Geena Davis' Two Easy Steps to Make Hollywood Less Sexist

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?

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.

Interview: Michael Wilkinson

Guise Magazine: Costume designer Michael Wilkinson has been on the forefront of style and technology in film for many years. Designing films like Tron (2010), Man of Steel (2013), and American Hustle (out in cinemas on 1 January 2014) have allowed him to stretch the bounds of traditional design, develop new techniques, and dazzle audiences world-wide. Joe Kucharski, of Tyranny of Style, recently had the chance to talk with him about digital costume illustration, his process, and his predictions for this exciting technology.

Korean Cash Takes Broadway Bows

NYTimes.com: Only one Korean theater producer has a Tony Award for best musical, a Broadway honor that is coveted the world over. Yet the 2013 trophy for “Kinky Boots” sits inconspicuously here on Kim Byeong-seok’s cluttered bookcase, amid cheap memorabilia from “Cats,” “Grease” and “42nd Street.”

Stagehands, Earning Their Keep

NYTimes.com: Your front-page article about the compensation of New York City’s unionized stagehands (“Hey, Stars, Be Nice to the Stagehands. You Might Need a Loan,” Dec. 28) betrays a dismaying class bias.
The tone of the article suggests that readers should be at least mildly offended, if not shocked, by the salaries the stagehands earn, even though there are thousands of bankers, lawyers, doctors and corporate executives in this city for whom such salaries, or more, are taken for granted.

All the World's a Soundstage: In Praise of Studio-Bound Alien Worlds

io9.com: Quick, what's the first thing you noticed about the planet we visited in last night's Doctor Who special? That's right: It was a soundstage.* None of Matt Smith's final hour was filmed in a real location. Alien worlds used to be filmed in the studio more often — here's why we miss visiting Planet Soundstage.

Everyday Carry: The Right Tools For The Job

Pro Sound Web: Tools fall into two categories. The first is what I call EDC (everyday carry) items, meaning bring them to every gig no matter what. The second is your own custom tool kit, loaded with specialty items like meters, larger hand tools, and other particular things.
Let’s focus on what should be a part of an EDC

NYC’s Park Avenue Tunnel Transformed into Light & Sound Spectacular

www.c2meworld.com: On August 10 and 17, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., a unique New York City roadway that thousands of people travel on every day will close to traffic, welcoming pedestrians for the first time in order to experience the latest sound and light art installation by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. “Voice Tunnel is an interactive installation designed to transform the Park Avenue Tunnel,” Lozano-Hemmer told Pro Sound News.
The Voice Tunnel installation is just one part of New York City’s annual ‘Summer Streets’ event, which shuts down nearly seven miles of Park Avenue and Lafayette Street, extending from the Brooklyn Bridge to East 72nd Street, allowing New Yorkers to hang out and explore the route. A number of art installations, activities, food, performances and more take place along the way, offering visitors a perfect summer day in New York.

Complex Projects Demand an External Video Sync Generator

www.avnetwork.com: As AV projects become more extravagant, the ability to synchronize multiple channels of audio and video is critical. It’s no longer a matter of putting up a video wall, splitting the video feed across it, and calling it a day. Modern projects require full resolution on every display in that wall, whether there’s one or 100. And emerging 4K displays often require four separate 1080p video feeds just to drive a single panel or projector. Put a few of these side by side, and you’re talking about a lot of perfectly synchronized video.

Technology Remaking Arts Ed

me arts ed: Here is a video called Catching Up to Kids: How Technology is Remaking Arts Education. It was created by Don Marinelli who is the Co-Founder of Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University.

Planning is key to have hassle-free celebration at First Night Pittsburgh

TribLIVE: Planning is essential, they said, and can save a meltdown before the countdown during Highmark First Night Pittsburgh.
“Check out the website in advance and decide what you want to see,” said Cory Cope of Flyspace Productions, which produces and manages the annual New Year's Eve celebration.

CMU responds to 'stress culture' on campus

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: On a campus whose hard-charging culture exacts an emotional toll on some students, Carnegie Mellon University junior Soniya Shah told a group of freshmen this fall something they may not often hear.
Every so often, it's OK to fail.
Her simple message -- delivered in a new course -- is one often lost on those who were the best in their high school class but quickly discover when they arrive at Carnegie Mellon that no matter how many all-nighters they pull, everyone around them seems just as smart or smarter.

Curtain going up - earlier than ever

Philly.com: Empires rose and empires fell, but if there was one thing the world could depend on, it was the 8 p.m. curtain time for theater, opera, and classical music performances. That, however, was back in the 20th century.
In the 21st century, if you don't check daily listings, you may be late for Act One. Though the Philadelphia Orchestra holds steady with music at 8, a weeknight performance at the Wilma Theater, the Arden Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, or 1812 Productions may start as early as 6:30. For Sunday-night touring Broadway shows at the Academy of Music, all traditional bets are off.

In 2013, KC’s theater scene rode a wave of winning efforts

KansasCity.com: Is there something in the air? The same year Sporting Kansas City won the MLS cup, the Kansas City Royals made a semi-convincing run at the playoffs and the Kansas City Chiefs steamrolled into a playoff slot, the city’s leading nonprofit theater company accomplished something it never had before: It got a show to the Big Apple.

Learning the language of the Bard

democratherald.com: Astine: (verb). To walk when leaves are falling.
It’s not a word that exists in the English language — yet — but that likely wouldn’t have mattered to Shakespeare, who gave the world many of his own invented words, including “lustrous,” “unearthly” and “bedazzle.”

Why So Down on Millennials?

c2meworld.com: Most, if not all, of us have been to conferences, workshops and seminars where the topic of “millennials” (those born between 1983 and 2010) has been addressed at great length, generally by way of a lecture of some sort, with PowerPoint slides citing data indicating that today’s generation of college students is the laziest, least motivated, least socialized and most self-involved generation the Earth has ever seen.
My experience with the current generation of undergraduate college students is quite different, however.

CMU professor turns to Steel City Improv to make point about ideas

TribLIVE: Justin Zell was adamant that his plan would work.
His students weren't so sure.
“Be really, really bold and give me your faith that this is going to work out in the end,” the improv master said, barking out orders to a group of befuddled Carnegie Mellon University graduate engineering students a week before final exams.

Expensive cities are killing creativity

Opinion - Al Jazeera English: On May 5, musician Patti Smith was asked what advice she had for young people trying to make it in New York City. The long-time New Yorker's take? Get out. "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling," she said. "New York City has been taken away from you."
Smith was not the only New Yorker to reject the city that had nurtured artists for decades. In October, musician David Byrne argued that "the cultural part of the city - the mind - has been usurped by the top 1 percent". Under Michael Bloomberg, New York's first billionaire mayor, homelessness and rent both soared, making one of the world's centres of creative and intellectual life unliveable for all but the richest.

Hey, Stars, Be Nice to the Stagehands. You Might Need a Loan.

NYTimes.com: They create the technical razzle-dazzle when the Rockettes take the stage for the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular.” They raise the 45-foot-high Christmas tree for “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” And on New Year’s Eve, they will make the opulent ballroom set spin for the Metropolitan Opera’s new “Die Fledermaus.”

Learning to Ask, Asking to Learn

American Theatre – January 2014: WE’RE LIVING IN WHAT IS SOMETIMES called the Information Age—an apt name for the constant flow of facts and data in which we swim, all made possible by ever-accelerating breakthroughs in computing. The catch, of course, is that, in a society where the one constant seems to be technological change, we may have too much information to process, too many systems to learn—and much of it will be obsolete by the time we’ve taken it in.