Women Behind the Wall

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Blog Talk Radio: A movie about the death penalty, The Elephant Gun, with writer/director Megan Spatz today on WOMEN BEHIND THE WALL

NYU student replies-all to 40,000 classmates, sparking ‘Replyallcalypse’

The Lookout - Yahoo! News: We've all been there. Max Wiseltier, a sophomore at New York University, was simply trying to forward an email from the Bursar's Office to his mother on Monday. Instead, Wiseltier accidentally hit "reply to all," cc'ing 39,979 of his fellow NYU students in the process.

Rules for Workbenches

Popular Woodworking Magazine: When it comes to building or buying a bench, most woodworkers get wrapped up in what form it should take. Should it be a continental bench popularized by Frank Klausz? A Shaker bench like the one at the Hancock community? How about a British version like Ian Kirby’s? Copying a well-known form is a natural tack to take. After all, when woodworkers buy or build their first workbench, they are in the early stages of learning the craft. They don’t know what sort of bench or vises they need, or why one bench looks different than another. So they pick a form that looks good to them — occasionally mixing and matching bits and pieces from different forms — and get busy.

International Laser Show Experts Gather in San Antonio, Texas for Annual ILDA Conference and Awards

Lighting&Sound America Online - News: Laser companies from the around the world recently came together at the 2012 International Laser Display Association (ILDA) conference in San Antonio, Texas, to see the latest in laser technology, learn about safety, and celebrate award-winning laser shows.

Four New Standards in Public Review

PLSN: Four new standards, now in public review through the end of this year, include two proposed reaffirmations of existing standards (relating to DMX512-A and fog equipment), one revised standard (relating to GFCIs) and one new standard (also relating to DMX512-A). The public review materials for the four standards are available at the PLASA website.

Oil sponsorship of the arts: Getting rid of some myths

Chris Garrard: From the powerful interventions of the art collective Liberate Tate to the impromptu performances by The Reclaim Shakespeare Company, the media are gradually being prompted to raise the issue of oil sponsorship of the arts. As a consequence, the arts institutions in question are now under much greater scrutiny regarding their consistency of ethics and values. The logic behind opposing oil sponsorship of the arts is not complex, if anything, it is quite straightforward. However, as has been the case with climate change denial, the arguments by those defending the status quo are used to “flatten” the debate – analogies and generalisations that sound compelling as linguistic devices, in reality, lack substance. These generalisations are repeated to the point that they are then accepted without question. The effect is to direct discussion around the issue into dead-ends that prevent a deeper understanding of how we value the arts and the environment. Frustratingly, this is the quality of debate that meets the needs of a media interested in sound bites and the entertainment value of strong dividing lines. But it’s time to open up the debate and try to put maybe a few of the weak arguments to bed…

'Addams Family' preserves the ooky, spooky fun of original cartoons

Entertainment / Neon - ReviewJournal.com: It's natural to spend Thanksgiving holiday with the family. Unless, of course, it's "The Addams Family," in which case it might be the teensiest bit unnatural. Not to mention a whole lot of ooky, spooky musical fun. Yes, that merrily macabre clan - first conjured by New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams in the late 1930s - is spending Thanksgiving week in Neon Nirvana; the touring "Addams Family" musical opens an eight-performance run Tuesday at The Smith Center's Reynolds Hall.

‘Giant’ the Musical at the Public Theater

NYTimes.com: THOUGH she isn’t read much anymore, Edna Ferber in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s was a writer hard to ignore. She collaborated with George S. Kaufman on several plays, “The Royal Family” among them; she wrote almost a dozen best-selling novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning “So Big”; and she was an intermittent member of the Algonquin Round Table, one of the few women able to survive in that shark tank. And Ferber has a further distinction, topped perhaps only by Charles Dickens: three of her books have been made into musicals.

J-O-B Head

University Job: Department Head, Oklahoma State University: Oklahoma State University seeks a Head of the Department of Theatre at the rank of Associate or Full Professor, to begin July 1, 2013 or as negotiated. Responsibilities include, but are not limited, to: oversight of all fiscal, curricular and personnel matters; programmatic and outreach development; fundraising; serving as producer for the production program; and, teaching/production work within his/her area of specialization. Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience and credentials.

Plugfest Returns, RDMnet Draft Expected to Debut

Lighting&Sound America Online - News: PLASA Control Protocols Plugfest, the event where manufacturers and developers can test their products for interoperability with other manufacturer's products, is scheduled to take place January 25-28 at the DFW Marriott Solana in Westlake, Texas. This meeting is expected to see some of the first implementations of the draft standard for RDMnet (BSR E1.33), the latest protocol being developed by the Controls Protocol Working Group (CPWG) of the PLASA Technical Standards Program. Everyone is welcome to attend.

LectureHop: Art and State

Bwog: It’s no big secret that arts in France are much more publicly supported than in the US. Rocco Landesman, speaking freely in light of his resignation, made this immediately clear when asked about government funding for the arts, saying, “one more time before I leave: it’s pathetic.” The budget for the NEA is $150 million, he explained, while in France the arts budget is $9 billion–which would be merely significant…if the countries were the same size.

Falat Basket Project Still Spreading Holiday Cheer

Actors' Equity Association News: Each year, merchandise (clothing, CDs, candy, toiletries, books and more) donated by corporations and individuals is gathered, packed into more than 3,500 colorful bags and delivered to more than 20 hospitals, AIDS hospices, pediatric AIDS centers and HIV community services in the New York area for the holidays. All this is accomplished by volunteers for Equity's Stephen J. Falat Holiday Basket Project, which began in 1985.

JIM KEMPF JOINS TAIT AS THE DIRECTOR OF DESIGNFOR AUTOMATED RIGGING

J.Kempf

WASHINGTON - National Endowment for the Arts awards local grants

McClatchy DC Headlines - TheState.com: The National Endowment for the Arts on Tuesday announced more than $23 million in 832 grants to arts organizations and individuals for a wide variety of cultural activities, from $40,000 to support artists’ residences in Charlotte, N.C., to $45,000 for a three-day dance festival in Chavak, Alaska, population 938.

The ‘Mies Julie’ Stars, Hilda Cronje and Bongile Mantsai

NYTimes.com: Written and directed by Yael Farber, this version is set on a lonely South African estate 18 years after the election of Nelson Mandela. Julie (Ms. Cronje) is the daughter of the white farm master; John (Mr. Mantsai) is a black laborer there, and what happens between them on Freedom Day changes their lives. “There is more erotic heat generated by the play’s two central characters,” Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, “than in any production in town.”

Not Even Kidding: Hidden Camera Show Pulls Scariest Elevator Prank Ever

gawker.com: Brazilian variety show Programa Silvio Santos is known for fairly run-of-the-mill hidden camera gags like "Magnetic Soup" and "Pig Grinder." But its latest prank is notable not only for being far less lighthearted than the others, but also for being actual torture.

Holiday Gifts for the Theatre Technician, Lighting Designer or Scenic Artist on Your List

limelightproductions.com: We've put together this gift giving guide to help parents, family and friends find that little something different for the stagehand or designer in their life.

Empire State Building LED Lighting Synchs with Alicia Keys Radio Broadcasts

PLSN: Although the Empire State Building has been equipped with a Philips Color Kinetics LED color-changing system including customized Reach, Graze, Cove and Blast Powercore fixtures, the LED fixtures have so far been used mainly to mimic the static seasonal and charity-related hues bathing the upper reaches of the 1,454-foot office building for years. But on Nov. 26, that changed. At 9pm, a color-changing light show designed by LD Marc Brickman and driven by Hippotizer media servers controlled by a grandMA2 console was synched to Clear Channel broadcasts of music by Alicia Keys.

Subsidised theatre battlefields and taking a Trojan horse into Downing Street

Shenton's View - The Stage: After the Nick Hytner/Danny Boyle press conference on the continuing threats to English regional theatre subsidy, which I blogged about last week, battlegrounds are forming everywhere. Last Tuesday the BBC arts correspondent Will Gompertz’s suggested publicly on Radio 4′s Today Programme that funding for the arts had been “it would appear, to no great effect”.

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman announces retirement

latimes.com: National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman announced his retirement Tuesday effective at the end of the year -- but not without a sense of humor. "The time has come for me to become a cliché: I turned 65, am going to retire, and cannot wait to spend more time in Miami Beach," Landesman said in a statement released by the NEA. Landesman -- a Tony Award-winning producer of, among other hits, Mel Brooks' “The Producers,” looked back on his three-year term in the statement: “My intention has always been to serve one term, and we have been able to accomplish more than I had ever thought possible: sparking a national movement around creative placemaking, forging significant relationships with other federal agencies, creating an unprecedented healing arts partnership with the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and increasing both the scope and impact of our research office.”