Blow, Winds: Florida Theatres After Hurricane Ian

AMERICAN THEATRE: The last weekend in September, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill opened in the black box space inside Florida Repertory Theatre’s 100-year-old home in Fort Myers, despite warnings of a hurricane headed further up the west coast toward Tampa. Ninety-six hours, a sudden right turn in Ian’s path, 115 mph winds and 6 to 28 feet of storm surge later, the show did not go on.

Coming Out of the Shadow of Colonialism, Hula Today is Experiencing a Renaissance

Dance Magazine: In a flowing blue-green gown, her arms bare, her long hair swept up elegantly and encircled with blossoms, Kayli Ka‘iulani Carr confidently took the stage at the 2016 Miss Aloha Hula contest in Hilo, Hawai‘i. This was the modern portion of a high-pressure contest, and she danced to the aching melody of “Ka Makani Ka‘ili Aloha,” which tells a story of a heartbroken lover who summons a magical, “love-snatching” wind to recapture the heart of his beloved. Carr dazzled the judges, the audience and the social media world.

PRG chooses Brompton LED processing to fuel Metallica’s The Return Of The European Summer Vacation tour

LightSoundJournal.com: Metallica, the biggest heavy metal band on the planet, has completed its European summer festival run with The Return Of The European Summer Vacation tour, which saw the band playing at some of Europe’s most anticipated music festivals including Copenhell 2022 (Denmark), Download Germany, Hellfest Summer Open Air (France), Rock Werchter (Belgium) and NOS Alive (Portugal). With a total of eleven shows held between June and August, Metallica’s long-term production partner Production Resource Group, LLC (PRG), turned each event into an epic visual experience both for the in-person and streaming audiences by providing a custom LED set-up of ROE Visual panels and Brompton Technology LED video processing.

Godspell review – good tunes can’t save a deeply uncool musical

Australian theatre | The Guardian: There’s a holy trinity of holy musicals: the sexy one (Jesus Christ Superstar), the cheesy one (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat), and then there’s Godspell, currently playing to sold-out houses at Sydney’s Hayes Theatre under the direction of the company’s new co-artistic directors, Richard Carroll and Victoria Falconer.

The Theater Is One of the Spookiest Places to Visit This Halloween Season. Here's Why

TheaterMania: As Halloween approaches, it seems like an appropriate time to examine the inherent spookiness of the theater. Maybe one of the most obviously spooky shows is The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running musical in Broadway history, which is set to close this February after more than three decades.

Things I learned During My First Semester of Teaching

SoundGirls.org: This semester I taught my first class. The topic? Theatrical Sound Design. I learned a lot from teaching this class. Some were surprises and others were more reaffirming than new knowledge. As a way to reflect on some of these observations, I would like to share them with my readers.

The Guardian view on cuts to arts funding: a calamity that must be averted

Editorial | The Guardian: In the turmoil of the new government’s stock-taking efforts, one edict has passed with little comment: a day before it was due to announce its new three-year funding commitment to arts organisations around the country, Arts Council England (ACE) was instructed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to hold fire.

Learning and Networking at the AES Convention

SoundGirls.org: After a three-year hiatus of in-person gatherings due to the pandemic, the long-awaited 153rd Audio Engineering Society convention took place on 19-20 October in New York, with additional events before and after, and to be followed by an online event on 26-27 October. If you’ve never been to one, what can you expect at an in-person AES convention, and is it worth going to? Here’s an overview of my own experience and opinions.

Stage 62 presents ‘Urinetown’ the Musical opening November 10th, 2022

onStage Pittsburgh: Winner of three Tony Awards, three Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, and two Obie Awards, Urinetown the Musical is a hilarious musical satire of the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, municipal politics, and musical theatre itself!

6 Steps to Starting Your Freelance Business

SoundGirls.org: If the thought of being a freelancer scares the bajeebers out of you….I completely understand. Because it IS scary. Especially if you’ve had a good few years feeling the comforts of a steady paycheck and insurance a “regular job” can bring.

Mural Preservation in Okanogan Washington, Oct. 7-23, 2022

Drypigment.net: Originally constructed as a commercial building in 1907, the structure in Okanogan initially housed the Okanogan Commercial Club, a precursor of the Chamber of Commerce. By 1915, the building was transformed into the Hub theatre. The theatre renovation included the installation of two 60’-0” long large murals on the north and south side walls.

On Holy Ground: The National Black Theatre Festival

AMERICAN THEATRE: Ben Vereen sat across from us one August morning at breakfast in the Winston-Salem Marriott, enthusing about his first visit to the National Black Theatre Festival in North Carolina; the previous he night he had been given the festival’s Sidney Poitier Award. “I was so touched,” he said. “When my buddy Stokes started reading the introduction, I thought he was talking about someone else.

NFTRW Weekly Top FIve

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

How Mental Health Is Taking Its Toll on Touring Artists

consequence.net: In September 2022, Santigold made her long-awaited return with her first album in six years, Spirituals. Naturally, she had been planning a tour in support of it. But a few weeks after the project’s release, she revealed in a detailed personal note on Instagram that she just couldn’t make it work. Not only did she cite the financial barriers that she and other artists are facing with heading back on the road after more than two years of COVID restrictions, but she brought up how her mental health had contributed to her decision.

Posted by David at 10/27/2022 11:20:00 AM

Set Safety Concerns Among Crew Whispered About As Production Ramps Up

The Hollywood Reporter: One of my first days back on a TV set after pandemic shutdowns didn’t turn out as planned. On a summer morning, I arrived around 7 a.m. for the filming of a reality lifestyle show where I was working as a field producer. The plan was to demo a home, but simmering tensions involving the on-camera talent escalated into a moment of shock for crew as a hammer went flying across the room, leaving a hole in the wall.

Posted by David at 10/28/2022 11:35:00 AM

Death threats aimed at OSF artistic director Nataki Garrett prompt outpouring

NPR: When Nataki Garrett began to receive death threats early this year, she said her impulse was to retreat. "When this first happened, I actually tried to isolate myself," said the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) artistic director in an interview with NPR. "The act of threatening is supposed to make you feel isolated. And it does."

Posted by David at 10/28/2022 11:12:00 AM

Hollywood Studios and Unions Extend COVID Safety Protocols Through January

www.thewrap.com: After weeks of talks, Hollywood’s studios and unions have agreed to another extension of the Return to Work Agreement, the set of COVID-19 safety protocols that have governed all film and television productions since September 2020. The extension will now last through January 31, 2023.

Posted by David at 10/28/2022 11:29:00 AM

The Audio Describer: Bringing Live Theater to Those with Vision Problems

Newcity Stage: Emily Means Wills is a guide to theatrical action—a careful narrator of the balled fist, the glance at the door, the cow doing the can-can. She doesn’t want to say a woman looked at a man “desperately”—that’s interpretation. So she’ll say the woman looked, and kept looking. She once had to figure out a way, during a performance of “Midnight Cowboy” at Lifeline Theatre, to describe a “super-grisly” scene of a big black phone getting jammed into someone’s mouth, and blood going everywhere.

Posted by David at 10/26/2022 10:59:00 AM

Set Safety Concerns Among Crew Whispered About As Production Ramps Up

The Hollywood Reporter: One of my first days back on a TV set after pandemic shutdowns didn’t turn out as planned. On a summer morning, I arrived around 7 a.m. for the filming of a reality lifestyle show where I was working as a field producer. The plan was to demo a home, but simmering tensions involving the on-camera talent escalated into a moment of shock for crew as a hammer went flying across the room, leaving a hole in the wall.

Hollywood Studios and Unions Extend COVID Safety Protocols Through January

www.thewrap.com: After weeks of talks, Hollywood’s studios and unions have agreed to another extension of the Return to Work Agreement, the set of COVID-19 safety protocols that have governed all film and television productions since September 2020. The extension will now last through January 31, 2023.

Spotlight on American Ballet Theatre Studio Company

Playbill: American Ballet Theatre Studio Company is having a moment. Though the Company’s junior tier has been around since the 1970s, its latest iteration, helmed since 2018 by ABT alum Sascha Radetsky, is soaring to new heights.

'The Burnt City,' Punchdrunk's Latest, is a Strong Follow-Up to 'Sleep No More'

thebroadwayblog.com: If you have any knowledge of Sleep No More, Punchdrunk’s immersive hit that’s blossomed into a New York staple, the beats of the company’s newest show, The Burnt City, now playing at a warehouse-like venue in London, will ring familiar. There’s lots of space, lots of darkness, and lots of paths to take.

How To Make Immersive Theater Your Full Time Job (Feature)

by Andrew Hoepfner | Oct, 2022 | No Proscenium: We’ve had a good year in Brooklyn performing Bottom of the Ocean. As I write this, I’m sitting by myself in our gymnasium on a Saturday morning, supervising the last half hour of a music video shoot in the back third of our venue. In a half hour, I’ll wrap the production, reset our immersive theater props in the front two-thirds of our venue, and then perform a double shift of BOTO. At 10:30pm, two late night renters will shoot two more music videos. I’ll go to sleep around 3:15am.

Interview: Creating the Musical Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway

TheaterMania: It takes a village to make a musical, but that village is exactly what David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori were trying to run away from. The two writers had worked together on Shrek the Musical — a massive production even by Broadway standards — and, for their next project, wanted to do something much more compact.

Creating A Horror Look On An Indie Budget With DMG Lights

spectrum.rosco.com: It can be easy to get lost in low-budget horror films. From cinematography, to performance, to location – I’ve found one of the biggest challenges in film to be lighting. My passion lies in finding the right tools as a cinematographer to achieve the director’s vision.

25th Anniversary Performance of Broadway's The Lion King to Benefit the Entertainment Community Fund

Playbill: A select number of tickets to the upcoming 25th anniversary performance of Broadway's The Lion King will benefit the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly the Actors Fund). The organization supports the needs of those working in the entertainment and performing arts industry. The Lion King's 25th anniversary performance will take place November 13 at the Minskoff Theatre.

“Life of Pi” Stage Adaptation Is Coming To Broadway In Spring

www.ticketnews.com: Currently running at Wyndam’s Theatre in West End, London, Life of Pi is set to perform on Broadway in 2023 spring. Yann Martel’s best-selling novel of the same title was adapted to theater by Lolita Chakrabarti and premiered in London in 2021, receiving five Olivier Awards which stand for annual theater awards celebrating world-class theater in London.

In a Marathon of One-Act Plays, Boundaries Are Pushed and Pulled

The New York Times: In Harron Atkins’s multigenerational saga “Still…,” artistic ambitions rub up against personal relationships. Careers wax and wane. A couple forms, bickers, ends — and may or may not be reborn on different terms. We even hear exquisite renditions of “Doo Wop (That Thing)” and “Valerie.” All of this in only 40 minutes.

How Set Designer Beowulf Boritt Learned to Embrace the Weird

Playbill: For set designer Beowulf Boritt, design has nearly no limits. “I’m not afraid to be quite bold” says Boritt. “I often have intense color in my design.” Boritt, whose work includes The Scottsboro Boys and POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, came to the profession through a literature degree, but he possessed a designer’s instinct from birth.

Death threats aimed at OSF artistic director Nataki Garrett prompt outpouring

NPR: When Nataki Garrett began to receive death threats early this year, she said her impulse was to retreat. "When this first happened, I actually tried to isolate myself," said the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) artistic director in an interview with NPR. "The act of threatening is supposed to make you feel isolated. And it does."

How Mental Health Is Taking Its Toll on Touring Artists

consequence.net: In September 2022, Santigold made her long-awaited return with her first album in six years, Spirituals. Naturally, she had been planning a tour in support of it. But a few weeks after the project’s release, she revealed in a detailed personal note on Instagram that she just couldn’t make it work. Not only did she cite the financial barriers that she and other artists are facing with heading back on the road after more than two years of COVID restrictions, but she brought up how her mental health had contributed to her decision.

Nothing About Us Without Us: How Theatre and Performance Art Can Help Migrants and Refugees in Situations of Uncertainty

HowlRound Theatre Commons: It’s 10 September 2022. It’s been six months since I left Russia. While I do technically fall under the United Nations’ definition of a refugee, in no way do I call myself a refugee. Nevertheless, the reality is this: I cannot go back home because of the political situation there. So, in my forced migration, I along with many of my friends who are in the same situation as me, go to see a theatre performance.

When the World Turns is a profoundly moving theatrical experience for children with complex disabilities

theconversation.com: When the World Turns is a beautiful new work designed for children with complex disabilities and their families. Australian children’s theatre company Polyglot are renowned for their approach to child-centred arts experiences. Their work has a reputation for fostering the creative agency of children as audience and artists.

At Pornhub's Consent Event, Chloë Sevigny Reflects on On-Screen Sex

Variety: Johnson expanded on that in an interview with Variety, explaining that on a project that hires an intimacy coordinator, scenarios like what Sevigny described are far less likely to happen. “That’s challenging, talking about mutable contracts. But I will say, in my experience as an intimacy coordinator, we don’t have that happen on the day.

My Body No Choice: taking the fight for abortion rights to the stage

Stage | The Guardian: Theirs was a secret space. In the early 1970s, Molly Smith and her sister Bridget attended weekly women’s consciousness-raising sessions in a friend’s living room near Washington’s Catholic University. They read books such as Our Bodies, Ourselves, a groundbreaking text about women’s health and sexuality. Sitting on cushions, the circle of women listened to one another, laughed and cried and shared their deepest secrets.

Prequel, Sequel and Two Fangs: An Exclusive Interview with Dacre Stoker

The Theatre Times: This year is the 125th Anniversary of the famous gothic novel written by the Irish writer Bram Stoker – Dracula. 125 years have passed since the book was first published in 1897 by Archibald Constable and Company. Over 900 screen versions, numerous stage productions of various genres – is clear evidence of the never-dying interest in the main character of the novel – Count Dracula.

Maroon 5's Original Drummer on Taking a Career Break for Mental Health

Variety: I’ll admit it. I used to think pop stars who canceled tours “due to exhaustion” were just being divas, or worse-yet, downplaying a major drug or alcohol problem… until I suffered a breakdown on tour that effectively ended my career as a performing musician and sent me into a tailspin of depression, anxiety and alcoholism that lasted a decade.

Avant-Garde Theater, or a Musical: Who Says You Need to Choose?

The New York Times: Ever since Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill served up “The Threepenny Opera,” their “play with music,” in Berlin in 1928, the dividing line between spoken and musical theater in Germany has been remarkably porous. Music is everywhere in contemporary German theater, often used to heighten or subvert emotional effects.

Matt Barbot Receives Commission From Miami New Drama and the Black List

AMERICAN THEATRE: The Black List and Miami New Drama have announced that Matt Barbot will receive a $10,000 commission to work alongside the artistic team at Miami New Drama on the writing and development of a new play. The Miami New Drama x Black List Playwriting Commission, as it’s called, is the first of four commissions to be made in a partnership program the Black List announced earlier this year, in the screenwriting platform’s first foray into theatre.

JBL Professional Introduces PRX900 Series Professional Portable PA Systems

LightSoundJournal.com: HARMAN Professional Solutions, the global leader in audio, video, lighting and control, today introduced the JBL PRX900 Series of loudspeakers and subwoofers, which feature advanced acoustics, comprehensive DSP, unrivaled power performance and complete BLE control via the JBL Pro Connect app.

'A vindictive, passive-aggressive move': Bay Area community theater faces allegations of racism, workplace misconduct

Datebook: When LaMont Ridgell learned in March that he’d be getting a different director for an upcoming production at Altarena Playhouse, he had questions. His role as a devout Catholic in “Quality of Life” hadn’t traditionally been played by a Black man, and he wanted to make sure his new director, Katina Letheule, also the artistic director of the Alameda community theater, had thought through what his casting would mean.

‘I threw my arms around Beckett!’ – electrifying first nights, by Ciarán Hinds, Eileen Atkins and more

The Guardian: History has no shortage of explosive first nights and openings. Moments in public art when the concerns of an epoch meet the truths of artists and catalyse a volcanic response. These are the nights when pins can be heard dropping, when time is stretched into unforeseen patterns, when success is grasped or failure faced. For artists they are electrifying.

'My Neighbour Totoro' review: Bring this Miyazaki show to NYC

nypost.com: It’s one of the most stunning theatrical images in years. In an otherwise pitch-black theater, two giant eyes blink open and float to the front of the deep stage to reveal they belong to a humongous, fuzzy bear. Or is it a penguin? Or Pikachu? At this point, I don’t know whose eyes are wider — ours or Totoro’s.

Rust Settlement: Why Halyna Hutchins’ Widower Dropped Suit

The Hollywood Reporter: A year after Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of Rust, the producers, still facing civil litigation and under a cloud of potential criminal liability, are looking to finish the film in the next few months. Key to this gambit is a private settlement with Hutchins’ estate, announced Oct. 5, which is pending court approval. The plan both ends the wrongful death action brought by Hutchins’ family on Feb. 15 and makes her widower, Matthew, an executive producer on the movie.

Shutterstock Plans To Sell AI Stock Images, Compensate Humans

gizmodo.com: In the coming months, the stock image giant says it will expand its relationship with OpenAI to provide its users “direct access” to the wildly popular DALLE-2 text to image AI model. In effect, that means the two companies will work together to sell AI generated art trained, in part, from human produced Shutterstock stock images. Go ahead and insert your Ouroboros meme here.

How to DIY Fake Molding on a Budget

lifehacker.com: New molding can give a boring room more visual interest and look more expensive. While springing for the real thing looks great, it can be pretty pricey (hence why it looks expensive). There are some ways to fake the look of real wooden molding, though, without shelling out for it.

Christmas at Dolly Parton’s Stampede arrives in Branson

Entertainment | bransontrilakesnews.com: Christmas at Dolly Parton’s Stampede is arriving earlier than ever this year with a 2022 opening date of Thursday, Oct. 27. Featuring a full-scale nativity scene, holiday decor, seasonal music, a Santa Claus sighting, and a four-course holiday feast, spending Christmas at Dolly’s has become a tradition for families of all ages.

Ozzy Osbourne to Perform at Virtually as Part of Ozzfest at Metaverse Music Fest

consequence.net: The Metaverse Music Festival (MVMF) will be hosted in Decentraland, the largest user-owned and operated virtual social world. Presented by digital asset platform Kraken, this year’s MVMF will feature 100-plus artists virtually performing across curated community genre stages that utilize new, Web3-enabled immersive virtual concert experiences. That said, the festival is free for all and can be attended even if you have don’t have a VR headset.

Hollywood Union Pay Bumps Lag Behind L.A. Cost of Living

The Hollywood Reporter: Even before the ink dried on two major IATSE and Teamsters Local 399 contracts at the end of 2021 and start of 2022, members of the unions — which collectively represent a significant portion of union crewmembers in the Los Angeles area — were fretting about climbing consumer prices. But especially now, after inflation hit 40-year highs at several points in 2022 (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index measuring all items), some are arguing that the 3 percent compounded annual scale increases codified in IATSE’s Basic Agreement and the Teamsters’ “Black Book” contract aren’t cutting it.

The Audio Describer: Bringing Live Theater to Those with Vision Problems

Newcity Stage: Emily Means Wills is a guide to theatrical action—a careful narrator of the balled fist, the glance at the door, the cow doing the can-can. She doesn’t want to say a woman looked at a man “desperately”—that’s interpretation. So she’ll say the woman looked, and kept looking. She once had to figure out a way, during a performance of “Midnight Cowboy” at Lifeline Theatre, to describe a “super-grisly” scene of a big black phone getting jammed into someone’s mouth, and blood going everywhere.

Keeping On: Winifred Haun & Dancers Celebrate Season Twenty-Five at the Athenaeum Center

Newcity Stage: “I just kept making dances.” This is Winifred Haun’s answer to the frequently asked question regarding the longevity of the company that bears her name. Haun’s irrefutable statement reflects the choreographer’s good-natured, down-to-earth temperament, lightly tinged with gently self-deprecating humor.