sexual harassment by giving voice and support to those who have suffered abuse.

Mic Methods: Two Sides Of The Same Coin

ProSoundWeb: Everyone agrees with the idea that you point the microphone at what you want it to pick up.

But there’s another side to the coin: pointing the mic away from what you don’t want. This perspective applies both for using a particular polar pattern to eliminate undesired pickup or miking unconventionally to find a desired sound.

iRFR and aRFR Apps from ETC Benefit Behind the Scenes

Stage Directions: Continuing their unmatched generosity to entertainment technology professionals, ETC presented Behind the Scenes with a check today for $18,567.19, representing the most recent proceeds from the company’s iRFR and aRFR Radio Focus Remote applications. Since the launch of the iRFR in 2009, ETC’s mobile app sales have now generated over $350,000 in donations.

Leaders: Exploring the Features and Benefits of AutoCAD

AutoCAD Blog | Autodesk: Leaders are style-based associative objects that combine several different common elements such as lines and text into one single associative object.

Sorg Opera House – Middletown, Ohio

After the Final Curtain: The Sorg Opera House in Middletown, OH originally opened on September 12, 1891. Paul J. Sorg, Middletown’s first multi-millionaire, had the opera house built as a gift to the city of Middletown. Sorg hired Samuel Hannaford, who designed the Cincinnati Music Hall, to design the 1,200-seat opera house.

Berlin: Governing a “Creative” City | HowlRound Theatre Commons

howlround.com: Freelance artists and cultural producers in Berlin are facing increasing challenges, such as rising rents for studio and performance spaces, as well as the rising cost of city living. Unfortunately, for them, there is an imbalance in the way government arts funding is distributed: 95 percent of the cultural budget goes towards funding big institutions—operas, theatres, and art collections—whereas the independent scene receives the remaining 5 percent for individual projects and grants.