Clare Barron: "The writing's better, because we're working together"

Exeunt Magazine: “I hope it’s emotional in a secret and private way, specific to your own heartbeat.”

Clare Barron is explaining, over a crackly phone line, her hopes for Dance Nation. In a previous interview I’d read, she said that “my ultimate theatrical experience is for everyone to cry”, a line which spoke to me, summoning up the power of being in a dark room where everyone’s mutely sobbing. But as we talk, she elaborates that “I want to write plays where people have an extremely emotional experience, but I don’t want to have one moment where we all cry. I want it to be a surprise, that’s sort of like my whole thing.”

The queen, the assassin, the playwright, and the spy: History meets comedy in City Theatre’s all-female production of The Revolutionists

Theater Reviews + Features | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: The latest production from City Theatre presents a fresh, woman-centric spin on the tumult of the French Revolution. But there’s an amazing true story behind the big costumes, comedy, and music of The Revolutionists.

Beth Corning marks 10 years of CorningWorks with the waiting room

Dance + Live Performance | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: After 40 years making art for a living, churning out a prolific output and receiving more than 80 national and international grants and awards, some might call it a career and retire to a beach chair. Thankfully for fans of critically-acclaimed dancer/choreographer Beth Corning, she is still passionately driven to create and perform quality, thoughtful, and thought-provoking dance-theater pieces unlike any in the region.

They Started Roling Out These Performances Sooner Than I Expected

Butts In the Seats: When I wrote about using roleplaying games as the basis for character and plot development back in June, I never imagined I would see the basic concept manifest so quickly.

Apparently ideas like this occur and are developed somewhat in parallel because for the last two weekends, the theater department here at Mercer University has been using the basic framework of Dungeons and Dragons to create a heroic saga with the participation of audience members.

Interview With Opera Director Rodula Gaitanou: “The Culinary Traditions Give Me A Great Insight Into A Nation’s Taste For Hospitality”

The Theatre Times: The Greek-born opera director Rodula Gaitanou has made a name for herself internationally. She is currently in Denmark showing Donizetti’s tragedy Lucia Di Lammermoor at Opera Hedeland. ISCENE’s editor Rie Hammer met the director for a talk about cultural characteristics, inspiration, the woman Lucia, and the challenges of opera today.

PNWF Program A: 2018

Pittsburgh in the Round: The 28th annual Pittsburgh New Works Festival (PNWF) once again awes with an admirably ambitious line-up. The festival features four programs (A-D) over a three and a half week span. Each program showcases three new one-act plays, each produced by a different local theatre company and if you’d like to know more, check out our preview article.

Knight of Illumination Awards Arrive in the UK

TPi: The 11th Knight of Illumination Awards UK (KOI) landed at London’s famous Eventim Apollo Hammersmith on Sunday 16 September 2018. Hot on its heels comes the first ever KOI Awards USA, all set to be staged at The Foundry inside Las Vegas’ SLS Hotel and Casino on Saturday 20 October 2018.

OSF on PBS NewsHour

Stage Directions: Recently the PBS NewsHour featured a report from Jeffrey Brown looking at how the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has sparked a wave of creative and economic growth in rural Ashland, Oregon. One of the country’s most important regional theater companies, OSF is acclaimed for provocative show content, community engagement and unusually diverse casting.

Drake uses a drone show to light up his live performance

The Verge: On a sticky late-August night in New York, Drake has chosen to share the stage with a non-human entity. As he bounces around the stage during “Elevate,” a cloud of drones illuminates the dark space above him.

New Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts To Stage Diverse and Gender-Bent Production Of 1776

www.broadwayworld.com: BroadwayWorld has learned that New Rep Theatre in Massachusetts will stage color-blind cast, gender-bent production of 1776 this holiday season! The production is set to run at the Mosesian Center for the Arts November 30th through December 23rd.

Viola Davis on ‘Widows’ and the Pay Gap in Hollywood

Variety: It was a familiar dilemma for Viola Davis. What to do with her hair?

The star of the upcoming film “Widows” needed to know what kind of wig or extensions she should wear to play Veronica Rawlins, the leader of an unlikely band of robbers scrambling to pull off a dangerous heist. Director Steve McQueen’s answer shocked the Emmy-, Tony- and Oscar-winning actress.

“I said, ‘Your own hair is beautiful — just wear it that way,’” recalls McQueen. “Veronica is a wash-and-go kind of girl.”

Common Fears of Every Job Seeker (and How to Deal with Them)

www.lifehack.org: Changing jobs can be stressful. Society likes to put a certain pressure on us to find our destiny, which ends up giving us anxiety. What if we’re not doing what we’re supposed to with our life? Have we missed our destiny then? And how do we leave our wrong “destiny” behind, so we can go find the perfect job?

Every job seeker faces a string of common fears when they try to find a new job.

Interview with Veteran Sound Designer: Seph Lawrence

Pro Audio Files: If you want to know how to get your start and succeed in any field, it is extremely insightful to learn how others have navigated their career paths. Over the last 25 years or so, Seph Lawrence has served as Creative Director, Sound Supervisor and Sound Designer for companies like Futurity, Blizzard Entertainment, Raven Software and currently, Torrential Audio, “Creators of unique recorded and designed sound effects for all types of media”. In my interview with him that follows, he generously offered to share his unique perspective, experience and advice for emerging sound designers.

5 Basic Watercolor Techniques for Beginners

Artsy: Watercolor can be intimidating for beginners, and even some experienced artists find it challenging. In fact, throughout my years teaching the medium, I’ve met many talented acrylic and oil painters who have a hard time switching over to watercolor because it just works so differently. With these simple warm-up activities, you’ll begin to understand how watercolor really works, get comfortable with your paints, and hopefully come up with ideas for new creations.

5 ways to deal with impostor syndrome at work

www.fastcompany.com: Impostor syndrome is a well-known concept. It’s when you feel like a fraud despite having outward evidence of success. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, actress Natalie Portman, and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz have all talked about their experiences with it. It affects approximately 70% of people, but according to Valerie Young, impostor syndrome expert and author of The Secrets Of Successful Women, it is especially prevalent among those who are the first, the only, or the few–especially individuals who belong to a “group for whom there are stereotypes about competence.”

Spotlight – Catherine Mullan

Cinefex Blog: Catherine Mullan is an animation supervisor at MPC. Her career highlights include her work on four Harry Potter films, Happy Feet, The Chronicles of Narnia, Maleficent and Tim Burton’s Dumbo.

Autodesk Intern Showcase - Summer 2018

It is Alive in the Lab: As usual, the Office of the CTO (OCTO) hosted interns for the summer. We have our interns work on real research projects rather than just create busy work. One of our favorite aspects of the program is that our interns share their results at the end of the summer at our intern showcase.

Their Latest Risk: Household Objects Playing Shakespeare

The New York Times: There are no small parts. There are some very small actors. In “Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare,” which starts on Sept. 11 at N.Y.U. Skirball, the blazingly inventive English company Forced Entertainment will whiz through 36 Shakespeare plays. (Sorry, “Henry VIII.”) Each play is a solo show, abetted by armloads of household objects: cups, cans, kitchen twine, wood glue, gin. Juliet is a jar of marmalade. Hamlet is a bottle of vinegar. (Genius.)

GUEST BLOG: For the Love of Theatre by Alexander Libby

The Producer's Perspective: At the age of seventeen I started a theatre company and called it “For the Love of Theatre.” I converted an old carriage house that my father had built into a theater venue, and even cut trap doors in the floor through which stairs would rise to give the illusion of a two-story set. My friends and I cranked a manual genie lift in hundreds (perhaps thousands) of rotations every time the stairs needed to go up or down. It was exhausting…and a blast!

How to stand out at a networking event

www.fastcompany.com: No one is born a natural networker. But when you think about someone you’ve met networking who impressed you, I’d challenge you to consider what you talked about.

The best networkers view connecting as part and parcel to life: not just something they do when they need a job or a favor. To up your game as a networker, you may need to change your game entirely.

British Independent Film Awards Launches ‘Unconscious Bias’ Training

Variety: With awards nominee lists under increasing scrutiny, the British Independent Film Awards is launching a first-of-its-kind “unconscious bias” training program. All BIFA voting members, including juries, committees and the board, will complete the training ahead of this year’s awards.

Speakin' yinzer n'at: 'One Dollar' actors say they find no language barrier in our unusual dialect

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Picture, if you can, Pittsburgh Dad as Henry Higgins.

No “rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” nonsense here. With “One Dollar” shooting in Western Pennsylvania since spring, it has been more like, “hangin’ aroun’ Dahntahn.”

The yinzer patois is a wonderful, terrible thing.

Pittsburgh actor makes history by performing all of August Wilson's works

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: There are Wilsonian Warriors with Tonys and Emmys and international reputations, and then there’s the Pittsburgh brigade, sharing the passion for August Wilson’s work with the people in the playwright’s hometown.

Genny, Genny, Who Can I Turn To? A Primer On Small Stage Generators For Audio Applications

ProSoundWeb: Back in the day all generators for stage productions were large, diesel-powered beasts. Pulled in on a trailer, the good ones were quiet, had a large enough fuel tank to last through a show (and then some), and offered single-phase 120/240-volt or 3-phase 120/208-volt power.

Celebrating Gearhouse's All-Women Health and Safety Team in Woman's Month

Lighting&Sound America Online - News: In the month of August, commemorated the women who marched to the union buildings to protest and fight for the rights of women all over South Africa. It is a month where people look to the women across communities and work places who make a difference, whether big or small, in the lives of those around them. As Gearhouse, the company wanted to show its gratitude and pay homage to its women of Health and Safety across the group, Zona de Waal, Riekie Wiehahn, Wilma Vermeulen, and Natasha Bezuidenhout.

Where it All Begins: Microphone Options for the Voice

Church Production Magazine: No piece of sound equipment is closer to the presenter than the mic, so the sound tech's job starts there. Here CPM takes a look at the three main mic types—handheld, lavalier and headset—and their distinct advantages and disadvantages in the church setting.

Geoffrey Owens, Working Artists, and Me

www.clydefitchreport.com: Sometimes artists don’t do art.

The recent controversy, partly ginned up by Fox News, over the work-shaming of Geoffrey Owens got my gears grinding. I feel a need to address some of the points made in the excellent New Yorker article that addressed the outing of Owens, who dares to make a living in a way not connected to the arts.

Dr. Sara BT Thiel on Pregnancy on the Stage in Early Modern English Drama

HowlRound Theatre Commons: How do you depict pregnancy onstage when your cast is all-male? That was one of a number of problems that English playwrights and performers faced in the Stuart era, when plays like The Winter’s Tale frequently began to feature pregnancies as major plot points. Dr. Sara BT Thiel has been exploring this subject, and it’s resulted in a chapter entitled “’Cushion Come Forth’: Materializing Pregnancy on the Stuart Stage.” The chapter appears in the new book Stage Matters: Props, Bodies, and Spaces in Shakespearean Performance.

Emerging Writers Geraldine Inoa and Gracie Gardner in Conversation

The Interval: Geraldine Inoa and Gracie Gardner have a lot in common. Both are young writers who are relatively self-trained (neither chose to pursue an MFA) and who go back and forth between the worlds of theatre and television. Both women are also the recipients of very prestigious awards, The Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission and The Relentless Award, associated with Shonda Rhimes and Phillip Seymour Hoffman respectively.

“Giudizio Universale”

Video & Lighting - LightSoundJournal.com: We continue our journey through the technologies present in “Giudizio Universale” (you can find the first part here) by analysing the visual aspects of this particular production. These are characterised by an innovative and spectacular use of video and lights, allowing the public to be transported into different scenarios, from Piazza S. Pietro during the election of the pope, to the Sistine Chapel.

Plays for Labor Day. In praise of theater about unions, workers and workplaces.

New York Theater: It was while attending the current revival of Lillian Hellman’s 1936 play “Days to Come,” which is set during a strike at a brush factory in Ohio, that I suddenly wondered: Where are the American plays about unions, or workers, or even just workplaces?

ETC, Edinburgh and Eddy the teddy!

blog.etcconnect.com: Every year, the largest arts festival in the world takes over Edinburgh in August, and this time, ETC Ltd made the trip to Scotland to be on hand for all technical service queries. Our friendly field service engineers, Chris and Dan, were onsite throughout the busy month offering training and support to customers across the festival.

Theatrical Effects Enrich The Experience Inside The Museum Of The Bible

Rosco Spectrum: The new Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. is a $500 MM institution that showcases thousands of rare biblical artifacts alongside state-of-the-art exhibits that are designed to engage its visitors with the Bible.

Leonardo da Vinci's Earliest Notebooks Now Digitized and Made Free Online: Explore His Ingenious Drawings, Diagrams, Mirror Writing & More

Open Culture: Do a search on the word “polymath” and you will see an image or reference to Leonardo da Vinci in nearly every result. Many historical figures—not all of them world famous, not all Europeans, men, or from the Italian Renaissance—fit the description. But few such recorded individuals were as feverishly active, restlessly inventive, and astonishingly prolific as Leonardo, who left riddles enough for scholars to solve for many lifetimes.

Bose ShowMatch System Receives Praise from Walk the Moon Front-of-House Engineer

LightSoundJournal.com: James Wooten, front-of-house engineer for “Shut Up and Dance” pop-rockers Walk the Moon, is among the latest FOH engineers to experience firsthand the high-performance audio of the ShowMatch DeltaQ line array system from Bose Professional. He has gotten a chance to mix the band through installed ShowMatch systems at multiple venues now, including most recently the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, OR

What It's Like to Be a Cirque du Soleil Safety Diver in "O"

Sport Diver: My dive students don’t look like other Open Water Diver hopefuls. For starters, they show up wearing sequins. And they never assemble their own gear.

That’s because my newbies are trapeze artists and other acrobatic performers working in O, the water-themed Cirque du Soleil show performed five nights a week in Las Vegas.

5 causes of burnout in the workplace

www.fastcompany.com: Have you noticed any recent changes in your coworkers? Perhaps they aren’t as present as they used to be, or they’ve been unusually forgetful, moody, or tired. Maybe they’re racking up repeated absences. These things are not unusual, but they can also be signs that something is wrong.

Little Miss Sunshine

Pittsburgh in the Round: Little Miss Sunshine opened Thursday at the Little Lake Theatre in Canonsburg. Little Lake is currently in its 70th season and is community theatre in the best sense. There are opportunities for aspiring performers to learn theatre from the basics, to behind the scenes to the curtain call. Actors with other full-time careers work along with Equity pros.

Burning Man oversells event, asked to shut down entry

www.usatoday.com: The Burning Man organization reports that the population of Black Rock City has dipped below 70,000, allowing it to again admit Burners more freely into the event.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Thursday asked organizers to shut down the entry after organizers allowed the event to swell past its population limit, breaking the rules of their permit, according to BLM spokesman Kyle Hendrix.

Gerber Suspension NXT Multi-tool

Everyday Carry: When you make multi-tools for tradespeople and military personnel alike, they're going to get the job done. But for the rest of us, that might be a bit overkill for everyday tasks and projects. That's why Gerber created the Suspension NXT—a more compact, EDC-friendly butterfly-style multi-tool based on the original trade-oriented Suspension.

Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks does "Two Gents"

Pittsburgh in the Round: As the fall descends on the region, Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks prepares to open The Two Gentlemen of Verona. I had the pleasure of sitting in on a rehearsal and talking shop with a few of the creative minds behind this production.

A Peek Inside College Dorms Around the World

mymodernmet.com: Back-to-school season is officially upon us. With more dorm-approved decor readily available now more than ever (think, removable wallpaper, tiered storage trolleys, and stylish floating shelves), tweaking your tiny, temporary space to work for you is finally a feasible undertaking.

How I Learned What I Learned

Pittsburgh in the Round: August Wilson’s own biography and his plays chronicling life in Pittsburgh’s Hill District during the 20th century are well suited for an actor who fits the bill for How I Learned What I Learned. His life and works comprise big stories worthy of fine storytellers.

First Look at the Surreal Art Installations of Burning Man 2018

mymodernmet.com: Each year the eyes of the world are glued to the Nevada desert, as the Burning Man festival reaches its apex over Labor Day weekend. The annual event attracts people from around the globe, including major artists and architects who help transform the Playa with their incredible art installations. Images have begun to pour out of Black Rock City, showing how, yet again, the art of Burning Man doesn't disappoint.

You gotta have 'Heart': Talking rock 'n' roll, theater, hearing struggles and more with Huey Lewis as world-premiere musical hits the Old Globe

The San Diego Union-Tribune: If you want to get to the heart of rock ’n’ roller Huey Lewis’ love for theater, you’ve gotta go pretty far back in time — to the drama club of New Jersey’s Lawrenceville School, circa 1966.

NFTRW Weekly Top Five

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

Have You Ever Seen a Show in a Bathtub?

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Philip Santos Schaffer pulls back the curtain and introduces himself as "your server and savior" to me and the only other spectator. After chatting idly for a while, he asks if we're thirsty. "Tonight, we're serving only the finest NYC tap," he declares as he turns on the faucet and water comes pouring out. Forget the fourth wall -- there's not even a stage for this solo show because The End of the World Bar and Bathtub is performed in a real New York City bathroom. Interested audiences of two make an appointment and supply the tub; Schaffer shows up and delivers the hour-long experience.

Posted by David at 8/31/2018 10:47:00 AM

Chefs Part of the Show at Unique Dinner & Theater in Pittsburgh

Eat Street - August 2018: Don’t worry about making pre- or post-show dinner reservations if you’re planning on attending Quantum Theatre’s new play, “Chatterton.” A three-course meal is an integral part of the production.

“Eating and drinking together is such an important component of an arts experience,” says Quantum Theatre artistic director Karla Boos.

Posted by David at 8/31/2018 10:46:00 AM

Production Notes: Content and Trigger Warnings

Nevada Film Office: At times, producers and/or distributors may believe that certain scenes in a film, music video, television episode, or video game contains content that will offend, traumatize, or otherwise cause harm or discomfort to some viewers. In such cases, content warnings are often given in conjunction with a content rating system that specifies the type of audience the film or production is suitable for, such as M for mature audiences.

Posted by David at 8/28/2018 10:54:00 AM

Historical Calling Technology: Cue Lights

Stage Directions: According to the Boston Daily Globe, in 1882 the Bijou theatre was the first theatre in the country to install and use electricity throughout the building. Some companies had already installed electric house lights, specials, etc. But the Bijou was the first to use electric light in every corner of the theatre. As a result, the development and implementation of cue lights followed shortly, which inevitably silenced the Prompter’s aural cueing methods and changed the way in which the audience experienced the performance.

Posted by David at 8/31/2018 10:43:00 AM

It's a Brave New World for Pittsburgh Public Theater

Pittsburgh Magazine - September 2018 - Pittsburgh, PA: Marya Sea Kaminski is letting Ted Pappas return to direct one show in Pittsburgh Public Theater’s 2018-2019 season.

“Letting?” she says with a laugh when she hears the description, adding that she brought up having Pappas direct in her interview.

“Ted built this house [as we know it today],” she says. “All the beautiful things here, Ted built. [As he puts it], as we move forward, he’s going to be this dashing uncle.”

Posted by David at 8/30/2018 11:34:00 AM