ESSAY: What I Did For Love, And How I Plan To Do Less

rescripted.org: A strange ritual would often take place in the halls of my university’s theatre center. College students would convene before classes or rehearsals to present the hours of sleep they had claimed the night before. The student who shared the lowest number would wear this insomnia as a badge of honor. Bonus points were awarded if the time spent awake was done at the library, or in the theatre after hours. I perceived this bizarre ritual as a product of the college experience. Little did I know, the professional theatre would not be that different.

The First Socially Distanced Concert in the UK Was Not a Success

Consequence of Sound: It’s not just the US having challenges with socially distanced concerts. This past Tuesday, Frank Turner played the first socially distanced indoor gig in the UK to a respectful crowd, but organizers for the event have unfortunately declared the show as “not a success,” reports BBC.

There's no HR on Tour, So This Live Music Couple Built a Roadie Clinic

Rolling Stone: Working behind the scenes on music tours often means long hours and lots of stress — but no official resource to turn to for help. “There’s no HR anywhere,” Courtney Klimson, founder and president of concert company Theory One Productions, tells Rolling Stone. “If something happens to you, who do you tell? And if you tell the wrong person, are you going to lose your job? If you say it the wrong way, are you going to be labeled as X,Y, and Z?”

Creating history: Motion control, industrial communications challenge

Control Engineering: A team from Chicago Flyhouse designed a system to suspend a live hanging garden, called Nature Clouds, to showcase plants living from the prehistoric era. Four “clouds” range in weight from 5,000 to 19,000 pounds, each suspended above the museum floor. The clouds’ needs are supported via an energy chain flexible cable tray that includes cables that provide water, power and fiber optics to the living sculptures suspended by high capacity hoists.

Barrington Stage Company Forced to Move Equity-Approved HARRY CLARKE Outdoors

www.broadwayworld.com: The Barrington Stage Company (BSC) production of Harry Clarke, starring Mark H. Dold and directed by Founder/Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, will move outdoors to follow Massachusetts state guidelines on safe reopening in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Best Pliers and Plier Sets in 2020

Pro Tool Reviews: Buying the best pliers might sound simple. If you’re an electrician, you probably already have your favorites. However, if you just started out in the trades, or you need a solution for more than just the sparky applications, we can help. We cover individual pliers as well as the best plier sets to get you off and running. Hopefully, these recommendations work regardless of whether you’re starting your career or just replacing some well-used or misplaced tools.

Theater box seats as best seats in the house?

Chicago Tribune: Ever watched a show from a box at the side of the stage?

Didn’t think so.

Although boxes remain a dominant part of theater architecture, they’ve gone from highly desirable to barely salable over the last hundred years.

Colorado’s entertainment industry; thousands without work look for ways to adapt

www.rmpbs.org: The first real signs of economic distress hit Colorado in mid-March with the cancellation of almost all entertainment activities due to stay-at-home orders.

Concerts, musicals, conventions, graduations, and performances of all kinds stopped. So did the careers and incomes of the skilled professionals who make them happen.

Stagehands, grips, makeup artists, theater electricians… thousands working behind the scenes in Colorado’s entertainment industry were left without work.

It’s Time for a New Labor Movement in the Performing Arts

Current Affairs: I’ll never forget the week I worked 128 hours—without overtime. There are, of course, only 168 hours in a week, and by the time you have worked your 128th, you no longer have professional standards, boundaries, or even much of an identity left. Me, personally? I was cackling at every provocation and blinking too often to chase away sleep. At the time, I was a concert sound engineer, lighting designer, and technical director, and I was in the process of opening a new concert venue (that must remain nameless) in New York City.

'Made it back!': Lloyd Webber unveils safety measures at London Palladium

Theatre | The Guardian: The singer Beverley Knight gave a blazing performance at the London Palladium on Thursday but the spotlight was firmly offstage on the safety measures used in the auditorium to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s theatre opened at 30% capacity, to an audience including industry figures and the public, to demonstrate stringent hygiene methods he hopes can be used to enable UK theatres to reopen.

We Commit to Anti-Racist Stage Management Education

HowlRound Theatre Commons: From tragedy to uproar, America is being held to account. There is much work to do during this pause. We are two educators and stage managers who lead the MFA programs at Yale School of Drama and the University of California, San Diego. We identify as women—one Black, and one White—who share an intentional commitment to practicing and teaching anti-racist stage management. We are engaged in inquiry and self-assessment, as well as conversation about how the production of live performance will be transformed and how we can prepare stage managers to lead an authentically equitable theatrical process.

Russian Theatre Stages "The Cherry Orchard" Using Minecraft

The Theatre Times: The “ironic, but reliable” version recreates the theater experience in the finest details.

The Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater in St. Petersburg (not to be confused with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow) staged a brief version of The Cherry Orchard, a famous play by Russian dramatist and playwright Anton Chekhov. A highly poetic and sad story about a disappearing class of Russian gentry, who are losing the usual way of life because of economic and financial hardship has now been staged within the popular online game Minecraft, and the unusual performance was streamed live on YouTube.

Cameron Mackintosh: 'London and New York can't function without theatres'

London Evening Standard: London’s theatre crisis rose to new heights of absurdity last week when Andrew Lloyd Webber brilliantly exposed the artistic and commercial bankruptcy of trying to apply social distancing to indoor mainstream theatre. Even the most optimistic theatre practitioners among us came to the conclusion that it is a disaster.

Using a Crisis to Lean-In with Diversity & Inclusion

AMT Lab @ CMU: Art is often referenced as a medium of the human condition, one that can be used as a unifying factor among all, regardless of differences. However, the current landscape of the visual and performing arts have disproportionally displayed art portraying the world through the eyes of white men, with a lesser focus on art created by minority groups.

IATSE RESPONSE & STATEMENT FROM INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT LOEB OPPOSING “HEALS” ACT

IATSE Cares: When Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in late-March – providing temporary economic relief for entertainment workers – it was already clear that subsequent COVID-19 legislation would be required in short order to address substantial issues that working people continue to face as a result of the ongoing pandemic.

Design Bolsters Acoustics At Performing Arts Center

2020-07-27 | Engineering News-Record: The choice to use cast-in-place architectural concrete and other sophisticated concrete work has proved to be both dynamic and difficult on Plano Independent School District’s new fine arts center, officially dubbed the Robbie & Lynore Robinson Fine Arts Center.

The Texas school district was looking to create a single location for its arts programs at the middle and high school levels and allow the district to host state University Interscholastic League contests and other such events.

How THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Brought Theatre Back to Seoul and Is Giving Hope to Shows Around the World

BWW Exclusive: The music of the night plays on in South Korea! As BroadwayWorld reported in April, the world tour of The Phantom of the Opera resumed performances in Seoul on April 23- just weeks after the show was suspended because of illness within the cast. Following a 15-day self-quarantine for the rest of the cast and crew, all but one of the 126 company members went on with the show- with a slew of health and safety measures in place

Online alchemy with the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival

Performing Arts Feature | Chicago Reader: Shadow and light. Wood and paper. Dust and clay. Alchemy. These are the tools of Chicago’s master puppeteers. Within the implacable constraints of quarantine, they remain—as ever—monarchs of infinite space, conjuring sentience where none exists and creating vast worlds even as a pandemic walls us away in spaces that often feel small enough to be bound by a nutshell. Of all the live art forms, puppetry is arguably the one most readily adapted to the privations of lockdown.

How Costumers Develop Trust with Actors

Dramatics Magazine: MORE THAN MANY other backstage roles, costumers work very closely with actors. The job involves close physical contact, constant character discussions, and stressful late nights. Even if all the costumes are perfectly crafted, made of the best fabric, and showcase the freshest designs, they will be irrelevant if the costumer’s relationships with actors are not built upon one key value: trust.

Members of the NY Theater Community Are Leaving NYC

www.ny1.com: Steven Lyon is an accomplished musician who’s played dozens of shows on Broadway, Radio City Music Hall and more. The Hell's Kitchen resident is used to earning more than $2,000 a week, but now he’s scraping by just to make ends meet.

Black Theatre Coalition Formed to End Industry's Racial Inequalities

thebroadwayblog.com: Co-founders T. Oliver Reid, Warren Adams, and Reginald “Reggie” Van Lee, along with Executive Director Afton Battle and Board Member Aaliytha Stevens, have announced the formation of the Black Theatre Coalition (BTC), a new organization aiming to build a sustainable, ethical roadmap to increase employment opportunities for Black theater professionals and eradicate the long-standing racial inequities in the American theater. Its stated goal is to increase work opportunities for Black theatre professionals by at least 500% by 2030.

Bourne Stuntacular | a new adventure at Universal Orlando

blooloop: Blooloop spoke to Deborah Buynak, Vice President of Entertainment for Universal Orlando Resort, who worked on The Bourne Stuntacular for over three years, from start to finish. She talks about the experience of creating an exciting new attraction, working with live stunt performers and how guests have reacted so far.

Review: In SF Shakes' 'King Lear,' the actors can't see each other, but you can

Datebook: In the era of Zoom theater, we stalwart theatergoers have adapted to seeing actors separated into a bunch of tiny windows, a la “The Brady Bunch.” When performers simulate physical interaction, or even just eye contact, we must imagine the space between them. We must also conjure a place for ourselves, translating our point of view from the no-man’s-land between two performers’ cameras to the rows of a theater.

Balcony Battles: When To Split Upper & Lower Mains?

ProSoundWeb: Previously, I’ve addressed the impact of breaking and tapering a line of loudspeakers (here). Now let’s turn our attention to balconies.

Everybody seems to love breaking main loudspeakers horizontally into left and right, but breaking them vertically into upper and lower? Not so much. We can be repeat offenders when it comes to multi-main horizontal breaks, such as a parade route or racetracks.

‘Government Has Consistently Failed’ Finds UK Government COVID Report

Pollstar: In an analysis of the UK government's response to the Covid-19 crisis, the country's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) finds that the needs of the sectors it represents haven't been met.

After establishing that the "Covid-19 crisis presents biggest threat to UK's cultural infrastructure, institutions and workforce in a generation," the DCMS concludes that "Government has consistently failed to recognize scale of challenge facing culture, sport and tourism."

Breaking Down The Legacy Of Race In Traditional Music In America

90.5 WESA: The symbols of America's racist past have been under intense scrutiny since the protests against police brutality erupted nationwide. The confederate flag and other monuments from that era have been disappearing from public spaces — both by force and legislation.

Coronavirus cancellations at weddings, concerts, conventions hit Philadelphia events pros hard

www.inquirer.com: Masked, standing six feet apart, and rolling their road cases in protest around City Hall, about 60 workers from the live events industry rallied Friday as part of a national effort to influence how COVID-19-relief funds are apportioned — and how and when events like concerts, conventions, and wedding galas can safely resume.

The Difference Between Constructive Criticism and Bullying

lifehacker.com: In the midst of “cancel culture” and living in an extremely politically polarized society, it’s not uncommon to receive feedback from other people. In fact, even the term “feedback” feels euphemistic, given that so many exchanges now—whether on social media or in person—can be heated (to put it mildly). And though it typically doesn’t feel great to be told you’re doing something wrong and/or could improve in some way, there’s a difference between getting constructive criticism from someone, and being bullied.

'Radioactive' Costume Designer Consolata Boyle on Marie Curie Movie

Variety: Consolata Boyle is no stranger to dressing actors as famous women. The Emmy-winning and three-time Oscar-nominated costume designer has helped Judi Dench become Queen Victoria (“Victoria and Abdul”), unlocked Margaret Thatcher for Meryl Streep (“The Iron Lady”) and opened the wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth II for Helen Mirren (“The Queen”). Now she takes on scientific royalty by channeling the world of Marie Curie for Rosamund Pike in “Radioactive,” which Amazon Studios begins streaming July 24.

VenuesNow Announces 2020 Women Of Influence Honorees

Pollstar: VenuesNow, the sports and entertainment facility industry’s premier trade publication, today announced its 2020 Women of Influence honorees. Now in its 14th year, the Women of Influence award honors visionaries and outstanding leaders in sports and live entertainment for their positive impact on the industry. The 10 honorees are voted on by subscribers with one editor’s choice.

We Experienced the First West End Show Staged With Social Distancing. Here's What It Was Like.

TheaterMania: Four months on and, though social distancing measures have been altered, the circumstances are still desperate for the arts sector – even with a £1.57 billion package announced by UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak, questions still remain about whether or not any shows will be possible this side of 2021. The countdown is on to see if the annual holiday season pantomime shows are a no-go.

Art Directors Guild Releases Best Practice Guidelines For TV/Film Sets - Variety

variety.com: The Art Directors Guild has released an 11-page document outlining their set of best practice protocols for film and TV productions operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. The recommendations are intended to address the day to day experience of ADG members and designed to supplement the industry-wide white paper testing and department-specific protocols.

Sleight of Screen

Chicago magazine | August 2020: A group of puppeteers huddles around an array of vintage overhead projectors. A meticulous cutout of a London skyline moves up across the light box, the projected image suggesting a camera panning down. Cut to another projector, where the silhouette of a quill touches the silhouette of an inkwell; elsewhere on stage, a foley artist creates the tapping sound of the quill on the jar. On the other side of the stage, an actor’s shadow casts against another screen.

Roto presents update on Mote Science Education Aquarium project

blooloop.com: Roto is proud to be working alongside architects tvsdesign on the creation of the new Mote Science Education Aquarium (Mote SEA). Remastered renderings of the attraction have now been released and the expected date for the official groundbreaking in September 2020 will be announced later this year.

Osheaga's summer of silence: 'I still can't believe it's not happening'

Montreal Gazette: Crickets.

That’s what you’ll hear if you head out to Parc Jean-Drapeau next weekend. And as loud as crickets get, they can’t compete with what would have filled the air, were this a regular summer: the rousing sounds of the 15th Osheaga Music and Arts Festival.

Sens Klobuchar, Cornyn Propose $10 Billion "Save Our Stages Act"

www.ticketnews.com: U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has introduced a bill aimed at helping small music venues survive the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill, introduced Wednesday, proposes setting aside $10 billion to distribute over the next six months, with individual venues able to apply for grants of up to $12 million.

Scientists in Germany Plan Concert to Test Coronavirus Plans

www.ticketnews.com: Researchers in Germany are planning to stage a concert in Germany with 4,000 volunteers in attendance, hoping to study the behavior of crowds and better understand methods to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases at large-scale gatherings. The concert, featuring singer-songwriter Tim Bendzko, is planned for August 22 at Leipzig Concert Hall.

SLEEPLESS Musical Will Use New Fast COVID-19 Test Backstage

www.broadwayworld.com: SLEEPLESS, A Musical Romance, which announced last month it would begin socially distanced indoor performances at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre from 25 August, will begin using a new accurate COVID-19 test on cast, musicians, crew and theatre staff on a daily basis during rehearsals and during the run of the show. The test is called FRANKD (Fast, Reliable, Accurate, Nucleic-based Kit for Covid19 Diagnostic Detection).

Stage Union Releases COVID Safety Guidelines For Broadway Return

Deadline: Theatrical stage union IATSE has issued a 27-page set of safety guidelines for the still-to-be-determined reopening of Broadway and other live performance venues, with recommendations including the employment of COVID-19 “compliance officers,” paid sick leave and diagnostic testing of workers.

Misty Copeland Says Black Dancers Are "Finally Being Heard"

thegrapevine.theroot.com: Several cracks in the foundation of America have been uncovered during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as issues within the country’s healthcare and class systems. Especially in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, racial inequality has become a huge topic across several fields and industries, such as the journalism/online media and the improv comedy spaces.

New Staging Concepts in the Time of COVID-19

LiveDesignOnline: Social distancing is the first thing on everyone’s mind during the time of COVID-19. So how do you welcome people back to your venues in a way that makes them feel safe and keeps them safe?

Staging Concepts, a provider of portable staging solutions, has already had venues inquire about creative accommodations that will ensure the safety of their guests but ultimately change and—dare we say—enhance the audience experience.

Beyond Zoom plays: The future of theater in the age of coronavirus

Datebook: In the early days of the pandemic, theater adapted with plays on Zoom, which so far has not proved an ideal medium.

It’s “a platform that was intended for conference calls, and that never quite goes away,” says San Francisco playwright and director Stuart Bousel. He’s open, though, to the possibility of a “forward-looking” mode that is built for Zoom’s tools and strengths, as opposed to one that’s “nostalgic,” one that futilely imitates in-person theater.

The Job Is to Be Invisible, Not to Disappear Entirely

AMERICAN THEATRE: “I really don’t want to be onstage,” Steve Eiman said to their sixth-grade English teacher during their first theatre experience, a rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Can I have the role with the least amount of lines?”

And so a theatre technician was born.

Now 26, Steve Eiman is a freelance, non-union general technician who works steadily in collegiate theatre, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway. Or, to be more precise, who was working steadily in those realms until COVID-19 hit.

Kobalt XTR High-Torque Impact Wrench KXIW 1424A-03

PTR: There’s a handful of Kobalt cordless impact wrenches to choose from and they all have their place in the shop or on the jobsite. None of them have come close to the power we’re seeing from the Kobalt XTR high-torque impact wrench, though!

Real World Gear: Large-Format Digital Mixing Consoles

ProSoundWeb: When we talk of “large frame” consoles, older analog units with channel counts of 40 inputs or more come to mind because they actually had very large frames loaded with channel strips. In today’s digital world, however, we’re usually referring to a console that can professionally handle a large production, even if physically it’s not all that sizeable, because most use layers of fader banks to access additional channels and functions like aux sends on faders.

Coronavirus: Theatres Are Already Closing – The UK Government Needs To Act Now

The Theatre Times: The executive director of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, Steve Freeman, could have been speaking for the whole performing arts industry when he said recently: “The current economic landscape is desperate for theatres up and down the country.”

Scientists Are Holding A Music Concert To See How Covid-19 Spreads At Mass Gatherings

IFLScience: Much to the annoyance of sports fans and culture hounds, events with large audiences have been put on ice over the past few months thanks to the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic. But as social distancing and lockdown measures start to ease up around the world, what’s the risk of such events? A massive new experiment plans to employ the help of a German pop star and 4,000 fans to find out.

A Tale of Two Reopenings, With and Without the Union Label

AMERICAN THEATRE: When Actors’ Equity Association announced in late May its four guiding principles for reopening theatres, developed with the advice of former OSHA head Dr. David Michaels, it felt like live theatre was still worlds—or at least many, many months—away. With requirements like the pandemic needing to be under control in a given theatre’s region, and extensive (and accurate and speedy) testing available, bars that few areas could reasonably say they were meeting, theatres all over the U.S. have begun to push seasons back as far as the spring and summer of 2021. And that was even before the surge of cases the nation has seen over the last month, as cities have prematurely reopened and many people have ignored safety measures.

On Being, Virtually, at Cannes XR

No Proscenium: The Guide To Everything Immersive: In late June, the Marché du Film, Tribeca, Kaleidoscope, The Museum of Other Realities (MOR) and Veer VR partnered to present Cannes XR Virtual, a program “dedicated to immersive technologies and works,” as a pivot from holding a traditional in-person industry festival due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual festival occurred within the Museum of Other Realities on Steam and was available as downloadable content add-ons from the Steam store.

IAAPA continues campaigning Congress for critical changes and aid for attractions industry

InPark Magazine: IAAPA estimates nationally the COVID-19 pandemic will cause $23 billion in economic losses for attractions in 2020. With more than 50% of attractions having to make staffing adjustments and many facilities not reopening in 2020, more than 235,000 jobs have been lost across the U.S.