Here's What a Musical Based on the '80s Classic 'Heathers' Looks Like

Movie News | Movies.com: One of cinema’s snarkiest, most quotable films, Heathers, is making its off-Broadway debut in spring 2014. The Michael Lehmann-directed movie about a group of mean girls at an Ohio high school, the Heathers, and the rebellious outsider (Christian Slater) who draws one of them (Winona Ryder) into his nefarious plan to get rid of the other girls, has been a hit at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles with plans for a “limited engagement” at New World Stages, according to THR, and previews start March 17

Dance review: Point Park students find Petrov's magic in 'Romeo and Juliet'

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Two generations converged this week at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in Oakland. The cast of "Romeo and Juliet," presented by Point Park University's Conservatory Dance Company, was made up mostly of students -- the dancers, choreographers and artistic directors of tomorrow. The choreography they performed was by longtime Point Park dance professor Nicolas Petrov, who after 67 years in dance chose to close his career with the ballet that helped set it in motion.

Power Tool of the Year 2013 - Winner Announced

www.toolstop.co.uk: Flashing lights, red carpets, tuxedos and champagne were the order of the evening on Friday as we welcomed our Power Tool of the Year nominees to our annual Power Tool Oscars. In attendance were Makita, DeWALT, Bosch, Metabo and Hitachi, each company feeling the nerves of anticipation as they awaited your choice of Toolstop's Power Tool of the Year.

Top 3 Wireless Microphone Problems and How to Solve Them

svconline.com: Wireless microphones are prone to interference, noise, drop-outs, and many more bothersome RF problems. These problems can be disastrous for both live productions and installed systems. Everyone remembers an embarrassing time when a wireless mic suffered harsh static or intermittent dropouts. Even brief malfunctions can destroy a presentation or performance, and drive everyone involved crazy. Below are the three most common problems, and a few basic techniques to solve them.

Women Directors Nearly Absent in 2013 Awards Season

Variety: “The movie industry is failing women,” says New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis. “And until the industry starts making serious changes, nothing is going to change.” For 15 years, the percentage of women represented in the top 250 domestic grossers has fluctuated between 5% and 9%, according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State U. (In 2012, it was 9%.) The center’s executive director, Martha Lauzen, cites a variety of factors as to why the imbalance continues, but stresses perception is a key one.

Contour Roller Mouse or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

CAD Insider: To use a computer mouse over 20 hours a week is to risk carpal tunnel syndrome1. Yikes! To call the Contour input device a Roller Mouse is not to do it justice. But maybe Computer Input System Alternative to the Mouse If You Are Having Medical Issues was just a little too long.

In a New Play, Trusty Sidekick Is a Supercomputer

NPR: Fed up with human shortcomings, the characters in Madeleine George's play turn to high-tech companions. Could machines be assistants, friends, and even partners? The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence explores the amazing things technology can do for us...and what it can't.

Financing Not Fundraising: Stop Apologizing for Needing Money

Social Velocity: It becomes increasingly obvious to me that the nonprofit sector suffers from a lack of confidence. Centuries of being sidelined as “charities” while the real work of the world (business) took center stage has made the nonprofit sector continually apologize for the work they do and how they do it.

Draining The Daring From A High School Production Of 'Rent'

NPR: Quite a show has been going on in Trumbull, Conn. Last week, the principal of Trumbull High School canceled a student production of Rent scheduled for next March. Rent is Jonathan Larson's 1994 rock musical about a group of colorful young people living and loving in a colorful wreck of a brownstone on New York's Lower East Side, when struggling young artists could afford the rent there.

Real life Jurassic Park exists in Australia and everyone needs to go

sploid.gizmodo.com: We're going to Australia, everybody. You, me, your mother, my neighbor, your dog, the guy on the subway, the girl in the book store, everybody. Why? Because they've built the closest thing to a real life Jurassic Park there. Called Palmersaurus Dinosaur Park, it's home to 160 animatronic dinosaurs that move, blink, roar and just look freaking awesome looking like dinosaurs.

Setting the Stage With the Right Screen Choice

c2meworld.com: In a world where the industry professionals often focus on the more complicated technology in an image delivery equation, projection screens do not get the respect they deserve. All too often the designer spends hours looking at the projector and ignores the surface on which the image will be projected and viewed. Many have a tendency to expect the projector to do all the work and they rely on the good old, tried and true, matte white, unity gain screen to complete the task. Sometimes this works and sometimes it does not.

Book Excerpt: 'The CG Story': How Pixar Saved 'Toy Story' From Becoming A Disney Disaster

www.deadline.com: The history of special effects and CG in film and their close relationship with today’s top-notch digital animation is the focus of author Christopher Finch’s new lavish 368-page book The CG Story: Computer Generated Animation and Special Effects, which peels the curtain back on CG pioneers like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and Pixar founders John Lasseter and Ed Catmull and their respective contributions to film. As part of Deadline’s weekend programming, read an exclusive excerpt from The CG Story, available now via The Monacelli Press (large format hardcover, $75), detailing the near-disaster that almost was when the upstarts at Pixar pacted with Disney to make their first feature: Toy Story.

No Name Players present this weekend 'The Truth About Santa'

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Santa Claus is coming to town tonight. But he’s not the jolly old St. Nick of your youth. It’s “The Truth About Santa,” presented by the No Name Players at Arcade Comedy Theater, Downtown. “It’s ‘An Apocalyptic Holiday Tale,’” according to the subtitle and the show’s director, Don DiGiulio. “A musical play, it re-imagines Santa Claus as the God that he once was and the various forms he has taken over the years.

'Theatre Festival in Black & White' brings diverse audience

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: If you haven’t caught up with the “Theatre Festival in Black & White: Holiday Edition,” there’s still time with performances tonight and Tuesday at the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, Downtown. These are the final nights of the 10th annual festival presented by the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. Each evening offers five short plays written and produced by local playwrights, directors and actors.

It's their turn: Joe Calarco and Sherri L. Edelen talk about Gypsy at Signature

DC Theatre Scene: Stephen Sondheim is the Shakespeare of musical theatre, Joe Calarco told me. To extend the comparison, does that make the role of Mama Rose in Gypsy Sondheim’s Lear? Certainly the power and appeal of that part helps to explain why Gypsy has had more revivals on Broadway than any other musical from the later half of the 20th Century that I can think of. Is there another role that has won three actors a Tony award? I can’t think of one. (And Ethel Merman would likely have won in any year in which The Sound of Music hadn’t also opened.)

Watch how stop-motion artists brought AT-ATs to life for the Battle of Hoth

The Verge: Computer-generated lightsabers, laser blasts, and aliens may have filled the Star Wars prequels, but the original trilogy featured some stunning practical effects that still stand up today. On YouTube, Star Wars has posted an old behind-the-scenes video of how the filmmakers made one of the series' most impressive effects: the AT-ATs moving at the Battle of Hoth. The video shows time-lapse footage of animators adjusting large AT-AT models frame-by-frame, while Industrial Light & Magic effects artist Dennis Muren explains how they planned out the shoot.

Kinks Musical Coming to London

Music News | Rolling Stone: A new musical based on the life of Kinks frontman Ray Davies is coming to London next year. The BBC reports that Sunny Afternoon, named after the Kinks' 1966 hit, will use songs by the band to tell the story of Davies' early life as well as the rise of the band he founded with his brother Dave in 1964.

The Unsustainable State of Art

HowlRound: If you want to make great art, you must suffer. If you are truly compelled, truly gifted, you will find a way to make art and be heard. So attest our collective wisdom and a handful of recent HowlRound articles. An artist’s poverty becomes a testament to the value of his or her art—an artistic virtue. She crams artistic pursuits into evenings and weekends, to fit around her day-job, because what artist can live on art alone? Young artists, making their way out of increasingly expensive educational institutions into unpaid internships (if they are lucky) and life-long professionals in the field alike stack jobs like coffee cups and unpaid bills. Here we are.

Through The Years: A Look At Notable Microphone Developments

Pro Sound Web: Microphones as we know them date back to about the mid-1800s, when many different inventors were trying to electronically transmit sounds from one place to another. Before then, the term microphone was used to describe an acoustical device (like an ear trumpet or stethoscope) that helped amplify sounds.

Geena Davis' Two Easy Steps to Make Hollywood Less Sexist (Guest Column)

The Hollywood Reporter: I never intended to become a data head. I could never have predicted it would play such an important role in my life. Yet here we are: My Institute on Gender in Media has sponsored the largest amount of research ever done on gender depictions in media, covering a 20-year-plus span. I'll give you the basics as to how I got here, then we'll get to the fun part. Because I was fortunate enough to be cast in movies like Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own, I developed a heightened awareness of how women are portrayed in media. Enough that when I started watching G-rated videos with my daughter about eight years ago, my "Spidey" sense caused me to immediately notice how few female characters there were in entertainments aimed at the youngest of children. Surely in the 21st century kids should be seeing boys and girls share the sandbox equally?