A Servant to Two Masters at the Public

Pittsburgh City Paper: Obviously, I’m just not in the right rhythm for Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production of A Servant to Two Masters, a 45 played at 33⅓. The 1746 commedia dell’arte classic, here in a 1999 Brit-speak adaptation set in 1965 Venice, conjures not a distinctive Italian comedy but a mélange more reminiscent of Chef Boyardee. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Fund established to support programming at August Wilson Center

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The August Wilson Legacy Fund has been established to support programming at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture.

The fund was announced Tuesday at a celebration of the efforts of community groups, foundations and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to revitalize the Downtown Pittsburgh building.

The Piano Lesson at Pittsburgh Playwrights

Pittsburgh City Paper: First performed in 1987, and set in 1936, in the Hill District, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is the fourth installment in the Pittsburgh native’s epic, 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle. It’s also the first play staged at the newly retooled August Wilson Center, so the warmth and enthusiasm with which the audience greeted this new Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Co. production is unsurprising; the director, Playwrights artistic director Mark Clayton Southers, is himself a protégé of Wilson.

When A Top Tier Performing Position Isn’t The Goal of Your Education

Butts In the Seats: Last month I pondered if there was any worth in giving up a little time in the conservatory/university training of arts students in favor of providing instruction/experiences in career management. Instead of graduating and then seeking out instruction in accounting, contracting and self promotion, etc., they would have a base in those skills but may need to seek out “finishing” training in their discipline.

Sunset Baby at City Theatre

Pittsburgh City Paper: Dominique Morisseau is a playwright in love with the English language. Her Sunset Baby, making its Pittsburgh debut at City Theatre, is an aural feast of words.

We open in a very sketchy apartment somewhere in Brooklyn where Nina, a young African-American woman, is getting ready to leave for work (which includes getting a gun from a kitchen drawer). Then the doorbell rings and in walks her father, Kenyatta.

Inside the 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' stormtrooper dressing room

www.wired.co.uk: When costume designer Michael Kaplan (Blade Runner, Star Trek) was looking for a way to update the stormtroopers for The Force Awakens, his inspiration came partly from the phone in his pocket. "With time, I think, simplification occurs," says Kaplan."Because the stormtroopers are hard and white and plasticky, my thoughts did go to Apple."

Massive LED Star Lights Up Malaysia

The Creators Project: A star has landed in Penang, Malaysia. Built from steel cables and over 500 meters of LED light, artist Jun Hao Ong's latest site-specific installation, The Star, traverses a four-story cement building to illuminate the 2015 Urban Xchange public art festival. Steel rods fan out from the sculpture’s spherical center, piercing through the building’s foundation in an acute interconnected network of light.

'Small Engine Repair' at Barebones Black Box Theater has plot fueled by real-life drama

TribLIVE: Barebones Productions' new black-box theater space in Braddock is the perfect setting for John Pollono's “Small Engine Repair.”

The darkly comic drama takes place in an out-of-the-way shop where Frank fixes lawnmowers, snow blowers and other machinery.

The performance space is in an area behind what was once the showroom at Superior Motors car dealership, across the street from the Edgar Thompson Steel Works in Braddock.

3 Tips for Mastering Business Card Etiquette Rules

Envato Tuts+ Business Article: One of the most important aspects of professional networking events is the exchange of business cards that takes place among participants. Yet, many entrepreneurs and freelancers attending these events don’t know how to give out business cards successfully, so as to leave a positive impression along with their card.

Quantum Theatre's 'Chickens' scratches under surface of relationships

TribLIVE: Playwright Paul Kruse thinks chickens don't get the respect they deserve.

“They are helpless and a bit dumb, but (together) they make up a ‘flock mind,' ” Kruse says.

That's why he included a flock of four fowl along with six human characters in his drama “Chickens in the Yard,” which Quantum Theatre is producing in collaboration with the Hatch Arts Collective, a Pittsburgh-based multi-disciplinary theatrical organization.

Diamond Hotend Opens the Color Gamut for 3D Printing

Hackaday: It’s safe to say we’ve hit a bit of a plateau with hobby based 3D printers using FDM technology. Print quality is pretty high, they’re about as fast as they’re going to get, and compared to commercial machines they’re a pretty good bang for your buck. So what’s next? What about printing in color?

“Sunset Baby” at City Theatre

The Pittsburgh Tatler: Fatherhood is “complicated,” Kenyatta Shakur (Keith Randolph Smith) confesses to a video camera at the beginning of Dominique Morisseau’s new play Sunset Baby. We don’t know it at the moment, but his confession isn’t for us; it’s for his daughter, Nina (Joniece Abbott-Pratt), from whom he has been estranged most of her life.

‘The Lion King’ Releases Virtual Reality Video of ‘Circle of Life’

Variety: Broadway’s “The Lion King” will release a virtual reality video of the show’s opening number, “Circle of Life,” on a handful of digital platforms tomorrow morning, aiming to capitalize on the growing momentum of VR to turn consumer heads toward the 18-year-old production.

Want to be a Theatre Major?

OnStage: Seniors in high school: Majoring in theatre is the ultimate dream for some- you’re training to do what you love, you’re learning new things to improve your performance, and most importantly you meet people that are just like you. It’s no secret that having a career in theatre is incredibly difficult to pursue. You’ll be hearing “no” all the time, and sometimes you won’t hear from anyone at all. So why are we so adamant to take on this career that cannot guarantee us a future? After an entire year of being a theatre major, here are some things I learned to keep me going.

TEA Announces 2016 Thea Award Recipients

InPark Magazine: “This year’s international slate of projects named for TEA Thea Awards reflects the delivery of story, media, content and experience with ever more sophisticated technology and tools,” said Steve Birket (Birket Engineering), president of theThemed Entertainment Association (TEA).

15th Annual 24 Hour Plays on Broadway Celebrates Arts in Schools

Backstage: New York City’s largest arts education organization celebrated its efforts Nov. 16 with one of the craziest artistic endeavors you’ve ever heard of: staging six fully produced short plays in just 24 hours.

Revealing Subtle Warmth With Bastard Ambers

Rosco Spectrum: Adam Murdoch was the Lighting Designer for “Henry V” and “Julius Caesar” in Stripped-Back Shakespeare at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA). “Stripped-Back” meant no set, no costume designer, and no sound designer – which meant that all of the responsibility for setting the story’s time & place fell squarely on Murdoch’s lighting design. Below, Adam share’s how he maximized the lighting of the productions to fill the void left by the other minimized production-elements and how he put all of the various flavors of Bastard Amber to work warming his stage.

Attack Theatre’s "Remainder l Northside"

Pittsburgh City Paper: By odd coincidence, Remainder l Northside was the second evening-length show I’ve seen this year that was based on in-depth interaction with everyday North Siders. But while City of Asylum’s fine spoken-word-with-music piece Stoop Is a Verb dug into cultural specifics about the North Side’s many neighborhoods, Remainder’s universality was grounded in its origins in local classrooms and children’s workshops.

More Evidence Of How Copyright Makes Culture Disappear In A Giant Black Hole

Techdirt: That giant gaping hole on the right side of the graph should be pretty distressing. It counters the totally false narrative by certain legacy copyright system supporters that copyright is necessary to get books published and also that without copyright, no one would bother to sell the works, because they could just be copied by others. But, more importantly, it shows how much important culture is totally locked up because of copyright law -- unable to be published by those who'd like to offer them, and not worth it for the copyright holders to actually publish.

Costuming The Dressmaker

Clothes on Film: Twenty-five years ago, costume designer Margot Wilson was a student living in Paris when she picked up a roll of red, moire silk fabric during a shopping trip to Milan. She didn’t know why, or what for; she wasn’t even a costume designer then, just a talented young fashion grad from East Sydney Tech on a six-month scholarship to France. When it was time to go home, she took the beautiful roll of fabric back down under with her.