Art Talk with Minnesota Opera Chief Artistic Officer Priti Gandhi

NEA: Although Priti Gandhi performed as a full-time opera singer for almost 20 years, performing with companies such as the San Diego Opera, the Royal Opera House, and New York City Opera, there were certain roles for which she was not deemed an appropriate fit. “People looked at me and didn't have the imagination to imagine me in certain roles, because I have brown skin and black hair,” said Gandhi, who is of Indian descent.

#PayUpHollywood: Why You Should Be Fed Up with Low Assistant Pay

Ms. In The Biz: It’s a Thursday at the end of the month, which can mean only one thing if you’re an assistant in entertainment: payday. After pulling a long 60-hour week plus overtime, you are counting on every penny of this check to pay your rent, your car payment, your student loan bill, and pray you have enough left to make a small dent on that credit card. You check your bank account for the deposit…

Arts Center Reaches for the Sky

ProSoundNetwork.com: The MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, a new arts venue, sports five exhibition galleries, a large learning and community studio, and The Sky Room, a flexible auditorium on the upper floor with 150 retractable seats (300 standing). The performance space is equipped with an EM Acoustics sound system supplied by event production specialists, Hawthorn.

Minor Offenders Can Substitute Jail Time for an Art Class at the Brooklyn Museum

hyperallergic.com: A new program in New York City allows people arrested for minor offenses to avoid jail or court appearance by enrolling in an art course. A pilot run of the program has shown a reduction in recidivism and an improved view of criminal justice agencies among participants, a study by the Court Center for Innovation says.

Andy Grammer's Open Letter To The Males Of The Touring World

Pollstar: With my wife being recently pregnant (with a little girl) and watching her go through a super tough pregnancy, it’s been fresh on my mind how wildly different life in general can be for women. So, for the first time in my eight years of touring, there was a sit-down with the women on tour (there are five) and they were asked a super simple question: Is there anything we can do to make this tour better for you?

Everybody Wants to Record the World

ProSoundNetwork.com: The first season of Simon & Greg Record the World, an online video series presented by pureMix, poses the question, How do you build a recording studio in a remote part of Senegal when transport is limited and materials are hard to come by? The answer, as demonstrated by both Simon Walls, a Montreal-based music producer, songwriter and adventurer, and Greg Bonnier, a record producer, sound engineer and filmmaker also based in Montreal, is through a little ingenuity and a lot of elbow grease.

Bathrooms at ‘Hamilton’: Can 200 women make it through 16 stalls in a 20-minute intermission?

www.inquirer.com: The house lights flash on, signaling the end of the first act of Hamilton, and women dart out of their seats.

They try not to trip as they rush down staircases and weave through crowds, leaving behind friends and family to fulfill nature’s call.

Caption glasses at People’s Light theater are among first in U.S., aiding the deaf and hard of hearing

www.inquirer.com: Deaf in one ear and significantly hard of hearing in the other, Cheryl Johnson does not go to the theater unless she gets great seats.

Understanding the actors is a perennial struggle even from up close. And if another audience member coughs or opens a crinkly bag of chips, forget it.

Review Roundup: Classic Stage Company's MACBETH - See What Critics Thought

www.broadwayworld.com: Shakespeare's terrifying tale of revenge, murder, and madness, Macbeth traces the fallout when the darkest side of humanity cheats its way into a position of power. Stoll and Bowers, real-life spouses, will portray the titular couple whose trajectory has proven historically prophetic: Shakespeare's portrait of the psychology of tyranny has found itself in unsettling dialogue with societies around the world time and again.

Podcast Episode 199: Tony Award-Winner And All Around Inspiration Ali Stroker

The Producer's Perspective: There have been just a few times during the 199 episodes of my podcast that I’ve wished it was video, so you could see what I see.

Watching Ali Stroker’s joy-filled smile as she talks about living out her dreams is at the top of that list.

Shaming actors for their day jobs is classism disguised as entertainment

Metro News: The acting profession is as unpredictable as a soap character’s family tree and those at the top will have had their fair share of trial shifts and tribulations. Only two per cent of actors actually make a living from acting alone and 90 per cent of actors are out of work at any given time so that means, more often than not, actors have to make money elsewhere.

Concert Promoters Turn Away From Facial Recognition Tech

Pollstar: Concert promoters in the U.S. are stepping back from plans to scan festivalgoers with facial recognition technology, after musicians and others gave it some serious side-eye.

Although it remains entirely possible that music venues will eventually take a second look at the controversial technology.

Live-entertainment giants AEG Presents and Live Nation both recently disavowed any plans to use facial recognition at music festivals, despite earlier indications to the contrary. Their public pronouncements have led a group of musicians to declare victory after a months-long campaign to halt the technology’s use at live shows.

Why you should see theater in languages you don't speak

Datebook: I had a feeling there would be jokes and references I wouldn’t get at Tagalog 2019, Bindlestiff Studio’s festival of one-act plays performed in Tagalog, which I don’t speak. The Filipino American performing arts company, now celebrating its 30th year, planned to project English supertitles during the show, but I was anticipating that some concepts would defy translation, and that my brain might not always be able to toggle quickly enough between reading text and watching performance.

At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Wigs are Serious Business. | Portland Monthly

Portland Monthly: For Cherelle D. Guyton, little is more irritating at the theater than an actor in a bad wig.

“A bad wig is one of the first things people will notice,” Guyton says. “It’s incredibly distracting.”

As supervisor of the wigs and hair department, Guyton brings a literal head-first perspective to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Why it's better to be efficient rather than productive

www.fastcompany.com: I’m not here to make a semantic argument, really. But there’s a difference between being productive and being efficient, and efficiency wins every time.

Productivity measures how much you do or produce within a given timeframe. Efficiency, on the other hand, is about being productive with less effort.

Cultivating the Next Generation of Critics

HowlRound Theatre Commons: The theatre world is going through a wave of change that is long overdue. Playwrights of color are challenging audiences and companies are finally recognizing the value of people of color in leadership roles. However, there is one place that still needs changing: criticism. Where are the critics of color?

An Interview with Stan Lai on "The Village," His Artistic Vision, and Hong Kong

The Theatre Times: US-born, Taiwan-raised theatre director and playwright Stan Lai (Lai Sheng-chuan) has enjoyed widespread critical and commercial success within and beyond Asia. His original plays, which include A Dream Like a Dream and Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, are well-known for combining innovative stage designs with epic storytelling. He is also the author of a best-selling book on creativity. Michael Cheuk talks to Director Stan Lai ahead of the Australian premiere of The Village at the 2019 OzAsia Festival.

Production Notes: Lavalier Mic

Nevada Film Office: A lavalier mic, also known as a lav or lapel mic, is a small microphone that is good for capturing dialogue. Their size and flexibility allows them to be easily concealed in clothing or hairlines. They are often used in documentaries for interviews as well as in other cases where boom mics are not an option.

Bart Kresa | AI, Sviatovid and the BARTKRESA Studio

blooloop: His groundbreaking Sviatovid projection sculpture debuted at ISE 2019 in February. Bart Kresa gave the opening address before the sculpture moved to the Centre for the Meeting of Cultures in Lublin. Sviatovid is a multifaceted, five-metre-tall projection sculpture. It marks the launch of the new BARTKRESA Academy of Projection Design at BARTKRESA studio.

Boulevard theatre in London by Soda features a revolving auditorium

www.dezeen.com: A theatre has opened in London's Soho that can be completely reconfigured at the touch of a button.

The Boulevard theatre features stalls and a balcony that both revolve independently, along with a stage that moves up and down, making a wide variety of different configurations possible.