The Mighty HPF: Getting Up To Speed On This Absolutely Essential Mixing Tool

ProSoundWeb: I was watching something on TV recently, and after hearing multiple “plosives” (P’s and B’s and T’s) just booming away through my speakers, I quipped, “Can we please get a high pass on that mic!” Then I realized there still may be a number of less-experienced sound techs out there who are not yet acquainted with the high-pass filter (HPF). Allow me to make the introduction.

Professionally Distanced: Ensuring Employee Safety Through Remote Monitoring and Social Distancing

Occupational Health & Safety: With the focus for many businesses dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 global health crisis beginning to shift to “the new normal” and returning to the workplace, workers and employers alike are asking questions about how workplaces will be made and kept safe.

A Musical Middle: Adding Depth & Musicality To The Core Of Your Mixes

ProSoundWeb: Here we’re going to look at everything that happens in the mix between the foundation and the vocals. It’s the peanut butter and jelly between two slices of bread, and it’s extremely important if you want the song to sound musical and powerful. The instruments that live in this area will give the song its musicality and key signature and encourage people to sing along, so let’s explore how we can wrangle all this musical information together so that all the instruments are clearly heard and identified yet working together to form a beautiful “musical middle.”

‘Events Can Take Place’: German Scientists Present COVID Experiment Results

Pollstar: Scientists at the medical center of Halle University in Germany conducted a scientific experiment at the Quarterback Immobilien Arena in Leipzig, Aug. 22, in order to gather data on crowd management that could provide useful for live event professionals. German singer and songwriter Tim Bendzko performed a real concert on the day, during which different crowd behavior scenarios were simulated. The results are now in and were presented during an Oct. 29 press conference.

You Say You Want a Revolution

AMERICAN THEATRE: The more I think about the incredible devastation this pandemic has wrought on our world and on our industry, the more I feel called to contribute to the conversation about using this leveling blow to rebuild how theatres work and how we treat our actors. As a theatre administrator, it feels like my Jerry Maguire moment (without the morning-after regret) to lay out the harsh realities of the structure we have created and the hopeful possibilities of where we could go if we stop talking and start walking.

Disney Made a Skinless Robot That Can Realistically Stare Directly Into Your Soul

gizmodo.com: One of the obvious giveaways that you’re interacting with a robot is their blank dead-eyed stare. The eyes don’t connect with yours the way they would if they were, you know, human. A research team at Disney is trying to fix that using subtle head motions and eye movements that make the robot seem more lifelike—despite it lacking skin and looking like pure, unfiltered, nightmare material.

A Glorious Mixture of Art and Science

National Endowment for the Arts: "...adults having fun so that children will desire to grow older.” (Hobart Brown, founder of kinetic sculpture racing) If kinetic sculpture is where art and science play, then kinetic sculpture races are art in motion as people complete a racecourse on machines that they design and build.

Congratulations! 2020 TEA Masters announced

TEA - Themed Entertainment Association: Congratulations to the new slate of TEA Masters! Please join us to celebrate the 2020 TEA Masters on December 9, 2020. The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) - the global, nonprofit membership association for the creators of compelling places and experiences - has announced the slate of TEA Masters honorees for 2020. The TEA Masters program celebrates masters of their craft in the global visitor attractions industry.

BRIT Awards donates £54,000 to Stagehand COVID-19 Crew Relief Fund

Audio Media International: The BPI, music industry trade body and organiser of the BRIT Awards, has donated £54,000 to the Stagehand COVID-19 Crew Relief Fund. The donation will go towards supporting live music and events professionals whose livelihoods have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, the fund has received approximately £240,000 in contributions.

I'll Never Forget My First Pair of Flesh-Tone Tights

Dance Magazine: I remember when I encountered the color cinnamon. Such warmth and comfort instantly saturated my soul. It was the summer of 2015, a time I will never forget, and I was trying on my first pair of flesh-tone tights. The band fit perfectly on my waist with such a calm gentleness. They were tights that looked like me—not ballet pink, the color that many were taught could be the only one in the ballet world. It was me, all the way from my head to my toes. No breaks, perfect continuity.

R.A.W: Shirley Prendergast

Blog | Women in Lighting: With the very recent #blacklivesmatter that took by storm worldwide on the inequality and biased attitude to a certain group of people on the basis of colour, opened up many discussions on inclusivity in workplaces within the design industry as well. To bring the much-needed change, it is important to raise awareness and to acknowledge the fact that diversity in workplaces is the only way to flourish. In this regard, sharing the notable work of 1st African-American lighting designer, Shirley Prendergast.

"Inside the Box" at the Geffen Playhouse - A Puzzler's Delight

The Theatre Times: I won’t be the first or last person to note that 2020 has been a challenging year. It has been hard for so many reasons and day to day the world either seems to be falling apart and/or finally (hopefully) just beginning to face the need for long-overdue changes that will take time, patience, and all of our best efforts to accomplish.

Best cordless drills of 2020: The best 12-volt models from Bosch, Milwaukee and more

CNET: Home improvement and DIY projects are on the rise (In 2020, up nearly 75% in some areas according to Cognition Smart Data). People are opting for customization as well as the cost-saving advantages of doing versus buying. In the world of DIY one thing is certain, you're gonna need some tools, and the most commonly used tool for home projects is the drill.

New Study Finds Hollywood Studios Could Lose Money From Movies That Lack Diversity

Deadline: It’s been said before, but it is worth saying again: diversity pays — but not in terms of checking boxes and tokenism. In a new report from the UCLA-based Center for Scholars and Storytellers titled “Beyond Checking A Box: A Lack of Authentically Inclusive Representation Has Costs at the Box Office”, researchers found that bringing authentic diversity to film improves financial performance at the box office while a lack of diversity can result in losses for studios.

Program Aims To Enhance Inclusive Teaching

www.cmu.edu/news: "As the national conversation pivots to finding real-world solutions to racial and cultural inequity, we saw this as an opportunity to operationalize our commitment to inclusion and quickly identified the classroom as one of the most, if not the most, critical venues to be discussing and demonstrating the practice and benefits of full inclusion and equity in our community," said James H. Garrett, Jr., provost and chief academic officer for CMU.

How Women in Hollywood Are Pushing for Inclusivity on and off Screen

Variety: With Hollywood’s growing appetite for diverse stories, women of color are beginning to make a bigger mark on the big and small screens. Alice Wu wrote “The Half of It,” a coming-of-age drama about a lesbian Chinese-American teen, as a love letter to her own mother. Starring Chinese American Leah Lewis, it debuted on Netflix in May.

PICT Classic Theatre brings The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll to the airwaves

Theater | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: Seven months have passed since I’ve last been in a theater, and if missing a good production is painful for your humble reviewer, I cannot imagine the anguish that comes for the actors, technicians, and artists behind the scenes who are waiting for the curtains to open once again.

Bose Unveils New L1 Pro Portable Line Array Family

LightSoundJournal.com: Bose Professional introduces the Bose L1 Pro portable line array systems, the next-level advancement of a PA category invented by Bose 17 years ago with the release of the original L1. The L1 Pro systems usher in a new era of on-the-go audio for singer-songwriters, mobile DJs and bands.

CEO of Cultural Trust says "Pittsburgh will see Broadway again"

Theater | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: “I promise you that Pittsburgh will see Broadway again,” Kevin McMahon, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust told PNC Broadway subscribers on Tuesday night. Members of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Broadway Producing Offices, and Broadway Across America addressed hundreds of fans of the local broadway series to discuss “the road back to the theater” in a virtual town hall on YouTube on Tue., Oct. 27.

What is Covid-19 compliance supervisor? Hollywood's new gig

Los Angeles Times: The pandemic has spawned a new job on Hollywood sets — the COVID-19 compliance supervisor. The role was created under an agreement last month between entertainment unions and an alliance of producers as part of the terms for Hollywood’s return to production. Already, an industry is emerging around this important position. Some companies are offering training and certification, others are providing consulting services to productions.

Sexual Harassment Still Prevalent In Hollywood Even After The #MeToo Movement, Survey Finds

www.forbes.com: A recent survey by the Anita Hill-led Hollywood Commission on sexual harassment found that one in five women who responded said they had been sexually assaulted or harassed at work over the course of their careers and 1 in 20 reported that they had been sexually assaulted or harassed on the job in just the 12 months prior to taking the survey.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities: Multicultural Multi-modal Conversations at the Conference "Theatre and Virtual Reality" in Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

The Theatre Times: In cooperation with International Theatre Institute, this event of a truly global scale featured presenters from Europe, Asia, and North and South America. Theatre artists, producers, researchers, educators, and academics shared observations and discoveries of their professional experiences in the digital age, focusing on challenges and opportunities that the 2020 pandemic has imposed upon the world.

Meyer Sound Launches Spacemap Go, a Breakthrough Tool for Spatial Sound Design and Mixing

LightSoundJournal.com: Meyer Sound has officially released Spacemap® Go, an industry game changer in spatial sound design and mixing. Available October 28 as a free app for Apple iPad, Spacemap Go can transform the thousands of Meyer Sound GALAXY™ Network Platform processors in the field into powerful, flexible and user-friendly tools for spatial sound design and mixing.

Tips And Tricks: Sculpting Ram’s Horns From EVA Foam

makezine.com: A good pair of horns is, quite frankly, a year round accessory in my mind. However, with Halloween on the horizon I couldn’t think of a better time to share the process of sculpting these. Follow along and learn how you can make a pair of your own.

Theater will have to be less racist to survive: A Q&A with Soyica Colbert

DC Metro Theater Arts: Although Shakespeare Theatre Company’s acclaimed The Amen Corner had to shut down in March before its run was done, the production proved fortuitous for STC’s future: It brought Director Whitney White and Dramaturg Soyica Colbert into a working relationship that led in August to Artistic Director Simon Godwin’s announcement that White and Colbert would be associate directors of the company.

Glastonbury Festival May Employ "Massive Coronavirus Testing" in 2021

www.ticketnews.com: After seeing the planned 50th anniversary Glastonbury Festival pushed to next year by the coronavirus pandemic, organizers are exploring every avenue for holding the 2021 edition, including massive testing for the virus. The annual event in England is scheduled for June, but uncertainty regarding how the pandemic will impact large scale events is likely to weigh heavily on planning, both for organizers and potential attendees. Testing people before they arrive could be one road to holding the event at scale, and safely.

Could virtual reality change the way we see theatre?

Exeunt Magazine: The word ‘experiment’ has been used a vast amount of times over the last few months. At least in my world as artistic director of ThickSkin, a theatre company based in Manchester. Usually, we create new productions that tour to venues around the country, but this all changed in March as theatres closed their doors and audiences stayed at home and socially distanced.

Unearthing Your Languages

HowlRound Theatre Commons: How can someone write in a language they don’t understand but that lives in their bones? How do playwrights who are heritage language learners (HLLs)—people historically or personally connected to ancestral languages who may not necessarily understand those languages—write their plays or portions of their plays in their heritage languages?

Live Music in the Age of Covid: Introduction

AMT Lab @ CMU: The music industry in the United States has been a thriving industry since the success of publishers selling sheet music in “Tin Pan Alley” in the late 19th century. Over time, with technological advances, the music industry has blossomed into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. As you are probably aware, however, the live music industry has been hit hard by the pandemic.

Elsa Hiltner advocates for transparency in theater design salaries

Performing Arts Feature | Chicago Reader: This past week, Theatre Communications Group (TCG) announced that its job search engine, ARTSEARCH, would not only be free of cost to all users, but would additionally require all prospective employers to list a salary range for all postings. This announcement comes on the heels of seismic changes within the theater industry aimed at dismantling inequity and financial exploitation.

Intimacy directors: more important than ever

Performing Arts Feature | Chicago Reader: Seven months and over 223,948 lives lost. As a theater practitioner who has given her heart, soul, and emotional well-being to her craft, I think a lot about how we protect artists going forward. As studios resume production, theater conservatories open up to students, and theatrical unions release their own COVID-19 guidelines, we have to consider the importance of personal boundaries and emotional safety of every individual involved with these productions.

PianoFight, Dragon and Z Space use Gather to make theater that's like a retro video game

Datebook: When I entered the venue for Dragon Theatre’s “Party at the End of the World,” my “spawn point” was a lobby where house manager Alika U. Spencer-Koknar checked me in. She took the form of a large-pixel avatar — the kind you might see in an old-school video game, like “The Legend of Zelda” — over which hovered a small video feed of her human self, on her bed with her dog.

Off Broadway Theaters, Comedy Clubs Sue Governor And Mayor To Reopen

Deadline: If Saturday Night Live can do it, why not Off Broadway? That’s one of the arguments in a lawsuit filed by six small New York theaters and two comedy clubs against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over the city’s ongoing pandemic shutdown of such venues.

Is It Theater? Chekhov's 'The Seagull' Adaptation For The Sims 4 To Stream On Twitch

NPR: Playwright Celine Song is transforming Anton Chekhov's The Seagull into something avant-garde — by adapting a version that will be presented in The Sims 4 video game and streamed on Twitch.

NewFest Film Festival: Ryan Spahn on Shooting his Play on Zoom

Variety: As an openly gay actor, Ryan Spahn was determined to tell his story. “Nora Highland” was originally developed to be an Off-Broadway play, but when the pandemic forced a shutdown, Spahn had to rethink. The story explores the casting process surrounding an iconic gay character in a new Broadway revival.

Oklahoma! gets a Curly twist

www.limelightmagazine.com.au: Oklahoma! was the first musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein and was ground-breaking in its day, developing the idea of the “book musical” initiated by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II when they wrote Show Boat. Not only did Oklahoma! integrate the songs and dance into the narrative, but it used recurring musical motifs throughout to underpin the story.

Black British Theatre Awards 2020: Winners include Miriam-Teak Lee, Rakie Ayola and Arinzé Kene

London Evening Standard: The winners of this year’s Black British Theatre Awards were announced last night, with Death of a Salesman winning the prize for best production of a play. The annual celebration of Black British theatre talent was hosted by actor Eddie Nestor in a socially distanced event at the Young Vic, and televised for the first time on Sky Arts.

Dear Evan Hansen, & Juliet, More Win Big at the 2020 Olivier Awards

Playbill: Dear Evan Hansen, & Juliet, and Emilia each scored three wins at the 2020 Olivier Awards October 25, making them the most winning productions of the evening. Pasek & Paul's Tony-winning show won Best New Musical, Best Score (shared with orchestrator Alex Lacamoire) and Best Actor in a Musical for Sam Tutty.

Travels of a Scenic Artist and Scholar – The Richmond Scottish Rite, October 24-26, 2020

Drypigment.net: It has been a busy month, and I am currently in Richmond, Virginia. The Richmond Scottish Rite Theatre appeared on my radar again last month. The timing was less than ideal, since I was packing to leave for the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado. On September 17, I received word from Art DeHoyos that the Richmond Scottish Rite was selling their building and had no plans for the historic scenery collection.

The Annoyance's "Splatter Theater:" Sharing a Chicago Halloween Tradition with an Online Audience

The Theatre Times: While theaters around the United States typically produce The Rocky Horror Picture Show around Halloween, the city of Chicago, Illinois has a different tradition. Starting in 1987, The Annoyance Theater has produced Splatter Theater. Parodying 80s slasher movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th, the show depicts a group of stock characters who throw a party, and gradually get dispatched one by one by a masked killer.

A Little Bit of Magic

SoundGirls.org: I miss mixing shows. That thought has snuck up on me every week or so for the past several months. It’s always a tiny bit surprising because I knew I liked my job, but I’d never stopped to take stock of exactly how happy it made me. I know I’m not alone in that; all of us want to get back to our usual, wonderfully irregular lives. One of my favorite things about mixing is that there is always something to do.

Tony-Winning Theatre Designer Ming Cho Lee Dies at 90

Playbill: World-renowned theatre designer Ming Cho Lee, who designed more than 300 productions across the globe, passed away October 23 of natural causes at the age of 90. Born October 3, 1930, in Shanghai, Mr. Lee moved to the United States in 1949 and attended Occidental College. He would go on to become one of the foremost set designers in the country, receiving the National Medal of Arts in 2002. His extensive credits included work in opera, dance, and theatre.

2 Dallas arts groups join forces for concert to promote racial unity

CultureMap Dallas: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Black Dance Theatre are teaming up for a special performance to honor those who have lost their lives to racial violence and injustice. The Unity Concert, a benefit for nonprofit Project Unity, will remember by name George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Fort Worth's Atatiana Jefferson, and Dallas’ Botham Jean, among others.

Next Major ZerOS Release

Techie Talk: Zero 88 has announced the next major release of its ‘ZerOS’ software platform – ZerOS 7.9.8 – which powers the award-winning FLX and FLX S lighting control consoles, along with the recently announced ZerOS Server.

Tonya Williams, former ‘Y&R’ star, launches Access Reelworld to help racially diverse Canadians

Globalnews.ca: Tonya Williams, perhaps best-known as fan-favourite Olivia Barber Winters on soap opera The Young and the Restless, has also been doing a lot of work behind the scenes, especially for young Black Canadians and Canadians of colour interested in working in the entertainment industry. Williams, 62, has launched Access Reelworld, Canada’s largest national database dedicated to helping racially diverse professionals get hired.

Astera for #RedAlertRESTART Lighting Action in the US

Techie Talk: Astera products played their part for the recent #RedAlertRESTART campaign in the United States on 1st September, a collective lighting action that saw over 2000 buildings, places, structures, landmarks and spaces lit in red to highlight the critical situation facing live events and entertainment … and the demand for Congress to pass the RESTART Act (S.3814) soonest to offer some sort of relief to the industry and try to get things moving again.

The Weird, Winding History of the Witch Hat

The Mary Sue: There are few things more iconic at Halloween time than the classic image of a witch. With her green skin, broom, and wide-brimmed conical hat, the Witch is an icon. Now we’ve talked already this month about how witches “flew”, but how did that very distinctive hat become associated with magical women, especially the kind that like to get a bit wicked?

How to perform a musical during the pandemic? Masks and microphones

Datebook: To learn the venue address for Youth Musical Theater Company’s production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” audience members had to agree on an online form that they’d wear a mask during the whole show and submit to a health screening before being seated.

Coronavirus crisis in the arts: What if concerts, theater and other live events don't come back in 2021?

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Theaters from San Diego to Broadway are closed until at least next fall. Festivals have been pushed back to 2021, including Wonderfront and KAABOO here and Coachella and Stagecoach in Indio. The San Diego Symphony and other orchestras across the nation have been largely silenced. Cirque du Soleil has filed for bankruptcy and closed down all but one of its 40-plus worldwide productions.

ETC postpones in-person trade show attendance until July 2021 and offers live online demos

LightSoundJournal.com: Out of concern for the safety of its employees and global community, ETC has announced that it will not participate in traditional trade show exhibitions until July of 2021. With the pandemic affecting many people’s ability and desire to travel, the company has instead decided to focus its resources on remote demos and online events.