‘Ragtime’ with canned music at DSM? No thanks.

Dallas Morning News: No. Just no. Thank you to the actors, who performed valiantly and a few stunningly, in Ragtime, presented by Dallas Summer Musicals at Fair Park Music Hall, at Tuesday’s opening night performance. But you can’t bring a non-Equity tour with mostly canned music to play Dallas and expect no one to notice. Not in a town filled with vibrant professional companies offering musicals with live orchestras.

BWW Dance Interview: Tomé Cousin

www.broadwayworld.com: Tomé Cousin is an interdisciplinary artist who has molded an award winning international career that includes collaboration and performance on Broadway, television, film, dance, theater, music, photography, and literature. He holds a Bachelors of Arts in Dance History and Choreography and a Masters of Fine Art in New Media Art and Performance. He is an Associate Professor of Dance at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama.

Broadway Producer Scott Rudin: 'I'm A Complete Product Of Mentorship'

NPR: Growing up, the only thing Scott Rudin wanted to do was become a theater producer. "I never had a fantasy of doing anything else or being anything else," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I used to read [The New York Times'] Arts & Leisure [section] and obsess over, 'David Merrick has five shows running on Broadway! What would that be like?' "

Transforming the Hill District into Hollywood movie backdrop

Local News - WTAE Home:The movie fences for the most part will be filmed in this
house on Anaheim Street in district. About a retired Negro League baseball
player trying to build backyard. He spends more times jacking it actually does
building the there is something else you need to know about the movie based on
the play by August Wilson, it's no coincidence that den still Washington is the
director.

Two new faculty members appointed to the School of Drama

CMU School of Drama: Two new faculty members were appointed to the School of Drama Acting and Music Theater faculty this spring. They will begin teaching in the fall of 2016.

Gary Logan comes to us from his position as Director of the Washington Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting, (in association with George Washington University). He holds an MFA from American Conservatory Theatre.

Big audio dynamite: how theatre is moving at the speed of sound

Stage | The Guardian: Yael Farber’s remarkable production of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs finishes its run at the National Theatre on Thursday. You should try to catch it. It’s a galvanising evening conjuring a colonised Africa on the brink of revolution, which celebrates its cultural wealth and ancient traditions. One of the significant elements is the music and sound – as Susannah Clapp quite rightly observed, you leave with your ears ringing.

‘Eclipsed’ Production Duo On Breaking Through Broadway’s Glass Ceiling

www.huffingtonpost.com: During a season where Broadway is grossing a record high of $1.37 billion, lead producers Stephen Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey of Front Row Productions are making history of their own with “Eclipsed.” Starring Lupita Nyong’o, Pascale Armand, Akosua Busia, Zainab Jah and Saycon Sengblo, “Eclipsed” — which is the first play written by, directed by, produced by and starring black women — tells the intense story of five women who are brought together by turmoil in their homeland of Liberia.

CrystalGel – A Costumer’s New Best Friend

Rosco Spectrum: Costumers often choose a fabric for a number of reasons, including its feel, color, translucency and weight. Oftentimes, however, that fabric needs to be modified to fit the needs of the production. For a 2015 production of Peter and the Starcatcher at Playmakers Repertory Company, the costume crew needed to create a dress for the character Teacher so that he appeared as an illuminated mermaid. The project posed a number of fabric-style challenges for costume technician and draper Candy McClernan – who discovered that Rosco’s CrystalGel was her solution to several of the challenges this costume posed.

Community Theatre, Beijing Style

Butts In the Seats: Before traveling to Beijing, I took the opportunity to arrange to meet with Beijing Playhouse Executive Director, Chris Verrill. Beijing Playhouse describes itself as “China’s English Broadway Theatre.” It is essentially a community theater that casts ex-pats from various English speaking nations. Though anyone with sufficient skill in English can audition. Looking through some of the playbills, I saw people from the U.S., British Commonwealth countries, Africa, Japan, India and China.

13 Epic Movie Sets That Were Actually Miniature Models

www.wimp.com: Take, for instance, the architects, carpenters, and artists who are responsible for designing and building miniature models. They are rarely remembered for their talents, but without them, directors would be lost. When it comes time to build a scene that would be costly to recreate or simply doesn't exist in the real world, miniatures are still relied upon today to add a level of reality that just doesn't exist with CGI.

That said, many of these miniatures work alongside CGI, while others stand alone.

‘Hamilton’ star Daveed Diggs enjoys access to new world

Salon.com: These days, Daveed Diggs finds himself in the eye of a hurricane. And it is quiet.

The Ivy League-educated rapper and actor from California has earned a Tony Award nomination for his work in the biggest Broadway show in a generation and that means he’s needed for endless appearances and events.

His refuge? Onstage at “Hamilton.”

The workhorse of bubble machines

Boing Boing: Bubble machines tend to be flakey, touchy things that break a lot. Dan Das Mann, creator of the Funn Machine, the Funn Beast, and now the Funn Pack swears by the Bubbletron.

Sorry to spoil your “Game of Thrones” revenge-spoiler fantasy, but it doesn’t work

Salon.com: I have some bad news for the woman who’s taken it upon herself to torture her ex boyfriend by consistently spoiling “Game of Thrones” each week: it’s not working. Despite her gusto and creativity — if you’re unfamiliar with the story, she unblocks him from various social media platforms each week for just long enough to reveal spoilers, or texts him directly using someone else’s phone — science says her impulse for revenge isn’t actually being achieved. Spoiler alert: spoilers don’t really ruin stories.

Disney Shows Why Your Organization Should Sweat the Small Stuff

Selling Out: It’s true: Disney does actually create magical experiences — so enchanting that the magical kingdom has a 70% return rate of first-time visitors, according to Help Scout’s Gregory Ciotti.

Equity Election Fills Council Seats

Stage Directions: Actors’ Equity Association recently held their 2016 National Council elections. Members voted to fill 14 council seats across all regions and in three categories (principal actor, chorus actor and stage manager). The term of office is four years. F

New NFPA Journal looks at the fire hazard of buildings’ decorative features

NFPA Xchange: Are those palm trees outside your hotel window real or simulated? Could they be made of plastic? If so, they can pose a significantly greater hazard than real palm trees in a fire event.

When Actors Wage Battle

Footlights: Steven Leigh Morris reports the latest twist in the ongoing discussion about the preservation of intimate theater in Los Angeles: actor Ann Colby Stocking has filed an official wage claim against the Odyssey Theatre for back wages from a 2013 show. Her claim, which concerns not being paid minimum wage, had to be filed within 3 years time of her employment.

READ: Constance Wu, B.D. Wong and Other APIA Actors' Thoughts on Hollywood Whitewashing

Colorlines: Constance Wu joined several other Asian-American stars for a critique of Hollywood's Whitewashing of Asian and Asian-American performers and characters. "It changed me," the #StarringConstanceWu star said of her starring role in ABC's "Fresh Off the Boat" in The New York Times article, which was published yesterday (May 25). She added that the role shifted her focus "from self-interest to Asian-American interests."

Battery Operated Cordless Nailers - Be Informed

Tool Box Buzz: With the introduction of battery operated cordless finish nailers by several Brands there’s lots of conversation among carpenters about whether these new tools can compete with pneumatics and ultimately who makes the best version. The most recent entry into this category is Milwaukee with several new battery powered brad/finish nailers. With those new releases there have been several articles and videos on the internet regarding Milwaukee finish nailers and run time tests – problem is RUN TIME tests are flawed.

WOW Café Theatre: Celebrating the Beginnings of a Historic Women’s Theatre

HowlRound: During dinner with a writer friend, I told her about the launch/party/performance I’d attended on February 29 for the book Memories of the Revolution: the First Ten Years of the WOW Café Theater (edited by Holly Hughes, Carmelita Tropicana, and Jill Dolan, published by University of Michigan Press, 2015). My friend knew of WOW and said, “You know before that I used to go see stuff at Medusa’s Revenge. They were a lesbian theatre in the ’70s.” It made me happy to know there’d been another theatre in New York City that gave women a place to work and find their voices, and push their way into the art form that often didn’t have room for them, or wanted to keep them in a specific role.