Guest Editorial: Kansas City Should Be a Safe Place to Work for all Theatre Professionals

PerformInk: Kansas City Theatre is at a cracking point. With the November 2018 article in the Pitch by Liz Cook, more actors and professionals in KC Theatre are discussing sexual harassment and similar abuses. The biggest gap, as confirmed in Cook’s article, is there is no one to go to when something happens. The distance from other major theater hubs and the large number of non-equity and non-profit houses in KC contribute to a sense of isolation and lack of proper recourse.

Who is Being Triggered?

HowlRound Theatre Commons: I doubt anyone involved in both theatre and social media has missed out on the perennial fracas over trigger warnings in the theatre, and whether or not our increased sensitivity to trauma and aggression spells doom for the art form. This conversation, though, seems to focus almost solely on the artist-patron relationship and neglects a much more fundamental place where these changes are playing out: our classrooms.

Backstage with costume designer Suz Pisano

Theater | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: My mom had bridal shops, and I grew up working there. My grandmother was a seamstress; my aunt was a seamstress. My Barbies had mink stoles and brocade gowns that they made out of scraps that were on the ground. Then I went to college to do something else, and it was great, and then I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Top Twelve Indian Plays Of 2018

The Theatre Times: I begin 2019 with the same paragraph I ended 2017 with. Over the last few years, it has become something of a tradition for me to conduct an informal year-end poll with regards to what plays people really liked in the year gone by. It started as a wide sample and slowly became a moderately sized sample of people from the theatre itself because they tend to be the hardest to please. So, if they’re vouching for something, it must be worth its salt.

Lighting Designer Valerio Tiberi on Lighting West Side Story in Italy

Stage Directions: The Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino hosted the return of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story 100 years after Bernstein's birth. This musical theater masterpiece is one of the most loved shows still performed today. Lighting designer Valerio Tiberi drew inspiration for his work "from the new adaptation and the atmosphere of the Upper West Side of New York in the mid-1950s,” he says.

Actors' Equity Sets Up Relief Fund for Members Affected by Lab Strike

www.broadwayworld.com: Following the announcement earlier this month that Equity's National Council has authorized a strike against the Broadway League for all Development work, Actors' Equity Association has just announced plans for relief for affected members.

When to Hire Someone to Do Your Taxes

twocents.lifehacker.com: Advancements in tax software make it easier to file your taxes without the help of a professional, as does this year’s increased standard deduction and simplified 1040. But there are still plenty of circumstances when you’d want to hire someone.

Tamara Tunie stars in Pittsburgh Public Theater’s reimagining of The Tempest

Theater | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: In William Shakespeare's original version of The Tempest, the protagonist, Prospero, is an embittered duke stranded on a magical island with his daughter, Miranda.

But the Pittsburgh Public Theater’s all-female adaptation of the iconic play takes a different approach. Helmed by new PPT artistic director Marya Sea Kaminski, the production opens on the surgical oncology floor of a Pittsburgh hospital where we find Prospero (Tamara Tunie, film and television star, and Pittsburgh native) as a woman battling late-stage breast cancer.

Def Leppard, Schwarzenegger, and the Milwaukee M12 Rocket Tower Light

Home Fixated: Construction and home improvement used to be in the dark ages, literally. Now, Elon Musk sends Tesla roadsters into space on rockets that can return from space and land on a dime. Oh, AND we have LED jobsite lighting! The days of 3rd degree burns from handling halogen lights that you could fry an egg on are thankfully over. There are so many jobsite LED lights on the market now, it’s hard to choose what is most practical. What they all have in common though is that you have to PUT the light somewhere. The Milwaukee M12 Rocket Light brings along its own place to put it, and it’s one of the features that make it immensely practical and useful.

Movie Production Designers, VFX Teams Work Together for Cohesive Look

Variety: Many of today’s movies are shaped as much by visual effects as by physical design. It’s a development that has driven some production designers to stay involved in a production well beyond the shooting stage — even without pay — so that they can provide input on the effects that form a film’s final look.

LA Rams Cheerleading Squad to Feature Men at the Super Bowl

jezebel.com: For the first time in the history of the Super Bowl, men will be not only be destroying each other’s bodies on the field in order to make their billionaire owners even more wealthy, but dancing as part of one team’s (poorly compensated) cheerleading squad.

Halfway to Dawn celebrates the life and career of Pittsburgh jazz great Billy Strayhorn

Dance | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: A new dance-theater work, Halfway to Dawn, explores the life of Pittsburgh jazz great Billy Strayhorn.

Written, directed, and choreographed by Los Angeles-based choreographer David Roussève, the piece explores Strayhorn's life and career as an openly gay African-American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger. The work, says Roussève, “redefines ‘biography’ as the intersection of fact, conjecture, comment, abstraction, and fantasy” and will be performed by his dance company REALITY making their Pittsburgh debut, February 1-2 at Strayhorn’s namesake Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty.

IATSE joins forces with CWA Canada in fight for better working conditions for factual / reality TV workers

Benzinga: Two of Canada's top media and entertainment unions announced an innovative partnership today to improve working conditions and organize workers in factual/reality television.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), North America's largest entertainment union, is joining forces with media union CWA Canada in its Fairness in Factual TV campaign.

NAMM 2019: Live Sound Takes Center Stage

www.livedesignonline.com: The NAMM Show has been slowly broadening its focus on pro audio and live sound, and this year it finally hit its stride, with more pro audio exhibitors, expanded educational programming, and the launch of the Loudspeaker Systems Showcase, which gave P.A. manufacturers an opportunity to demo their systems in a real-world setting. Click through our slideshow of live sound gear debuts from that other Happiest Place on Earth.

Projection Mapping: Easy Options, Video Mapper

Worship Tech Director: When it comes to media servers, find what works for you, and then make it work for you. For us at Trinity Fellowship, that is ArKaos and MediaMaster, paired with Video Mapper.

'I get to feel human again': How arts programs in prisons are bringing new hope to incarcerated individuals

www.today.com: At Sing Sing Correctional Facility, one of the oldest and most notorious prisons in America, an arts rehabilitation program helps inmates process their emotions and prepare for life on the outside through the art of dance, music, visual arts and acting.

It’s Noh, It’s Viewpoints—It’s Superdrama

AMERICAN THEATRE: Last spring I found myself in Castelfiorentino, Tuscany, a sleepy hamlet nestled into the voluptuous green hills of central Italy. It was April 7 and I was sitting in the foyer of the Teatro C’art, where a milling crowd was waiting to see SALT (The Marvellous Puppet Show) by the visiting multinational theatre company Bämsemble, which are based in Milan and Turin. Teatro C’art’s resident company is primarily a clowning ensemble, and the walls are scattered with framed photos of past productions, all featuring images of the classical European clown, some with white face, all with red noses, pictured among surrealist props radiating whimsy.

At Neil Simon Festival, A Contest Entry Fee That’s No Laughing Matter

Arts Integrity Initiative: If one looks around the website of The Neil Simon Festival, a yearly theatre event held in Cedar City, Utah, there’s a list of donors to the company. On that list are seven entries at the $100+ level. But the list is perhaps some 30 short, because that’s the approximate number of unlisted individuals who sent $150 to the Festival last year.

While the $150 sent by those people isn’t described by the Festival as a donation, it effectively is one for all but a single person. The $150 figure is derived from the submission fee playwrights are asked to provide as their entry fee to the Festival’s New Play Contest, now in its ninth year. While the Festival notes that every submission receives a written evaluation as part of the company’s response, it is not a fee for service. Playwrights are not offered the opportunity to submit and not receive an evaluation.

Will Broadway’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’ Do Justice to the 1990s Classic?

Observer: “I want you to know that I’m happy for you” is something Alanis Morissette is probably hearing a lot this week. After a sold-out run last year at the nonprofit American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., a musical based on the singer’s Jagged Little Pill will debut on Broadway this fall.

Review Roundup: The Critics Weigh in on DEAR EVAN HANSEN on the West Coast!

www.broadwayworld.com: The winner of six 2017 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Dear Evan Hansen features a book by Tony Award-winner Steven Levenson, a score by Grammy, Tony and Academy Award winners Benj Pasek & Justin Paul ("La La Land," "The Greatest Showman") and direction by four-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif ("Rent," "Next to Normal").

How Chloe Arnold Found Empowerment Through Art

Dance Magazine: I come from a lineage of survivors: African Americans who endured the brutality of slavery, Native Americans who survived forced genocidal migration, and my Jewish grandmother who escaped the Holocaust. My ancestors' enduring spirits live inside of me, giving me an indelible foundation of strength and compassion.

When's the Last Time You Saw Asian-American Southerners On Stage?

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Leah Nanako Winkler started writing God Said This while keeping her cancer-stricken mother company during chemotherapy sessions in Kentucky. "It just came out," the playwright recalls -- though not all at once. Each week Winkler traveled between the Bluegrass State where she grew up and her current New York City home, she would return with new pages to present to the writers group she was in at Primary Stages.

Women in Theatre in Business: a Case Study with Bohemia Realty Group

The Interval: The theatre industry is increasingly full of multi-hyphenates, and most often, this means younger artists who don’t limit themselves to just one discipline. Fewer and fewer people are just playwrights, just directors, or just actors anymore, preferring to explore multiple creative pursuits. It allows people to stay flexible in a challenging industry.

“A woman kept alive by the sound of her voice”

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Near the end of La Ruta, Isaac Gómez’s new play that opened in December at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, teenagers Brenda (Cher Álvarez) and Ivonne (Karen Rodriguez) lie on the floor in Brenda’s bedroom discussing their favorite music. While this setup may appear familiar, Gómez has placed these girls in the slums of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where their lives are at risk simply by being young women.

'One Man's Trash': Peter Kokis's 100%-Recycled Robots

The Atlantic: There’s nothing, it would seem, that Peter Kokis can’t turn into a robot. The Brooklyn performance artist makes cyborgs out of 100 percent recycled materials—oftentimes salvaged from the trash. He builds the 170-pound costumes on his kitchen table. When he’s done, Kokis parades through the streets, a veritable Transformer among mortals.

How Does a Saw's Electric Brake Work

Pro Tool Reviews: Tool manufacturers continue to add more safety and fatigue-reducing features on their products. Examples abound with auto lock-ons, auto lock-offs, blade guards, and shields—just to start. You may take one safety feature for granted simply because you can’t see it—an electric brake. On the best circular saws and many other saws, an electric brake marks a premium feature. This solitary feature has saved many a blade, wood floor, cord, or even a finger or toe! It’s easy for a scrap of wood or some obstruction to prevent the blade guard from falling back in place after a cut.

What It Really Means To Equalize The Room

ProSoundWeb: “I’m going to equalize the room.” We’ve all heard that statement so many times that we scarcely think about what it literally means. We know that in practical terms it means adjusting an equalizer to suit your taste. It may be done with the latest high-technology analysis equipment, voodoo magic or simply tweaking away “until it sounds right.”

iOS and Android Apps Every Live Sound Engineer Should Have

www.livedesignonline.com/gear: It’s hard to imagine that sunny summer days are just a few months away, but touring season will be here before you know it. Now’s a great time to re-up the gaffer tape, Sharpies, and other must-haves in your gig bag—and while you’re at it, load your phone or iPad with free and low-cost audio tools that can help you do your job better.

10 who are raising the dance bar(re) in Pittsburgh in 2019

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: For decades, Pittsburgh Dance Council has brought world-class dance to Pittsburgh. But plenty of must-see shows are produced right here in the ′Burgh, too. Here’s a look at companies, artists and performances you won’t want to miss this year.

Road Stories #4: Fielding Questions From The Keen Kid

ProSoundWeb: In the early 1990s I was serving as a maintenance tech in a large recording studio complex when I got a call from the sound company I’d worked for in the previous decade. Was I available to mix and tech front of house for the upcoming Canada Day (July 1st in Canada, like July 4th in the U.S.) gig at the provincial legislature?

‘Rent’ Star Brennin Hunt Talks Broken Foot, No Contingency Plan

Variety: Brennin Hunt has had a whirlwind weekend.

Hunt was set to play musician Roger Davis on Sunday in Fox’s live version of “Rent” — a role that he says “feels like home to me” because he, too, is a singer-songwriter and he knows what it feels like to try to write a powerful song. But the night before he was set to go live on that nationally televised stage, he broke his foot, which drastically changed plans for the telecast.

How Dancers Can Eat Healthy in a College Dining Hall

Dance Magazine: The schedule of a college dancer is no joke: Between academics, studio classes and rehearsals, getting the fuel you need to power through it all is essential. But unless you live off-campus or have a kitchen in your dorm, you may feel like you're at the mercy of your school's dining hall.

Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think of CATS on Tour?

www.broadwayworld.com: Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, the record-breaking musical spectacular has captivated audiences in over 30 countries and 15 languages and is soon to be on tour across North America! Featuring new sound design, direction and choreography for a new generation - experience Cats for the first time as it begins a new life, or let it thrill you all over again!

Review Roundup: Did the New Cast of MY FAIR LADY Have a Little Bit of Luck with the Critics?

www.broadwayworld.com: The most beloved musical of all time, Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady returns to Broadway in a lavish new production from Lincoln Center Theater, the theater that brought you the Tony-winning revivals of South Pacific and The King and I.

Shepard's 'True West' May Not Be So True After All

www.clydefitchreport.com: Sam Shepard’s True West was first produced at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre in July 1980. It’s NYC premiere was at the Public Theater that December. A successful NYC transfer of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre’s 1982 revival followed and, in 2000, a Broadway revival starred Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly alternating as the warring brothers, screenwriter Austin and housebreaker Lee. Now, True West is back on Broadway, at the American Airlines Theatre, with Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano.

Magic Mike Live

Exeunt Magazine: Channing Tatum is straddling a woman six inches in front of me and I am crying. I can’t hear myself cry, because I’m in a strip club at the Hippodrome Casino with 324 other women and everyone is screaming. This is Magic Mike Live: when sales opened last June, the box office took £1,000,000 in the first sixty minutes.

Mascot Hall of Fame finally opens: 'A piece of Disney right in Indiana'

www.indystar.com: The massive, brightly colored mascots seem perfectly out of place, plopped amid an oil refinery on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The air is filled with the puffing of gray steam. The buildings around are factory-dingy.

The mascots are vibrant. Funny. Quirky. Weird. As mascots are.

Slider of the Cleveland Indians is lying on the cement, looking as if he's just taken a tumble. The Chicago White Sox's Southpaw is ready to swing, a bat propped on his shoulder. Benny the Bull stands spinning a basketball on a fingertip.

what not to say in a job interview

www.fastcompany.com: When it comes to job interviews, first impressions are everything. You probably know to avoid certain faux pas–like being late, or saying something mean to the receptionist. But you also need to stay away from giving clichéd answers that will discourage your interviewer from advancing you to the next stage.

Teaching the Basics: Paths to Success

Guild of Scenic Artists: When I was first asked to write an article about beginning Scenic Art projects, it made me stop and think about how everything began. I’ve been teaching Scenic Art classes at this point for nearly 15 years now, and in the beginning, when I was developing projects I decided to lean on what I had learned in my own intro level paint courses in college. There is only one difference: the students I teach are not in college, they’re high school students. I teach at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, an arts magnet high school in Florida that puts on productions that can easily rival those at the college level.

Why Can’t I Be Both?

StateraArts: America hates fat people, specifically fat womxn and femmes. Our rampant diet-crazed culture equates self worth with waist size. Commercials celebrate post-diet bodies like prizes, magazines promise ways to lose 30 lbs in 30 days, and even Instagram touts some secret tea that will flatten your tummy. If you aren’t getting hefty servings of body-shame from the media, chances are you are being force-fed the same rhetoric by friends and family via grandmothers talking about the newest fad diet they are trying, friends asking which dress makes them look less fat, and mothers stressing over getting their “good” figure back. This inherited hate has been passed down for so many generations that we waste no time passing it on and teaching children there is always a better way to have a body. So what happens when your body is your business? Your livelihood?

Brian Clowdus: Providing Access Through Outdoor Immersive Storytelling

The Theatre Times: Brian Clowdus was left burned out and unfulfilled as a hustling actor. On a whim on his way back home, he visited Serenbe, Georgia and felt an immediate connection to the area. Following his gut, he proposed a plan for a playhouse that would eventually become one of the top emerging regional theatres in the country. Although not the initial plan, the lack of physical space drove Clowdus to create art outdoors.

‘Untouchable’ Filmmaker on Harvey Weinstein, Bryan Singer

Variety: Even after new allegations surfaced earlier this week against Bryan Singer — who has repeatedly denied all accusations throughout the years — news broke that the director would keep his job helming the upcoming film “Red Sonja,” despite swift backlash from the reports of sexual misconduct.

Chelsea Clinton's 'She Persisted' turned into a musical in Berkeley

Datebook: Berkeley’s Bay Area Children’s Theatre has a long tradition of adapting beloved children’s books — by Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle, Mo Willems and many others — into engaging, kid-friendly theatrical productions. But there’s a process to this magic.

Take this test to figure out how tone-deaf you are

The Verge: Over at Harvard University, the department of psychology has opened a new lab to study the science of music. While this is sure to lead to plenty of interesting research in the future, the important takeaway from this news is that the Music Lab has created a citizen science platform where the general public can take various music quizzes and contribute to research.

5 strong ways to close a cover letter

www.fastcompany.com: Writing a cover letter isn’t an easy task for many job seekers. There’s a lot of pressure because, sometimes, the cover letter is the only piece the recruiter will read. Therefore, your cover letter must be a piece of writing that describes your achievements, and how you will help the company succeed.

'Red Rex' review: Ike Holter's play puts Chicago theater scene squarely in its crosshairs

chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment: There are few words theater folk love to toss around more than “community” and “universal.” Both show up in pretty much every mission statement of every Off-Loop theater that ever existed. Curtain speeches about how the theater belongs to the “community” as much as to the artists on- and off-stage are as common as unsung stage managers. Ditto press releases that repeatedly stress the “universal” nature of any given production.

“Where did we sit on the bus?” at City Theatre

The Pittsburgh Tatler: Playwright/poet/performer Brian Quijada has hope for the future.

That’s not an easy orientation to maintain these days, particularly for someone who belongs – like Quijada himself – to the unjustly maligned community of people who are, or once were, undocumented migrants from Latin America. Yet paradoxically, it’s his own experience growing up the son of illegal immigrants from El Salvador that gives him hope for his yet-to-be-conceived mixed-race child.

A Dietitian Weighs In On Three Dancers' Rehearsal-Day Diets

Dance Magazine: Finding the right balance of meals and snacks to get through a dancer's day can take a lot of trial and error. To give you ideas, Dance Magazine asked three professional dancers to share the meals that kept them moving throughout one rehearsal day this season. Registered dietitian Emily Cook Harrison, who runs Nutrition for Great Performances, weighed in with her advice on how they could optimize their fuel even further.

NFTRW Weekly Top Five

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

Why More and More Dancers Are Getting Into Aerial

Dance Magazine: These days, you don't have to be in the circus to learn how to fly. Aerial dance has grown in popularity in recent years, blending modern dance and circus traditions and enlisting the help of trapeze, silks, hammocks, lyra and cube for shows that push both viewers and performers past their comfort zones.

Posted by David at 1/24/2019 01:05:00 PM

Puppet Master Brings His Art to CMU Opera

www.cmu.edu/news: In the upcoming opera "Zémire et Azor," there is beauty in its beast.

One of the earliest tellings of the "Beauty and the Beast," the opera has been adapted by Carnegie Mellon University Guest Director James Ortiz with the use of a massive 8-foot-tall puppet operated by four performers, while a fifth provides its voice. The show includes French songs with English dialogue.

Posted by David at 1/24/2019 01:08:00 PM

Be an AutoCAD Grandmaster: Tuesday Tips With Frank

AutoCAD Blog | Autodesk: I’ve heard that the best chess players see the game differently than novices. They tend to see the whole picture instead of individual pieces. They see how they all work together and how an individual move translates into the next state of the game.

Posted by David at 1/23/2019 11:51:00 AM

How Black Panther's Best Picture Oscar 2019 Nomination Changes Everything

www.esquire.com: It's a surreal time to be a comic book fan. The single issues we flicked through in quarter bins in the back of our favorite comic shops have become the source material for the most profitable movies on the planet. In just a decade, superhero films have become a dominant force in the cultural conversation, with phenomenal critical and financial success, yet the highest honors from Hollywood have alluded these films.

Posted by David at 1/25/2019 12:08:00 PM

When should you make career decisions based on money?

www.fastcompany.com: These days, many people want their careers to be more than just a way to earn a living. They want their jobs to give them a sense of purpose and meaning.

Posted by David at 1/24/2019 01:06:00 PM

‘Rent’ Team Talks Production Design for Fox’s Live Version

Variety: Traditionally, when Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” is performed on stage, the production design is minimal, consisting primarily of some scaffolding and a sculptural tree, with a long table, some chairs and a trash can as key set decorations. When approaching Fox’s live broadcast of the musical, production designer Jason Sherwood knew he had to honor that original spirit but still build out the world for a 360-degree, fully immersive experience.

Oscar Nominations’ Lack of Women Directors Reinforces Status Quo

Variety: Unconscionable. Unbelievable. Unsurprising. Once again, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has failed to nominate even a single woman in its best director category. It is the 86th time in the Academy’s 91-year history of awarding Oscars that the membership has seen fit to nominate an exclusively male slate.

A 4-Point Checklist for Portable Church Staging Safety

Church Production Magazine: Everybody knows the importance of safety on the job. But it can oftentimes be overlooked by small teams who are rushed to set up an entire church--sound, video, lighting, chairs--in just a couple of hours. Keep these points in mind to help keep you and your attendees safe.

"The Phantom 52" Among Animated Shorts at Sundance

Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama: Geoff Marslett’s film, “The Phantom 52,” has been selected for the “Animated Short Films” category at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, which takes place Jan. 24-Feb.3 in Park City, Utah. Marslett is an associate professor of film and television in Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama.

“It feels a bit like buying a lotto ticket, but you hope,” said Marslett of his sixth attempt at submitting a film. “It was a big deal to get in, it meant a lot.”

Samy Kamkar’s LED Balloon Network

Hackaday: Writing this in the frigid darkness of a Northern Hemisphere January evening, I have to admit to more than a little envy of Samy Kamkar and his friends. One of their summer events is a private party at a secluded campground somewhere that looks quite warm, which from here seems mighty attractive.

How Black Panther's Best Picture Oscar 2019 Nomination Changes Everything

www.esquire.com: It's a surreal time to be a comic book fan. The single issues we flicked through in quarter bins in the back of our favorite comic shops have become the source material for the most profitable movies on the planet. In just a decade, superhero films have become a dominant force in the cultural conversation, with phenomenal critical and financial success, yet the highest honors from Hollywood have alluded these films.

How to Get Started (and Thrive) in Church Tech

Church Production Magazine: The buttons, faders, and gear are so fun at first. And then reality sinks in. Being a church tech is tough work. A seasoned veteran shares how to balance the demands, grow your skills, and keep perspective on Whom you truly serve, in three key steps.

Review Roundup: Critics Weigh In On Ethan Hawke And Paul Dano In TRUE WEST On Broadway

www.broadwayworld.com: Roundabout Theatre Company's new Broadway production of Sam Shepard's Tony & Pulitzer Prize-nominated drama True West, directed by James Macdonald (The Children), opens tonight at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway.

The Top 5 Things You Need to Know to Keep Your Theatre Safe and Compliant

Wenger | J.R. Clancy: Designing, building, or updating a theatre space is just the first step in achieving maximum results for performances. Just like a car needs regular service to stay running and reliable, a theatre requires proper maintenance to keep it safe and fully functional.

Thomas Dolby Analyzes the Oscar Music Nominees

Variety: At the turn of the 21st century, movie scoring is continually evolving. There’s still a place for big orchestras, sure, but musical trends such as minimalism, hip-hop, jazz and EDM are changing the ways filmmakers use music to enhance drama and emotion. Storytelling has become more non-linear, while audiences are more savvy and don’t like being told what to feel.

What's Trending: The LED Revolution

www.livedesignonline.com: Let’s face it: Stage lighting has gone through a huge change in the past decade. Once upon a time, candles gave way to gaslight, then gaslight to electricity, and new lamps came into being from tungsten and incandescent sources to MR16, arcs, quartz, and fluorescent…and now, of course, the LED. Designers were naysayers at first—"we’ll never use them; they’ll never be bright enough; the colors aren’t true"—but today most are singing a different tune, or at least tuning in some different colors. The newest topic in Live Design’s What’s Trending series is The LED Revolution, as we check in with designers to see how they feel about those ubiquitous little light emitting diodes now.

The Top 13 Gantt Charts To Consider For Your Business

Clickup Blog: Gantt charts are flexible charts that provide a comprehensive look at the status of every project.

You’ll also see how your projects and individual tasks overlap and connect on your daily work schedule.

Getting to Know the Parts of a Drill

Pro Tool Reviews: Knowing the parts of a drill is key to getting the most out of it. Whether you’re a DIYer expanding your knowledge, the greenest apprentice, or just checking up to make sure we know what we’re talking about, you’ve come to the right place!

Puppet Master Brings His Art to CMU Opera

www.cmu.edu/news: In the upcoming opera "Zémire et Azor," there is beauty in its beast.

One of the earliest tellings of the "Beauty and the Beast," the opera has been adapted by Carnegie Mellon University Guest Director James Ortiz with the use of a massive 8-foot-tall puppet operated by four performers, while a fifth provides its voice. The show includes French songs with English dialogue.

When should you make career decisions based on money?

www.fastcompany.com: These days, many people want their careers to be more than just a way to earn a living. They want their jobs to give them a sense of purpose and meaning.

The Top 100 Greatest Tours of All Time

www.vividseats.com: "I saw them on tour."

Five words that nearly every music fan has uttered.

Seeing a live performer on tour forever links both artist and fan to a particular venue, on a particular date, in a certain moment in time. Sometimes, the tour has a special, personal meaning to the individual fan, like the first time seeing a show with a future spouse. In other instances, a concert tour transcends live events and is a cultural moment.

Why More and More Dancers Are Getting Into Aerial

Dance Magazine: These days, you don't have to be in the circus to learn how to fly. Aerial dance has grown in popularity in recent years, blending modern dance and circus traditions and enlisting the help of trapeze, silks, hammocks, lyra and cube for shows that push both viewers and performers past their comfort zones.

Backstage with scenic artist Leah Blackwood

Theater | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: I take drawings from the designer and make them into scenery. Carpenters build pieces — walls, floorboards, doors, furnishings. Then I use paint and other materials to make them look like something other than what they are.

In theater, evolving answers but same questions half-century on

Datebook: As 1969 opened, you could catch Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” at the Curran, then Norman Mailer’s “The Deer Park” at Berkeley Rep. San Francisco Chronicle theater critic Paine Knickerbocker was predicting that “the future of American theater seems to lie with A.C.T. and other resident companies,” a prediction borne out, 50 years later, by the huge institutions that A.C.T., Berkeley Rep and TheatreWorks have become.

Inverted Periaktoi

Dramatics Magazine: Early in my career as a designer, I was challenged many times with the need to create multiple settings for a production while taking up minimal space. Many young set designers are most familiar with the traditional three-walled set, which features a back wall and two side walls on angles. This model and its variations work well for shows requiring a unit set, where all of the scenes take place in the same location. You can design a convincing and lovely room or set of rooms to give the audience a sense of space and time.

SAG-AFTRA Rally Against Ad Agency BHH Draws Nearly 1,000

Variety: SAG-AFTRA is keeping up the pressure on the advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), holding a spirited mid-day rally at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.

Reps for the union said the noon event on Wednesday drew sign-ups from nearly 1,000 members and supporters at national headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard, followed by a two-block march to a stage next to the tar pits and a 45-minute rally.

ETC boards the Polar Express

et cetera...: When guests arrived at the train platform for a ride on The Polar Express this holiday season, they knew they were in for a magical evening — but chances are they never thought about the technical challenges that come with mounting a show on a moving train …

Tina Landau: “A Home in the Theatre”

Arts Integrity Initiative: I was asked to deliver the Keynote Address for BroadwayCon, a three day expo for fans of Broadway theater. The theme of the Opening Ceremony was “Home,” and included performances by Susan Egan singing “Home” from Beauty and the Beast, Hailey Kilgore with “Home” from The Wiz, as well as Ethan Slater, Ben Cameron, and Anthony Rapp contributing other songs and an opening group performance of “BroadwayCon Today,” set to the tune of “Bikini Bottom Day” from SpongeBob SquarePants – The Musical.

Kuala Lumpur Theme Park Became a Fox-Themed Fiasco

Variety: Twentieth Century Fox executives looked around in 2013 and decided it was finally time for the historic studio to get into the theme park business.

Fox had seen Disney and Universal expand into Japan and China, slowly conquering the globe with their resort businesses. So they came up with a bold idea to grab a piece of the international tourism market by licensing Fox IP — including “Ice Age” and “Planet of the Apes” — to local resort developers in Dubai and Malaysia.

Many game developers support unionization, but few think it’ll happen

The Verge: One of the big talking points at last year’s Game Developers Conference was unionization, and it’s a subject that’s only become more important in the wake of events like the closure of Telltale Games. According to GDC’s latest annual survey, which includes responses from close to 4,000 developers, nearly half — 47 percent — of those who were polled support unionization, with only 16 percent saying they’re against the idea.

Inside Scott Lehrer’s Sound Design for ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

www.livedesignonline.com: When Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960, it became an instant American classic: Her tale of a small-town lawyer called upon to defend an innocent black man accused of a horrific crime won the Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into 40 languages, and was immortalized in a 1962 film that earned Gregory Peck an Oscar.

Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

Techdirt: When it comes to Star Wars, both Lucasfilm and Disney have shown themselves to be perfectly insane when it comes to IP protectionism. Examples of this are legion, and neither company has come out of them with a stellar or fan-friendly image, generally speaking. That is probably why when Toos, the guy behind the quite popular Star Wars Theory YouTube channel, decided to put out a Darth Vader fan-film, he went out of his way to attempt to follow all the rules.

Making Light

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Basement Complex Suite 102 begins in near darkness. There are no house lights, so ushers have to lead the audience to their seats with small flashlights. There is a dim red glow from an exit sign, and, far upstage, the LEDs of analogue electronic instruments flicker. Each audience member also has their own flashlight, handed to them when they arrived; some play with the switch but nothing happens. A couple people giggle nervously, others whisper to each other. Most aren’t used to being in the dark this long.

How 'Rent' sings about drugs, AIDS and death in prime time

www.usatoday.com: For a theater nerd, visiting the set of a live TV musical sounds like a treat. There will be singing! There will be dancing! There will be unbridled joy!

At the Fox lot where “Rent” is being rehearsed this month, there was plenty of all. But also a somber undertone. And references to mortality, including a near-death scene being practiced from a loft-like stage.

Art on the Go with Adobe Photoshop Sketch

AMT Lab @ CMU: Adobe Creative Cloud’s Photoshop Sketch is a mobile and tablet app that allows users to create expressive, digital drawings on the go. Artworks are created through the use of “natural” tools, such as pens, pencils, markers, and watercolor brushes, which are designed to interact naturally with the digital canvas to mirror the texture and blending effects rendered when working on paper.

Intiman and ACT theaters finally debt-free after years of belt-tightening and generosity from others

The Seattle Times: For the past eight years, Intiman Theatre has been living with an anvil hanging over its head: millions of dollars in debt, which was discovered during a harrowing spring in 2011 and nearly imploded the theater. The board laid off its approximately 20 employees — including relatively new artistic director Kate Whoriskey.

Oscar nominations: Asians shut out, again. So are female directors.

www.usatoday.com: We are officially clear of 2015's kickoff #OscarsSoWhite catastrophe.

But let's not let Hollywood off the hook: The number of Oscar nominations that minorities received Tuesday for acting remains off-kilter.

True, "Roma" stars Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira saw love from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the lead and supporting actress categories, respectively. And Mahershala Ali ("Green Book") and Regina King ("If Beale Street Could Talk") were nominated in supporting categories.

Pittsburgh Opera reimagines a Mozart classic to channel stories of modern refugees

Theater | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: In reconceptualizing the 1780 opera Idomeneo for afterWARds - Mozart's Idomeneo Reimagined at Pittsburgh Opera, director David Paul had two priorities.

First, he had to cut down the original's four-hour runtime to something more manageable. He started with the scenes and songs he knew he couldn't live without, then started cutting excess and reorganizing plot points so the whole thing still made sense.

Broadway ‘Mockingbird’ Precludes British ‘Mockingbird’

The New York Times: A British touring production of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which was to start next month, has been canceled after Scott Rudin’s company Atticus — the firm behind the Broadway hit — threatened legal action.

The British production was to use the playwright Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s book, a version that has long been popular in schools.

What’s next? The future of media based attractions

InPark Magazine: InPark assembled a group of experts and asked them what trends, especially those oversees, are influencing the next generation of media-based attractions.

Be an AutoCAD Grandmaster: Tuesday Tips With Frank

AutoCAD Blog | Autodesk: I’ve heard that the best chess players see the game differently than novices. They tend to see the whole picture instead of individual pieces. They see how they all work together and how an individual move translates into the next state of the game.

A Role for Theatre in Criminal Justice?

AMERICAN THEATRE: It was a refrain Kate Powers heard repeatedly as she began to knock on the (digital) doors of corrections facilities throughout Minnesota in early 2017, attempting to get a foot in the door for her Shakespeare-in-prison program, the Redeeming Time Project. That is, when she got an answer at all; most of the time her outreach emails to wardens received no reply. Her calls to state legislators did eventually lead to an introduction to the Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner, who sets policy for corrections facilities statewide, but that meeting proved to be a dead end.

Japanese company develops artificial meteor showers on demand

Boing Boing: A Japanese start-up built a microsatellite that was launched into orbit today. The satellite contains 400 tiny balls that can be released on demand and will burn brightly enough to be seen on Earth as they burn up in the atmosphere.

Natalie Portman on Bias in Resistance to Inclusion Riders

The Mary Sue: Inclusion riders are nice in theory, but listening to Natalie Portman talk about them makes one thing very clear: The system is a lot more messed up than people realize and an inclusion rider may not be the only thing that can fix it.

Backstage, a ‘School of Rock’ Staffer Faces Graduation

The New York Times: Jill Valentine is pretty sure the kids have a nickname for her: Fun Killer. For nearly four years, Ms. Valentine has been the head guardian of “School of Rock,” which played its last performance on Sunday at the Winter Garden Theater. Guardians care for child actors during rehearsals and before and after performances, making sure they’re fed, watered and rested. Ms. Valentine distributes children’s pain relievers, she runs science flashcards, she confiscates contraband.

Go 'Behind the Curtain' with Tony-Winning Producer, Co-Owner of Feinstein's/54 Below Richard Frankel

www.broadwayworld.com: Richard Frankel is one of Broadway's most respected producers and is one of the co-owners of Feinstein's/54 Below, arguable the most influential cabaret space in the world. As a producer, his passion for theater led to audiences discovering such theatrical pieces as Penn & Teller, Driving Miss Daisy, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune, Stomp, Angels in America, The Producers, Hairspray, and revivals of The Sound of Music, A Little Night Music, Company, Sweeney Todd, and so many others.

Podcast Episode 174 – Pulitzer Prize Winner, Alfred Uhry

The Producer's Perspective: I first met Alfred Uhry when I was company managing the reading and the workshop of Parade, the musical he wrote with Jason Robert Brown, years before it made it to Broadway.

5 Theatres You Need to Know: NYC Companies Showcasing Artists with Disabilities

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: According to the most recent statistics, more than 40 million Americans have a disability, and 948,208 are residents of NYC. That's about 11.2% of our city's population.

As a disabled New Yorker interested in theatre, I'm not just concerned about accessibility as an audience member, I also want to see my peers represented on stage. Happily, our city is home to multiple professional companies that put artists with disabilities in the spotlight, allowing them to play a wide range of characters both with -- and without -- disabilities.

"Mr. Eichhorn And The First Snow" - Puppetry for Children

The Theatre Times: It is the very last day of autumn and the last yellow leaf has just fallen from the tree. Mr. Eichhorn the squirrel emerges from the trunk sipping a cup of tea. This year, he is determined to see the first snowflakes. He must not fall into hibernation as he has always done, but then, this is quite an arduous task for Mr. Eichhorn. He begins some physical exercises. He hops noisily from tree to tree, does some squats, sit-ups and even the worm dance! Exhausted, he almost falls into sleep. This should not happen! He hops higher and farther and all of this noise has awoken the hedgehog.

Artist Transforms His Face With Incredible Optical Illusion Makeup

mymodernmet.com: From 3D drawings that seem to jump off the page to mind-boggling hyperrealistic art, we’ve seen many skilled artists transform 2D surfaces into 3D illusions. However, professional makeup artist Luca Luce takes playing with perspective to a whole new level by using his own face as his canvas. The Italian artist showcases the astonishing power of makeup, creating mind-blowing looks that are equally creepy as they are captivating.

Video Interview With Harvey Goldsmith: 'Losing $5m On A Tour Now Doesn't Mean Anything'

Pollstar: It's a mess. The state of the world is a mess. We have governmental problems in the UK, where we're dealing with this whole issue of Brexit, which is a mess, and where members of parliament don't agree with what the public want, and it's awful.

We have financial problems in Europe, we have problems with America, where the government's currently shut down. That's not a good start of the year, and we have problems with America and China, and America and Russia...we are in a very messy state globally at the moment.

But nevertheless, entertainment continues and is as strong as ever.

15+ Art and Photography Classes Online to Spark Your Imagination

mymodernmet.com: With January nearly over, how are your new year’s resolutions going? If you have creative goals but are having trouble making them stick, maybe an art jump start is all you need. Getting a boost is easier than you think; art and photography classes online allow you to refresh your skills or learn new things—all from the comfort of your own home. Among the thousands (upon thousands) of e-courses on Creativelive, Skillshare, Bluprint, and Creativebug, you’re sure to find something that inspires you.

The 'Choose Your Own Adventure' People Are Suing Netflix Over 'Bandersnatch'

Techdirt: As you may have already heard, the latest iteration of the Black Mirror franchise on Netflix, titled Bandersnatch, is an absolute hit. You likely also have heard that it allows the viewer to influence the plot by making choices within the story's many inflection points. And, hey, perhaps you even heard that Netflix is facing legal action by Chooseco LLC, the company behind the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series that were popular in the '80s and '90s.

THOUGHT IN MIND: WHAT'D I MISS?

thoughtinmind.blogspot.com: IS ANYONE ENTITLED to see HAMILTON because of their race or fiscal circumstance? No. Many of the folks who have paid to see it scrimped and saved and made it happen because it was important to them. They earned it just as much as the folks who had more available income, and thus didn’t have to save quite as much for quite as long to afford tickets. The only people who can stake an uncontested claim to being entitled to seeing the show are the people who bought tickets…but I have issues with a system that virtually locks people out of a cultural experience, even when that cultural experience benefits from reflecting audiences that can’t actually see the show.

Creativity and Your Network

The Creativity Post: We tend to associate networking with a shallow effort to build up our contacts from nothing, to gain more business opportunities.

But it turns out that a deeper look at network science shows this view is off-base, and that the reality is much less of a slog and a lot more fun.

Through a research-based study of network science, David Burkus pinpointed 11 universal principles that, if followed, can help us grow our productivity and creative thinking potential as we work better with our network.

The Fundamentals of Physical Modeling Synthesis

Pro Audio Files: Physical modeling is an approach to synthesis that is very different from other techniques such as FM or subtractive synthesis. This becomes obvious fairly quickly since the parameter choices are like nothing you would find in other types of synths. You may see controls for media loss, stiffness or tension, for instance.

Bosch GLM400C Interior and Exterior Laser Goes the Distance

Home Fixated: We’ve been fans of Bosch laser distance measuring devices since they first started coming on the market several years ago. Comparing the laser measuring tools of today to those from four years ago is a bit like comparing televisions from the 1970’s to today’s flat screens.

Jameela Jamil says she turned down a role as a deaf woman in hopes producers would cast a deaf actress.

slate.com/culture: In an interview with the Press Association, The Good Place actress Jameela Jamil said she turned down a recent offer to portray a deaf woman in hopes that a deaf actress would be cast in her place. Jamil made her comments in the wake of a conversation about disability representation sparked by Bryan Cranston’s role as a paralyzed man in The Upside. Although she didn’t name the project, Jamil explained why she turned down the role

Dolby made a secret app for recording studio quality audio on your phone

The Verge: Dolby has been quietly testing a new mobile app for recording and cleaning up audio under the codename “234,” as first spotted by TechCrunch. The app, which was available through a website sign-up form, lets you record audio (a la Voice Notes), cancels background noise, and then apply presets, with names like “Amped,” “Thump,” and “Bright,” to theoretically make your recordings sound more professional.

in 1: the podcast with Sound Designer Kai Harada

Stage Directions: Here’s a new episode of in 1: the podcast, hosted by Lighting Designer Cory Pattak, as he speaks with Tony Award-winning Sound Designer, Kai Harada. Pattak and Harada talk about all of the challenges of dealing with roving musicians, musicians under the stage, all with an incredibly nuanced score for The Band’s Visit.

Theatre Centre-Stage At US Literary Translation Conference

The Theatre Times: The American Literary Translators Association has been holding an annual conference since its founding in 1978. Every year–in a different city each time–literary translators gather to discuss and recognize each other’s work in panels and roundtables, bilingual readings, award ceremonies, and mingling at book fairs and receptions. For the most part, ALTA has attracted translators of poetry and prose, with drama translation showing up only on the occasional panel, and generally overlooked.

Trailblazing Women: Victoria Morgan's Cincinnati Ballet

Pointe: Victoria Morgan's normally bright smile is even brighter entering her 22nd season as Cincinnati Ballet's artistic director. That's because the 55-year-old company is in the best shape it has ever been: Attendance, ticket sales and the company's annual operating budget are at all-time highs. But the road to Cincinnati Ballet's current successes required an early revamp in Morgan's thinking about programming.

Thinking Out Loud

The Theatre Times: The influence of the essay as a means of expression has long reached beyond the confines of literature. Just think of the visual essay and the rich history of the essay film. In his groundbreaking study Postdramatisches Theater (1999), theatre scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann devoted a very short chapter to the “scenic essay.” Lehmann saw it as one of the possible paths that theatre could pursue as soon as it decentralized or let go of the dramatic plot. Today, a lot of the work that dominates our stages possesses an essayistic slant. Why is that? And how do artists translate this form to the stage?

Painting The Pavement With Projected Kandinsky Artwork

Rosco Spectrum: The Artequin Museum is an interactive and educational museum located in Santiago de Chile whose mission is to bring the world of contemporary art closer to children, young people and adults. Housed in a national historic landmark Paris Pavilion, the museum recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a newly renovated entrance plaza “La Plaza De La Luz y el Arte Enel” that aims to engage the public in a unique experience of colour, sound and form inspired by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.