Dejon Ellis Jr. Wins Close Vote to Lead IATSE Local 80

Variety: Dejon Ellis, Jr., won a close vote on Sunday to take over as interim leader of IATSE Local 80, in an election marked by lingering hard feelings over last year’s contract negotiations.

With 'Slave Play,' Jeremy O. Harris Provokes His Way To Broadway

NPR: Even in Times Square — crammed with tourists from around the world dodging people in superhero costumes — the playwright Jeremy O. Harris stands out.

He's walking down the sidewalk with two thick and long braids, standing six feet and five inches tall, wearing a see-through shirt, carrying bags from fashion designers and smoking a cigarette. He's between New York Fashion Week events and his Broadway opening.

Immersive Theater Work Explores The Pleasures And Pitfalls Of Digital Living

90.5 WESA: Next for Bricolage is what, on several levels, is its most ambitious immersive yet. “Project Amelia,” which opens Friday, tackles our culture of digital living not only with participatory theater, but a high-tech approach that incorporates original artificial-intelligence products created just for the show.

Move The Sound! Directing With New Technology

The Theatre Times: For me, as a director, it is important that the artistic idea and concept emerge from the story being told. Therefore, I approached this project with skepticism and curiosity: Which technological instruments might bolster the artistic concept? And in what ways? I see theatre as an analog room in which the members of the audience turn off their mobile phones and sit together concentrating on what is happening onstage.

In France, a Giant Spider and a Minotaur Roam, and Sleep

The New York Times: Imagine looking out the window one morning and seeing a gigantic spider perched on the roof of a neighboring building — its eight legs extending to the street below.

Then you walk downtown and realize that a 50-foot-tall creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man was looming above you.

In Germany, Shakespeare Gets Revered, Rewritten … and Eaten

The New York Times: As befits the world’s most famous playwright, William Shakespeare has had his work translated into over 100 languages, including Klingon. But long before he was the international superstar we know today, he was adored by the Germans with a fervor that led August Wilhelm Schlegel, the poet and critic who masterfully translated his complete works in the early 19th century, to claim him as “ganz unser” — “entirely ours.”

Hands on with the Arduino FPGA

Hackaday: All of the tools you need to work with the FPGA Arduino — the Vidor — are now in the wild!

We reported earlier that a series of French blog posts finally showed how all the pieces fit together to program the FPGA on the Arduino MKR4000 Vidor board. Of course, I wasn’t content to just read the Google translation, I had to break out the board and try myself.

Vectorworks 2019 - Interview with Dr. Biplab Sarkar

LightSoundJournal.com: Global design and BIM software solutions provider Vectorworks, Inc. have established themselves as industry leaders in design, calculation and visualisation software for a wide range of industries. With the release of Vectorworks 2019, the company takes their commitment to usability, intuitiveness and flexibility one step further.

How construction robots can amplify workers' expertise

Construction Dive: Construction jobsites will one day be bustling with “terminator-type,” humanoid robots, according to Scott Peters, president and co-founder of Construction Robotics, but that future may be a long ways off for the industry.

For now, the Victor, New York-based company recognizes that human workers have unique expertise and problem-solving skills to offer, and that to increase productivity on jobsites, robots should first be used to augment those capabilities.

Storage: Savage VFX’s Multi-Locale Solution

VFX Voice Magazine: The topic of storage for visual effects studios can be a dry one. But storage is, of course, a crucial part of the day to day operations of a VFX vendor, large or small.

One smaller studio that has embraced a robust storage solution is Savage VFX, founded in 2007 by James Pastorius and Brice Liesveld. It found itself expanding relatively rapidly and needing to operate in two locations, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

Interface offers carbon-neutral flooring to help tackle climate change

www.dezeen.com: The Atlanta-based brand is aiming to help tackle climate change by achieving carbon neutrality across its product line, while keeping design quality as high as possible.

Green Hippo Motion Maps Stonehenge

TPi: It took a year of negotiations, but 2018 saw Stonehenge host its first-ever live DJ set. And lighting creative Motion Mapping, complete with a pair of Green Hippo Hippotizer Karst Media Servers supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies, was tasked with delivering a digital video projection show equal to the brooding majesty of one of the Seven Wonders of the Medieval World.

Tokyo Festival Looks To Throw Open Some Doors With Fringe Elements

The Theatre Times: If the inclusion of Festival/Tokyo in Tokyo Festival’s diverse program of performing arts is any indication, theater events in Tokyo have been evolving over the past decade or so.

Festival/Tokyo was set up by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 2009 to showcase the city’s cutting-edge fringe theater scene to support Cool Japan and the capital’s ambitious bid for the 2016 Olympics.

When the line between machine and artist becomes blurred

Salon.com: With AI becoming incorporated into more aspects of our daily lives, from writing to driving, it’s only natural that artists would also start to experiment with artificial intelligence.

In fact, Christie’s will be selling its first piece of AI art later this month — a blurred face titled “Portrait of Edmond Belamy.”

Rosalie Craig and Patti LuPone Shine in a Gender-Flipped ‘Company’

The Atlantic: Bobby, the urbane bachelor and possible beating heart of Company, usually comes in shades of gray. Dean Jones in a heavy tweed with a black turtleneck sweater. Raúl Esparza in an Armani suit that bags effortlessly around the elbows. Adrian Lester in a fitted jacket with wide lapels. Neil Patrick Harris in dark brushed suede over a pale-blue button-down.

Hamlet's Campus Days Revealed in Wittenberg

Pittsburgh in the Round: What happened when Hamlet was at school–just before Shakespeare’s play begins? Well, Denmark’s Prince, Doctor Faustus, and Martin Luther walk into a classroom…

The Strangest Desert Festival In the World Makes Everyone’s Mad Max Dreams Come True

jalopnik.com: It’s 11 a.m. deep in the Mojave Desert, the sun already laser-boring into everything it touches, and Bob is driving the stagecoach a hair too fast, speeding down Fury Road while tidily dispatching his not-first Bud Light of the morning. The whiskey still fixed to the stagecoach’s roof rattles as the scenery whips by: People draped in chains and spikes and gas masks and armor. Cars bristling with mounted machine guns and animal-skull hood ornaments.

How Swarms of Super Intelligent Drones Are Taking Over Live Entertainment

gizmodo.com: Concerts can be boring. Typically, you’ve got an artist on stage singing songs and stuff, and then a bunch of spotlights beaming columns of color through some fake smoke. But something new is on the horizon, and it’s equal parts creepy and futuristic.

Roy Orbison: A Hologram Star Is Born

Pollstar: Holograms of dead musicians hasn’t exactly been either a commercial or critical success, from Tupac Shakur’s appearance with Snoop and Dr. Dre at Coachella back in 2012, to Michael Jackson’s stint on the Billboard Music Awards four years ago.

BASE Entertainment’s inelegantly titled “In Dreams – Roy Orbison In Concert: The Hologram Tour” – currently in the midst of 25 North American dates, starting at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on October 2 through November 19 in Clearwater, Fla. – is about to change that perception. The tour is being booked by Paradigm Talent Agency in the U.S. and internationally (ex-Europe) and by CODA in the U.K. and Europe.

The Birth of a Theatre Commons

HowlRound Theatre Commons: At Helicon Collaborative, we were excited when HowlRound approached us to help tell its story. And not just because we love HowlRound—though we do. Like an acupuncture needle expertly inserted, the right story told at the right time can help reregister or shift a system. We believe HowlRound’s story is particularly resonant for this moment in time, and has potential to influence thinking and shift practice in the theatre sector and beyond. This essay shares a few thoughts on why we think HowlRound’s story matters in today’s political and economic context. You can read the case study in full.