Jacob Coakley's Posts - TheatreFace

LDI New Tech Breakfast - Friday, Nov. 22 - Lighting

2013-11-18T05:30:00.000Z

Hi all! Once again I will be live-blogging the New Tech Breakfasts at LDI! The Friday morning session will be hosted here! Friday morning will be dedicated to all new lighting gear, so check in Friday from 8-10 a.m. (Pacific time) for a quick run-down of everything that will be debuted at LDI! (You can check out Saturday morning's session, which covers rigging and special effects,here!)

Joel from Apollo up first. Decided to expand from gobos and move into LED’s. Built in-house, design control, flexibility, quick turn around and customization.

Avid 5 Can unit and Avid 7 Wash unit. They’ve got an intro video. I’ll get that and post it ASAP.

Next up we have Kevin from Vectorworks. Software engineer from Vectorworks. New summary tool to create key and lighting position summaries. New command to edit info attached ot symbols. Direct modeling, twist tool. Can twist objects. You can choose to publish - choose pictures or documents and publish to various formats, PDF, DWG, etc.

OmniSystems up next. PAssport 15W, wireless DMX fixture. Comes in case of 8 units, charge to just plug in wall. Black and white housing. RGBWA in unit. Double yoke to angle. Also available in 10W. Their spark 7, comact moving yoke unit. 7 LEDS, 12W, 8° beam angle.

Broadway Green Alliance talking about a new program. James Bedell - theatrical lighting designer telling us about it. Wanted to work on tool to reduce impact of lighting on sustainability. Nonlighting people may be doing the purchasing, but won't be doing spec sheets. They want to know if fixture is up to task, if it is actually greener, and what's the cost (upfront nad over time). Lighting people care about a lot more. They developed BGA Greener Lighting Guide to share with people Greener alternatives to lights you have.

Pitching manufacturers to upload their data to make sure all info is good and useful.

Osram up next. Osram SL Set Light. Designed to replace 250W tungsten light source. Output is 3200K at CRI in excess of 95. Putting out about 3000 lumens. Compact optics. Uses a diaphragm cooler. Virtually silent, no fan.

ESP Vision. New Features in latest version. Vision Pro 4 is out. First cross-platform release all from same code base. Transparency is improved. So is quad-view, can program in that mode to help out in focus positions. Performance slider, cuts down quality of light beam in air, so you can go lower-quality to help your rendering time, and just check cue time. Can lock to DMX channel, so you can adjust a slider and change quality on the fly.

Franklin Moore AG Stumpfl, portable projection screens. They made the screens for the breakfast. They make projection software and media servers. New innovation is the award-winning "full white" borderless front projection screen.

ETC LED Source Four Cyc Light. Trippy kaleidoscope video intro to unit. Get the x7 color system fro Source 4 system. Needs no secondary lensing, iPhone app to tell angle to set at. Pics! First show used at Natiaonl Theatre London-- cyc completely with Source 4 LED cyc adapter. Reveiwers loved it. Thought it was CGI projection.

Xyloband showing off their wireless LED technology on wristbands, beachballs, or seats -- for interactive audience involvement. Can chase different sequences, blink at different rates, RGB version, but more expensive. Can be tied into DMX or be organic, played on MIDI keyboard. Can pixel map your audience.

Madrix 3 media control, also all about pixel mapping. Developed in 2004. Make LED lighting control easy and intuitive. Introducing "real 3D pixel mapping" X,Y,Z They call thsi "Volume rendering" Can't get a good photo of video showing it off, but it's pretty cool.

Peter Kirkup from LumenRadio. SuperNova IDM controller to talk to fixtures, and allows you to patch fixtures, monitor rig with temperature data and more all from your laptop. They're now launching support for ArtNet nodes. No longer requiring just wireless, but can now be on any ArtNet system. Not trying to be lighting console, they sit alongside it. As electrician you can deal with technical aspects of fixtures, while designer and programmer create visual looks. You can look at all sensors in fixture and see how they're acting. All in real-time.

A3 Pro LED from Absen. A 3mm LED display for indoor use, indoor shows and events. Typical events include corporate tehatre. Uses second generation calibration technology, designed to deliver better image uniformity, even between batches, so you can replace modules and not have image quality difference. Also has new connector, so the modules are incredibly close to each other when hooked up, can't even put piece of paper between them.

Aquarii presenting Axxeleron. 3000-5000K, CRI up to 90. Beam angle 14-70 degrees and a no lens option. Swtichable, 0-10 dimming and DMX. Can come in standard mounting positions (cable, flush mount etc), white, black, custom color. Can also have logo or image applied ot housing. Comes with 10 yr warranty.

Gary Fails from City Theatrical. Sharing story of Hurricane Sandy. Business was "destroyed." Every machine, every computer, inventory -- "out of business for a while." There were those who said CT would never return. Employees worked hard to come back.They looked ahead and decided to start with clean slate. They got business back up adn running, and here's there's new stuff. QolorFlex LED tape. Entertainment industry designed -- more durable. Wide range of LED dimmers, with "perfect" dimming curves. ShowBaby 5. Can deliver 5 universes of data, high-fidelity low-latency wireless DMX at a great price. They cameout with an auto-yoke for the LED Source 4.

Creative Stage Lighting -- they're also talking about the Spark 7 from OmniSystems -- they are the US distributors of product. Compact, lightweight, low power consumption, brand new cooling engine, each LED has an individul heat sink, makes fixture lighter and maintenance easier.

DMXLAN v4. Direct access to rig even if console is not available. Gives technician complete control over rig, and lets programmer set cues. Can create lists to filter fixtures and not get swamped in data.

EntTec - Have a "lot of new cool products." Took some pics with details. Will get hem up later.

AND NOW! Doug Fleenor! What DMX wackiness awaits? Introducing a postive reinforcement device. DMX-controlled candy dispenser. Also have a dim rail, can snap DMX products onto dim rails. High-density dimmer become popular, and now it has grounded outlets.

Pat from Lex products. Power and cable cross-over protector. Molded Ever-Grip stagepin connections. Binds carrier and carrier together and over-mold. Can put optional logo in molded housing. Will also do retrofit, and upgrade existing cable. LexPress Product Configurator. Will give you real-time online quotes of custom Lex products. Guides users through a series of steps that will give a part number and cost so you can design cable, touring rack, power distro unit -- and will give you a quote, and prevent you from designing unsafe or unusable product.

Dark Light Systems - specializing in really really tiny lights. Low-cost, highly replaceable LED expendables, etc. "World's smallest gobo projects with zoom and focus" Gantam IQX -- fully integrated DMX capability. Can be battery operated.

Alan Keyes from Robert Juliat. Two new fixtures. Tibo - in profile and Fresnel. Introducing a new variable white version of the Tibo. Auto-detecting power supply, 15-40 degrees on profile. Zep - 150W LED, profile and fresnel. All four fixtures come with power and DMX in and thru and wireless DMX option.

Rob from Black Tank/Rosco. New prototype fixture in Rosco booth, looking for feedback. A new fixture is a spin on their Miro Cube. Miro Cube Arc series. Fits in tiny spots, mounting accessories. Color, white, warm white, UV. Single yoke, or gang-able into all sorts of different arrays. New power connector options, include hard-wired, and RJ45. Control options: full speed DMX, manual, color mixing. "Future proof" -- each feature can be removed and replaced, so you don't need to buy new feature can just swap out. Built in Maine, every part traceable.

NowTech Proscenio surtitling systems. Real surtitling system, not just a video screen. Designed for displaying text with anti-glare and anti-halo effects built in. EzLite work lights. ZikLIte LED music stand lights. Available in different color temps.

James from Innovation LED. Ilumo brand intorducing the Zoom LED spot 12 LEDs, OSram, RGBW, RGGB and CWWW options. Motorized zoom, RDM enabled, wireless DMX enabled. Colormatch, full ArtNet, sACN to DMX mode, Color Crossfade Engine. ColorMatch engine is proprietary software to define the green that your green LED puts out. You can move your colorpoints in a chromaticity diagram.

LightConverse -- new upgrades to their rendering engine. Frame rates from 25-60 frames/second, direct OEM connectivity with many popular consoles, Provides own paperwork, and connectivity with VectorWorks 2014. Also supports 3D, and lets you give your clients a 3D view (you provide the glasses).

And that's it! See you tomorrow morning!

LDI 2013 New Tech Breakfast - Saturday, Nov. 23 - Rigging and Special Effects

2013-11-18T05:30:00.000Z

In case you missed my Friday morning explanation -- I'm going to once again live-blog the New Tech Breakfasts at LDI 2013. These are great sessions before the start of the exhibition that give quick run-downs of all the new gear. Friday morning's will highlight all the new lighting gear. You can check out that post here. Saturday will cover rigging and special effects, and will be covered in full here! So come back Saturday morning and check it out!

Richard leads off with a haiku:

You think you own it.

Ha! You are the foolish one.

It owns you sucker.

Then he threatens more if the manufacturers don't get up to the podium on time...

Dirty Rigger starts us out! They make gloves - durable, comfortable gloves. Talks about labor statistics about injuries on jobs -- and how many of them are caused by not wearing gloves. They source high-quality materials, and their designers have more than 30 years experience in teh theatre industry, so they know what we need. They also test their gloves non-stop. Protector glove is their best seller. "Armortex" palm. Phoenix gloves for handling hot lamps, with heat resistance up to 480 degrees F for 30 seconds.

Michael from Clear-Com talking about their systems. 700 beltback, analog party line. Showing how durable it is by rolling a Jeep Cherokee over it.

ETC comes up to tout their rigging gear. "A rigging company with a small little lighting company on the side." They just added a new building to manufacturing facility to double manufacturing floor space. They've added third party equipment integration with a motor starter box that allows them to integrate the gear into their system. They came up with a new variable control system, the QuickTouch Plus. They don't believe in product shots, apparently...

James Bedell from Broadway Green Alliance is making another appearance to tout their "Greener" Lighting Guide. It's a compendium of lighting information online that will offer designers greener alternatives to their current fixtures, so they can do greener designs yet get the quality of light they need. They launch in 8 weeks, and we'll be telling you more about them as we get closer...

Cosmic Truss! Speaker Tower array, barriers and crank up stands. And an app - Cosmic Truss app. Gives you weight load data. Short and sweet.

OmniSistem and OmniSound. They have a full line of speakers. Some of their products used at Burning Man, survived the ordeal. Their QS1000, has a 10" and two 4" transducers. The QS600 a 6" and two 3". US1200 sub. Self-powered, and can also power the QS1000s and QS600s.

Richard taking the absence of a vendor to tout his new electrics training DVD!

Show Distribution talks about the focus on safety in lieu of recent rigging accidents. They created a rescue system the L5. A rescue system, fall arrest system and more for rigging accidents. The Limpet is a fall prevention system. Limpet has you in tension as you move and work, mitigating the fall. "It won't let you fall." Also offers climb assist. Calculates weight, and gives you a 9% lift. Rapid Rescue feature, too. Limpet offers "fast" and "rapid activation" rescue system. Designed to rescue people from burning wind turbines.

Stu from ZFX! EZ Hoist, plus a new controller that's easy to train and easy to use, and easy to draw. Despite details on drawing, the controller itself can store detailed cues in touch screen, joystick mode, or others. EZ Hoist - 250 pound capacity at 8 feet per second. EZr Hoist - 260 pound capacity, 12 feet per scone. 12" by 18" by 5 feet. BIG EzHoist. Used for stunt work, arena work. 1100 feet of travel.

LynTec started in audio, customers asked them create a new lighting control system to control LEDs. In 2009 they came out with teh RPC control panels. Provide on/off control and interface so you could DMX control and turn off LED fixtures to lengthen their life, especially in terms of maintenance. Next came mobile power, RPCM Mobile power distro. Functionality of installed power in mobile unit. Accessible and control by web browser, branch current monitoring and on/off control.

Parasol up to talk about moving the moving lights. Moving lights have X and Y axis, and now with Parasol they add "Zed" axis, moving the moving lights. Star 600 is new unit, 72 inches in diameter, and has a touring case that allows entire rig pre-loaded with lights to be loaded. Highly tourable.

And we're back! SFX section sponsored by UltraTec.

First up is Pangolin Laser Systems. They produce laser controls. Lasers growing at exponential scale, and new tech has made lasers cheaper than ever. So SFX companies are needing to control lasers. So they need a software to control lasers in combination iwth lighting video and SFX. "Beyond" is their multimedia software package to control lasers and everything else. Supports DMX/MIDI/ArtNet and more. Trying to make life easier for programmers. Putting a focus on laser safety. Safety scan lenses to increase divergence of beams when going into audience, but not when overhead. Beam attenuation lets you control power of laser in different areas, so you can adjust when near audience.

Introducing LightSpace, Chinese laser manufacturer. 10W RGB under $9000. 2.5W RGB under $3000.

LaserNet! "Laser Bright," addresses smaller club market. Stand alone with sound application, or DMX controlled with patterns. It can be tied in with Pangolin software to do text images and patterns.

CITC! Their slogan is "Cool stuff that's show tough." They presented AquaMax last year with organic haze. Lasts for 2 hours, even though water based. This year they're showing a new snow machine. The Quiet Cube. Has a smaller foot print, only draw 4 amps of power, and 10 db's quieter than old machine. Flake itself has a larger particle and is a little more transparent. Little Blizzard snow machines on tour with Trans-Siberian Orchestra for 6 years. As snow falls into laser beam spreads, it lights up like fireworks.

UltraTec! Booth 1063, Fog, snow. They've been our sponsors this morning - Thanks, Marnie!

And that's all! Time to hit the show floor!

Jeopardy Rules

2013-07-18T17:09:04.000Z

Michael's posts lately about his transition into practitioner from student have got me thinking about what core beliefs I hold about making art.

One of my deeply-held philosophies, about art and life, is: Keep asking questions. I started when I was learning to act, trying to figure out a character—or rather, not trying to figure out a character. As a teenager, acting didn’t mean asking questions about a character. Acting meant immediately assuming who a character was and emoting on cue. Eventually that changed, and I started exploring character. Who is this person? What does he want? What is he doing now? Why is he doing it? And a thousand other questions, big and small. (Coffee or soda? Blue jeans or khakis? Pretzels or chips?)

These questions bled over into my writing, where I had to ask the same questions of a lot more characters: Why is this character telling this story now? What would be the worst thing that could happen right now? What happens when these two characters finally meet?

And then the questions bled over into my working life. I still remember the day midway through my internship at a theatre company when my boss and I looked around and decided I had become proficient in all the normal tasks that were part of the position. She looked and me and asked: “OK, what do you want to learn next?” We started on a new project, and that led to my first full-time job in theatre, an adventure all the way on the other side of the country.

Asking questions continues to guide me—I love editing this magazine because I get to ask questions and learn all the time. One more is: What philosophies guide you? What bedrock facts keep you making art?

2013 Tony "Craft" Award Speeches

2013-06-10T06:28:12.000Z

While I don't like that the designers and other "craft" awards get short shrift at the Tonys, I'm very grateful for the Tony Awards for posting the full video of the winners' acceptance speeches. I've pulled the ones from 2013 together here. There's some that aren't able to be embedded here, but you can watch them all on the Tony Awards channel on YouTube.

Creative Arts Awards - Segment 1

Creative Arts Awards - Segment 2

Creative Arts Awards - Segment 3

Creative Arts Awards - Segment 4

Creative Arts Awards - Segment 5

Creative Arts Awards - Segment 6

(Not embeddable here...)

Creative Arts Awards - Segment 7

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Creative Arts Awards - Segment 8

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Creative Arts Awards - Segment 9

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Best Scenic Design of a Play - John Lee Beatty - The Nance

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Best Orchestrations - Stephen Oremus - Kinky Boots

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Best Scenic Design of a Musical - Rob Howell - Matilda the Musical

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Best Costume Design of a Play - Ann Roth - The Nance

Best Costume Design of a Musical - William Ivey Long - Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella

Best Lighting Design of a Play - Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer - Lucky Guy

(Not embeddable here, sorry!)

Best Lighting Design of a Musical - Hugh Vanstone - Matilda the Musical

(He wasn't on hand to accept the award...)

Best Sound Design of a Play - Leon Rothenberg - The Nance

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Best Sound Design of a Musical - John Shivers - Kinky Boots

(Not embeddable here -- sorry!)

2013 Tony Awards Video Round-Up

2013-06-10T03:00:00.000Z

For anyone who missed the Tonys -- well, I went out and found the musical numbers and the best moments online! Here's all the spectacular numbers I could find. If you know of more, let me know in the comments!

The Opening Number

Matilda the Musical

Bring It On

Cinderella

Motown the Musical

Annie

Failed TV Show Medley - HA!

A Christmas Story

Pippin

Cyndi Lauper - True Colors - In Memoriam

Kinky Boots

Closing Number!

True Love Lyrics

2013-05-28T04:30:00.000Z

Ready to test your knowledge of musical theatre lyrics, and win two USB thumb drives in the shape of ETC Selador fixtures? Keep reading to find out how to win!

Recently I was asked to officiate the wedding of two good friends. They're both musicians here in Las Vegas, often gigging with shows on the strip and filling in the pit orchestra for road musicals that come through town. One of them has even written a couple of musicals. In short: Total Musical Theatre Geeks. I peppered musical references throughout their ceremony, but went all out for my blessing and invocation for the ceremony. My blessing contained the lyrics to a bunch Broadway show tunes -- either directly quoted or (very lightly) changed to fit into the blessing.

Now here's the challenge! I've included my blessing below. I have TWO Source Four-shaped 4GB USB thumb drives from ETC to give away. (Thanks, ETC!) I will give the first one away to the first person to correctly identify all the songs. I need the name of the song and the show they're from. Then -- because I'm not a total grinch -- I will raffle the second USB drive off to everyone who enters. That's right -- even if you don't get them all, you'll still have a chance to win! You just need to comment on this post with the name of one of the songs I reference.

Ready?

Go!

A lot has brought you here. How long has this been going on? The last five years may seem like a blur, but the next 10 minutes are going to be big. With the fall of a wave hitting the sand, and the tide creeping up the beach, you’re going to find the right words to tell each other how much you love the other. Long before you met, you were stalking each other on Facebook, then some enchanted evening —at the Bootlegger Bistro—you saw each other across a crowded room. Today you will pledge to never let each other go. Now the real happiness is just begun. You’ll share one love, one lifetime ; each day, each night, each morning. You’ll pledge with all your soul to believe your heart, and the portrait it paints of each other as a perfect work of art. There’s a melody in you both, and a harmony between the two of you, in all the things you are. So in love are you, that you have made each other whole. This ceremony will only take a moment, but you will never be alone again. This is the time for you. Not some day, but now. Not somewhere, but here. So hold each other’s hands, and listen to the blessings of your friends.

Oh yeah! Deadlines! Deadline for entry is 12 Noon, Pacific Daylight Time Sunday, June 2! Get cracking!

Good Horse Sense

2013-04-15T04:30:00.000Z

One of my sisters is getting a masters degree in geography, operating ground penetrating radar on Yucatan pyramids, and designing map databases. My other sister is the assistant technical director on Odysseo, a touring Cirque du Soleil-esque show that features acrobatics and horses -- yep, horses! Trick riding, precision riding, jumping and more. And when it turned out that both of them were going to be in L.A. over the same weekend, a short 4 hour car ride away, I pretty much had to go see them. In between much sibling hazing and enjoyment, my ATD sister and her husband (the head of rigging and automation for the show) managed to get us a full backstage tour of the show. Who was I to say no? Odysseo is a beautiful show, but the technical setup behind the show is just as impressive. Their big top is one of the largest touring ones in the world, giving the horses enough room to step 16 abreast (I think that's how many I counted doing precision riding together at one point), but it also has a full rig that is capable of holding up several tons of equipment under dynamic load for the flying acrobats, and a carousel. Yes, they fly in a full-sized carousel for acrobats to perform on at one point in the show. And, oh yeah, for the finale -- they flood the stage and let the horses race through water. It's a great show -- here's some photos I took backstage of it all.

The curtain call for Odysseo. You can see the front of the stage in a few inches of water.

A view from one of the entrances onto the stage. In the upper left of the pic is a white horse -- that's one of the carousel horses that is lowered to the ground in the first act.

Zambonis for sand! You can't really see the rollers on these two little guys, but they're used to tamp down the white sand during intermission. The show floor is made of white sand and a cotton fiber.

The stables backstage, with my family.

Horses' manes and tails are braided every night to keep them clean and untangled.

A performer signing programs in the stables in front of saddles.

The big top from the back. The masts support the big top, and you can see one of the arches of truss that support the grid inside the tent.

Monitors are mixed backstage on a Venue board. It can, in a pinch, run the FOH mix if something goes wrong out front.

My sister, Monica-Marie Coakley, pointing out the base of the arch, its many stakes into the ground, and its pivot joints.

Donyale Werle - Sustanability in Design - USITT 2013

2013-03-23T18:30:00.000Z

For my last trick, I will live-blogging as much of Donyale Werle's Sustainability in Design talk from USITT! I will have to leave before the talk is over to catch a plane, so it won't be complete -- I'll try and update it with people's comments who were there, and I'll give you as much as I can!

Taking photos, upload later.

Broadway Green Alliance - BGA inspires educates adn motivates the entire theater community and its patrons to implement environmentally friendly practices.

The BGA started by asking how they could implement greener practices. Started by people in the business, nothing to do with the environmental work. But they were inspired one day to ask how to change the situation.

Donyale found the BGA in the paper. Now it's a much bigger universe, she can follow poeple online, and it's a bigger entity.

Launced in 2008 by Mayor Bloomberg. Ad hoc committe of Broadway League. Volunteer professionals with one full-time coordinator. Small org hoping to have big results.

They just happen to be working on Broadway, but Broadway's endeavors aren't anytying different than people across the country can do.

They talk about things they've learned and encourage others to do the same.

I'l upload a slide of what they've done -- one thing though is upgrading the marquees on B'way to use only LEDs and CFL's. Shows us HE (efficient) washing machines, and rechargeable batteries.

They also work with companies to keep scenic materials out of landfills and is recycled.

As they asked the questions to find out if people were open to green initiatives, they found that people were already doing something like what they wanted, and were willing to do a little more.

They have different committees to help out with different aspects of the industry. Education and Outreach, Membership, Pre-/Post- Production, etc...

What Is Sustainability?

Check out the slide for BGA's definition, but until that goes up, it has to do with "the capacity to endure through renewal, maintenance and sustenance."

Donyale talking aoubt how she came to do this. Dad was into solar energy, her dad built playgrounds out of recycled materials. Donyale was an associate on B'way for High Fidelity. A 13-month development, 13-day run. Her manicure lasted longer than a show on B'way. It was a wake-up call. Her childhood was in a family of environmentally conscious, and while she recycled at home, in her job she would create all this stuff and throw it away. She oculdn't justify it anymore.

She started pointing fingers at other people to do it better and greener, and eventually decided that she couldn't blame others, she had to make it happen. So she quit her associate job, and tried to figure out how she could work in a sustainable way.

She started not throwing things away, she started re-susing materials -- breaking the new materials into the trash cycle.

She thinks of whole project as a circle. Decisions at table, building process, on stage, to when it leaves the stage. Cradle to cradle thinking, because there's no grave. Stuff gets put into a new project, not discarded.

I'm not a green designer, I can only get "greener." But you can't be a green designer. It's a process. WE are making steps towards a sustainable existence.

You can make more sustainable choices in your job. So how does it start?

Better Studio Practices:

Some things she does:

They don't do twintack. Anything they want to adhere, they use white glue. Why did twintack get started? But she was taught to use it , it works great, but it has tons and tons of waste.

She uses pulp board, or chip board. Go for things that are brown. It's a neutral palette. An aesthetic shift away from the blank slate of white -- her blank slate is brown.

No more foam-core. It takes 50-100 years ot decompose. Her students asked her what she used -- so she went home, and looked around -- a sea of cardboard boxes. Instead of recycling her cardboard boxes and buying foam-core. Cardboard takes 2 weeks to decompose. She decided to start using cardboard for building models.

We're at a point where maybe the things the industry is telling us isn't right. Maybe there are better ideas out there. Cardboard has been around a long time. What were designers using before foam core? She bets they were using cardboard.

She uses amazon boxes at first. They weren't quite strong enough. Moved up to U-Haul boxes -- it's stronger than foam core, and it works great. She hot glues it.

NO ONE BATS AN EYE. No one says you can't do that. On B'way everything is fine, but if she goes to a college meeting, eveyr model built of foam core, b/c that's waht we're taught.

We need to change that cycle of doing exactly what people tell you to do. It's a little bit about breaking the rules.

She cuts up plastic sushi lids, plastic packaging, cardboard packaging, pulp board packaging, metallic foils -- all of it. "I wash it really well."

I went from spending all this money on foam core, matte board and super black to virtually spending nothing. I spend money on white glue, and hot glue stick.

It's agreen choice that ended up saving her a lot of money. She's not searching for an exotic material.

All of us are on a tight budget, this is an easy thing to do in your studio.

Ink.

She uses a Canon printer. She orders the ink in a 8 pack, it comes in a cardboard box, no plastic. That box gets used again. Canon recycles their ink. And she gets money to recycle her ink.

She supports Canon with her money to reward those value choice.

SUSTAINABILITY STARTS AT YOUR WORK TABLE AND IN YOUR DRAWINGS.

When you sit down to deisgn, don't design things that are 4'1" by 8'1".

It's easy to say 5 feet by 9 feet, but as your sustainbable mind will tell you, you can use a smaller sheet good. Or design something that will fit into a truck more easily.

Doesn't think hamper your design? Maybe not. There's a certain amount of creativity embeddedin these choices. She doesn't look at self-imposed rules and regulations as a hindracne to creative, it's more creative. (Very Marilyn Moore.)

Recycling. . .

You can recycle a lot of things. She uses materials like wood and aluminum that can be easily recycled.

UPCYCLING.

REcycling you are taking a raw good, breaking it down and turn it into another raw material. Upcycling is taking the same glass and using it as a glass chandelier. Or taking plastic bottles and using them as a bnner. It has a utilitarian and aesthetic aspect.

How does she do this? She partners with a couple different shops.

People used to tell her she was crazy. Can't build scneery out cardboard or plastic bottles. "You hear it all the time. What you hear the most is no."

But she started hearing yes froma small group of people, and she gravtiates to them and works with them. Two shops: Showman Fabricators and Paper Mache Monkey.

Showman big, PAper Mache indie -- both have values that align with hers. (Paper Mache MOnkey started by two formaer assistants. )

Rocky Horrow Show Design at the Old Globe and PEter and the STarcatcher.

Peter -- wanted giant proscenium with glowing walls. Hwo do you do that? Took 8 months.

When they started model, they didn't know what it would be made out of. BIG difference from traidtional process. This can be extremely nerve-wracking. You may have to do it again.

"I've learned that I don't always make the right choice. I learned that I make mistakes. And that it's OK to make mistakes."

Just b/c she wants it a certain way, doesn't mean you get it. When you work with found materials, you are limited by found matieral. With small budget you can't afford an ornate build. So you have to think about how else you can make it.

Downtown they've been working on taking small objects and creating a relief sculpture so it looks like it was carved. They watned to try it on a larger scale. So she took her design to Showman and hte Brooks Atkinson and took pics.

Then they collected a lot of material, piles and piles of discarded thing. Ropes, bottle caps, corks, mannequin arms, toys. The scenic artists looked at the drawings, but then they did the work. They came up with so much that surprised Donyale. Designer had to take a back seat to design. Had to allow piece to create itself.

She didn't tell them to choose mannequin arms, it was just giving them the stuff and telling them to make it. All artisans want to create beautiful things. No one said no. They made art out of trash.

They collected corks. Disney fostered the show through its development, and Disney collected the corks from their own offices. Then the cork thing blew up and they needed more. so at NYTW they would go around ot all the bars and collect more corks.

They had to buy kitchen timers to tell the story, but everything else was about the rope and imagination. A rope becomes a door and a ladder and waves and the deck - the rope becomes everything.

The proscenium became a signature.

And i have to go. I'm so bummed I'm going to miss the rest of this. I'll try and get more notes!

Incandescent Profile vs. LED Profile - USITT 2013

2013-03-22T22:30:00.000Z

Alright! Incandescent Profile vs. LED Profile. Richard Cadena and Hideaki Tsutsui. Steve Shelley will be MC'ing.

We will turn on a pair of ellipsoidals. One is tungsten ETC Source 4, one is LED Profile. We will conduct three tests. Dimming test: Pop on and pop off. Then fade up quickly, then fade down quickly. Then fade up and down slowly. Then four colors, then a gobo.

Then the three of them will vote on which is LED and which isn't. Once we've identified a fixture, the manufacturer will provide more info on teh fixture.

Will the first mystery fixture step in!

First pair!

Then they got them with R80

R57 (no pic)

And R33

R62

Pulling color and looking at projection image.

Now thoughts about all of this.

Cadena: If they had been the same color temp to start with, it would have been harder. Stage left is the LED. Color was a giveaway.

Naked beam on stage right is not as smooth a beam.

So which one was it?

Stage left! Robert Juliat Tibo fixture. It was the 4,000K model. they have warmer temperatures available. It's a 75 watt LED unit, with comparable output to a 575 W Source Four. It's a zoom profile with a 15-36° range. Can daisy chain power between fixtures (about 20 on 1 circuit), but control them individually.

It's not an ellipsoidal, it's a profile. It's a light source with a lensing source in front of it.

ROUND 2

Two units, stage left is very cool. putting them through their fades.

10 seconds.

30 seconds.

Color. R80.

R57

R33.

R62

And a gobo

Cadena chose the stage left fixture. REally complimented the color. Hideaki agreed with him. And also praised the color, especially the lighter one. Both really complimenting the R62.

And it was the stage left one. That was the Selecon PL4. Pete Brucetta (sp?) came on to talk about hte fixture. 2270 to 9200K range of white. Shutter cuts work as planned, gobos work as expected. You can soften the fixture, get a hard edge, and all the way through. Luminaire offers a fixed beam, but barrel can come off, and you can change out into a zoom. They have a top-box that comes off, so data and powercon in and thru, and it comes off to help deal with cable management. The PLICB allows for power and data thru, mounts on a c-clamp. Shutters have 360 rotation and a shutter lock. 6000 lumens output, RGBW. Full beam modulated, no pixellation or granulation.

They also have a PL Profile 1, a single LED engine unit. Draws about an amp. Uses same PLCB and zoom. Inter-changeable lens trays. "Idea is to make the best tool for you as designers." Tried to replicate feel of incandescent, seeing "solar flare" of light. Dimming used to be a huge challenge, that's improved over hte past few years. Dimming also comes into play with HD cameras, these fixtures are being used on HD shoots.

the judges are really complimenting the dimming. It's come along so far.

ROUND 3

This one is a lot harder. Much closer in color temp.

A 10 sec fade, 30 second fade.

R80 - much laughter as the fade into the color clearly showed which one was LED.

R57

R33

R62

I have to say, I'm REALLY impressed with the color matching on all of these. It's really close, and the LEDs have a very very smooth field.

And gobos!

Stage right has been guessed as the LED. The idea was to talk about whether LED as as good as incandescent, but Cadena says a lot of what they do, they do BETTER than incandescent, especially in smoothness of field. The out of focus on the LED as they dropped in the gobo. But in terms fo sharpness, LED is much better.

It is the ETC Source 4 Lustr+.

ETC talking about their fixture, adn saying they have a holographic diffuser, and when you take it out of focus you get much less color pixellation than before.

He's not going to talk about features so much, as much as why we're looking at this, how they stack up to source four ellipsoidals. ETC likes to talk about what's important: Dimming. Dimming is much improved in LEDs over the past few years.

Has to look like an incandescent fixture. There will be hybrid rigs, and the two fixtures need to work well together. Dimming and beam -- color and quality. Has to look and work like your standard Source 4. ETC prides themselves on their color mixing and matching. X7 color mixing, using 7 emitters for color mixing, not just 4. Having more emitters boradens the specturm and gives you a more natural look.

Their new fixture Source 4 STudio HD. variable temp unit, mixture of mint LEDs and X7 system. Matching it with tungsten fixture, and it looks really good. You can adjust the pulse width modulation to adjust flicker, works well with Red cameras -- they do a PWM up to 25,000. A lot of high-speed slow-motion fast-frame rate cameras will work will with it. Pulls 95 watts, can get about 50 lumens/watt. 575W Source 4 incandescent will get you 10 lumens/watt.

ROUND 4

Here's both fixtures.

R80

R57

R33

R62

For me this has been teh hardest yet. Both fields are really flat.

Gobos

Cadena had a hard time with this one. He changed his mind a few times. He went stage right, and he thinks it's a Chuavet. Hide goes with stage left! He thinks it's becuase in the dimming the stage right fxiture seemed had a little more red shift. He also thinks this was really difficult. Steve Shelley agrees, stage left. The SL fixture in the dim had a little chatter. On the 30 second dim it didn't happen as much. The student -- Ben -- also goes with stage left as the LED.

So which was it?

Richard was wrong (as was I) -- it's the stage left fixture, the Chauvet Ovation E-190WW. This is there theatrical profile. There are 19 10-watt LEDs, 3100K, 16 bit dimming. Stepping was there in 10-second fade, talking to product guys to get that fixed. They top bin their LEDs, and becuase they have 19 of them, they get a consistent average of color temp from fixture to fixture to fixture. There is no color mixing on this, it's a straight, warm-white fixture. You can take top lens barrel off and it will accept any standard lens tube. So you can get the engine or the whole thing. Ships with 26° barrel if you want.

USITT - 2013 - USITT Distinguished Award Winners in Conversation

2013-03-22T14:30:00.000Z

Good morning! The Friday morning session USITT Distinguished Award Winners in Conversation has been a little delayed, but it looks like we're ready to go soon! Tim Hartung, Desmond Heeley, Otts Munderloh, Neil Mazzella, Howard Jones, and Rachel Keebler will all be in discussion!

Who taught you? Who got you in this business?

Rachel: (long pause) How far back do you want to go? Third grade performance in the magic flute? When she ended up in college theatre, she started at Skidmore college, she was there b/c of James Leonard Joy, who encouraged her towards scenic painting. He instructerd her to go to Boston University, where Don Beeman, the best scenic artist on the East Coast taught. So she applied and wen thtere. Joy also said that her draftings would get her into any university, and that helped. So between Jim Joy and Don Beeman – the other person was the Dean at North Carolina School of the Arts.

Otts: I wanted to take and I wanted to six months off from college to make some money. Called a production electrician, and he said you should do winches or sound, as those are up and coming technical fields. HE chose sound. Went to Playhouse theatre in Wilmington, and learned from Joe Donahue, where he did sound for 10 months. Before that he was studying liberal arts at a college in Vermont. He went back to school. His phone rang at Christmas and it was an electrician who said he had to come back because the followspot op got a round of applause for finding the star. So he did a stint of that. Then went back to school. And kept going to school les and less, until he ended up on Broadway. He never finished his degree.

Tim: Thought he was going to be an engineer, became an architect, but no work in the early ‘70s, so he ended up in Pittsburgh, then moved to NYC, following his wife who wanted to be an actress.

Wow. The sound is horrible. Otts just gave his mic to Tim.

Tim: Had been working on Carnegie museum, and got a job working on renovating Carnegie Hall in NYC – worked on that for next 25 years, in different phases.

Neil: When I graduated from college my plan was to be a writer for the New Yorker. Graduated in '73. Did one show in undergrad -- Annie Get Your Gun. Same year the Cambodian bombings happening. They would do a cue, then go protest. Working on a fly rail, and doing writing for hte college paper. He got out of school, foudn the New Yorker didn't need him, and so he got a job at an insurance ocmpany for 2 days.

Prior to that he had developed an appreciation for shows.A Man for All SEasons -- lots of balckouts, and he wanted to know what happened in the balckouts. So he started a quest to find out. He started working off off Broadway, so he acted and stage managed, and designed. By middleof '73 he was bieng paid, El Teatro CAmpesino, and other radical theatre. COntinued his interest and went ot Yale in '75. He was wait-listed. It was a great 3 years.

New Question! Luck plays a huge part in our carreers.

Tim: Luck, but also being prepared, and ready to seize an opportunity. We're all nervous about what we accept to do and what hte outcome might be, but if you work hard at it, it'll all be good.

Another interesting project was the Santa Fe Opera when he had to replace th roof and balcony. He had founded it in the mountains by firing a cannon and finding the best acoustic spot. It was just benches and a stage in the mountains. But they piecemeal added covering. His challenge was to make the roof as thin as possible, to keep the natural acoustics. "We could hav esiad we dont' want to do this project, because it's too much risk, but in the end it was really fun."

Loves doing projects to meet people, and they opne up new projects.

Neil: IF you're in this business and you stick around, you've dedicated your life to risk... And that's the attraction. We'll do a show and it might open and it might close, and you're only as good as your last show.

Used to have a GM who would say, that if it's about paying a mortgage and rasiing a family, it's the wrong business. We all nknow it's possible, but theatre as an industry is a risk. So if you've signed on you have to analyze the risk and figure out how much you want.

Large applause for Desmond's arrival.

Neil: When we did the original Lion King, we didn't have automation, but we took it in.

Corky Boyd said we could figure it out. Now we just loaded in three shows with automation. There are rewards for the risk.

Otts: Not only is it about risk about career choice, bu thtere's a risk that the equipment is correct and that hte relationship with thed irector is such that you can work it out when bad things happen to fix the problem. B/c oftentimes there are people saying let's fire this person adn get someone else. Becuase there's ALWAYS problems. ... Each show is a set of risks of the equipment invlolved and the amount of time it takes to get the job done.

Neil: You do a brand new musical -- I'm not saying we're surgeons, but hteh choices we've made, a brand enew musical is the hardest thing you can do with collaboration, new book, new songs -- there's so many places where it can go wrong.

Otts: Whereas if you start with an opera or a Shakespeare piece, you're not going to fire the lyricist out of town.

To Desmond, how did you get involved?

Desmond: Won a prize of 25 pounds -- a forutne in the '40s. He knew the prize was a key to another life. A headmaster told him that a career in the theatre might be a good idea. So he went to school. He got a job for 4 weeks at 15 years old, spent in the top of the tehatre painting decoreen. The designer thought it should like al greco. Red, blue, green, with this varnish -- carried to top of theatre by teh gallon, which would make him woozy.

A very cool story which I couldn't keep up with about stagecraft torches which just pulled him in with how good they looked, but were completely fake.

"Real flames are boring"

Everyone treated him, as a kid, really great. And also gave him everything to do because he was cheap. So he ended up working in every department.

His career started with Toad at Toad Hall -- "Just go do it." IF any young designers are out there, if it isn't fun, if it is hte world you want to see up here, be careful, you just might get it. It's an adventure. I didn't want it to be a job.

Generosity, togetherness, and great fun. Teh glue that holds all of us together is the camaraderie and sometimes when you get to my age you begin to miss it.

The moderator is talking about the prop shop and scnee shop at the Guthrie, adn the fact they were an ensemble themselves. What is that collaboration like?

Desmond: For me it was a case of based on trust.

Talk about hte relatinoship between the scenic designer and the scenic artist?

Rachel: I've always believed through thte years the the relatinoship, b/c the designers have for so many years used painting as a design tool that that relatinoship needed to be solid. One reason that I started Cobalt Studiosa dn still teach it is that I noticed that designers who used painting had to compromoise their design b/c they couldn't find the talent ot do it. I think that the scenic artist's duty is to help the scenic deisgner realize their art. And if there aren't good scenic artists, that relatinoship isn't going to be served.

How does Neil interact with directors and designers with scenery that they've brought in?

Neil is telling a story about transferring a Private Lives from London to NYC, and losing 10 feet of stage depth. Neil thought he could do it, rolling the set downstage. The set won a tony award, show won best revival, adn being brought into that collaboration was personally rewarding. For him, everyone at his shop has direct access to the designers.

Sometimes what people draw is not what htey want. :-)

Otts: The sound department is the only department that touches all the other departmnets. (much laughter) Every department comes to us for something. In tech rehearsal, audio gets to do their jbo last, b/c everyone else has to be functioning before they can start. Adn that takes patience from everyone. "We know that sound is the most important element." "If the lights go out but you can still hear them, the audience will stay there. But if you can't hear them, the show stopped." IF you're in an enormous 3600 seat concert hall and the sound goes out... ... Sound in good acoustic spaces, the deal is this -- there can be no monitors, b/c the sound is reflected back to people. The laws of physics won't change for people, you have to change. If you're putting too much sound into the space hte audience will only hear a jumble and it will be incoherent. He asked Tim how Tim worked that out.

Tim: Originally all anything was interested in was the original sound. down to type of plaster-- like horsehair plaster. And how would they replace that? They'll bring in dampening to the alcove to avoid the bouncing. "If sound is last, then architecture is first in creating the space."

Question for everyone: What bit advice to you carry with you today?

Tim: MAke sure they always spell your name right. (laughter). Just being true to yourself. Talking of mentor, dean of school of architecture. He was from Italy and an incredible renderer. He said go for what you wnat, what you believe in, and the best will happen. Understand who you are and take advantage of every door that's opend to you.

Rachel: Harken back to her parents. Smile at the good and frown at the bad. And her mother alwasy said never pass up on opportunity. That's a little problematic, because she's had many times where she's had to decide between opprotunities. Learning to say yes to the right things. In college in her first year her father caem to parents night and she was stage managing, and her afther saw the show adn before he left he said "Kid, you got my vote of confidence. Now, if that doesn't see a kid through. The confidecne of the people around you is so valuable." She has been able to instill people's confidence in her. As a scenic artist, and also as a teacher.

Desmond: Don't scorn anything, number one. ... He's done burlesque shows, ice shows, flower shows -- don't scorn anything. put your sould and heart into it b/c you never knwo what's gonig to happen. You neverknow when that will come back into your life years later. Find out how other pople work, lighting designers, what do painters need from you. If all you can say is "Make it beautiful" go into differnet field becuase all you'r edoing is wasting people's time.

Neil: I didn't reallya sk anybody for advice when I chose what I did. ... But what drove me and keeps me going is an overriding passion for the next show. I've done hundredsa dn hundreds of shows, and there needs to be a reason to spend 8 in the morning to midnight working on a show. ... I love the history of this industry, and we're very very bad at documenting it. ... There are hundreds and hundreds of shows documented nowhere. ... Try adn get a sense of our history before you arrived.

Otts: One summer job working in a brewing company moving boxes. Very boring. Parents worked through WWII in jobs they hated. He told parents he wouldn never do anything as a job he didn't love. ... If you love it, it's not like going to work. ... You need to find something you truly love to do and that will help you excel. And so I gave that advice to myself.

Desmond: No matter how small the job you ask people to do, it's incredibly importnat to say thank you, over and over again.

USITT 2013 - Reimagining Theatre with Green Ideals

2013-03-21T14:00:00.000Z

Hello all! I'll be live-blogging Reimagining Theatre with Green Ideals! Please forgive any typos as I'll be typing quickly! :-)

Panel is being given by Paul Brunner (right in the photo -- which I'll be uploading later, slow connections) of Indiana University and Michael Mehler (left) of Allegheny College.

Michael is a scenic and lighting designer.

"Two quiet midwestern guys" who wanted to look at susatinable design introduction.

Whatever it is that seems to be happening in "green" thinking, a lot of it is about operating within your circumstances.

Michael's circumstances are that he manages production, so he has a voice in all decisions. He's in a liberal arts curriculum, so students come from a range of interests. They produce three main stage shows and one studio show a year. A "mid-small" school. Larger than some liberal arts, but smaller than state schools. Most majors are double majors, and everyone required to have a minor not in humanities. 4 faculty in Allegheny, and 3 full-time professional staff, and 1 admin/box office.

Paul's life at Inidiana U very different. 47,000 students (in total U), 25 faculty, 14 productions per year in theatre dept. Very busy place. Makes challenges for instituting change.

Full disclousre: Co-Chairs of Broadway Green Alliance Education Committee. Working with BGA to start caring resources and message of BGA out to schools.

Paul has been working on green ideals since his grad thesis 14 years ago. He and Michael wanted to look at topic as TD and Designer together and get each other outside of their own boxes.

They received a USITT grant to help support research and travel, including looking at international initiatives.

The whole idea was to travel and explore sustainability.

Travelogue!

NYC in fall of 2012.

I'll upload a pic with all the names, but they did meet with reps at Hudson Scenic and Showman Fabricators. they also attended a steering committee of the Broadway Green Alliance.

England in January 2013

GDS, toured the Old Vic, then attended a GReen Lighting Social that was hosted by lighting directors from several large theatres. Close to 50 people. Mhora Samuel of the Theatre Trust shared a lot of info about the stewardship of the historic theatres in London.

Arizona/So-Cal Jan-Feb 2013

Talked to people at Childsplay, Old Globe (Ben Thoron, the TD) and Cal Arts.

They came at this with a certain perspective. They had four main texts that they had looked at and were using as touchstones.

Cradle to Cradle - McDonough & Braungart - to think of production model as a cycle, as opposed to a line. Looking at it as architect and chemist. Aesthetic and pragmatic.

Andres Edwards - Thriving Beyond Sustainability - a concept of SPIRALS, for sustainbalbe activity to take hold, it needs to be integrated culturally. Can't be sepsareted out.

Carol Sanford - The REsponsible Business - This is a business, ow to make money book. Businesses tneed to think about stakeholders, not shareholders. One of the stakeholders (someone affected and interested in what you do) in her model is "earth." She's taking integreated model from business angle. "Repsonsibility is a practical skill, not a utoptian ideal practiced by others." Environmentally responsibility is work, and can be profitable.

Hawkings, Lovins and Lovins - Natural Capitalism - What if we blasted the box apart? Extended production responsibility. Instead of a sort of produce and consumer, look at relatinoship not as sale of product but as maker of washing machines, you provide ability to wash clothes, and when its no longer useful (i.e., broken or old) company pulls out old product and gives a new one. This would encourage producers to think about products not as smoething that's gone once you've made finanical exchange, and maybe you design products that can be re-used and built again using the parts of it. Instead of just going away.

A cost-effective limit. A lot of green work done so far has been cost effective. Do this, and you'll save money. This gets you to a certain point, but after that, there's no longer an immediate return on investment. E.g., LED's that pay for themselves over time.

All of these people have four shared idelas:

1 - Community minded aspect.

2 - Local

3 - Intergenerational

4 - Positive. Not simply about self-sacrifice.

Obstacles and success:

-Awareness. Broadway Green Alliance is good at this, good at getting the news out about what they're doing.

NEed ot tell everyone about what you're doing. From board members to crew to audience, you have to have buy in on every level. In a large theatre dep't Paul thought he was alone in his green ideals, but slowly as he talked to people, he found out he wasn't, and was able to build alliances.

"Sustainability Summits" - Holding meetings with practitioners and donors and board members, people in the industry and audience to catch up on what the new practices, products and ideas are. Need a lot of stakeholders to make this work. Think inclusion.

-Funding - Get the low-hanging fruit, but then you have make some investments.

How to get, and keep getting the money.

GDS prepares a report every time a customer converts to their LEDs, telling them exactly when they'll get hteir money back.

Easy place to get funding is for FOH, not production. Theatrical fixtures only on for focus and shows. But house lights, marquee, signage, those are on a lot. Lighting for business runs 16-20 hours a day, if you make small change, you get large payback. Whereas large expense to change stage fixtures, but only get small payback.

Changing rehearsal lighting will take 6 years to pay off. Tehatrical fixtures take a LOT longer. This will come down as fixturs cost less.

Very difficult to get donors to fund UNSEEN things -- easy to get them to fund a new marquee, b/c it's evident and obvious. But scenic production and costumes -- what you need is storage, and organized, intelligent storage. That needs time and space, adn that's a difficult argument to make with donors. But once they increased donor awareness -- at the summits, where everyone is learning something new, as opposed ot private sales pitch -- it became easier.

Depressing fact in England: If you want to get funding from ARts Council, you need a sustainability position on your org chart. "That's never going ot happen at home." B/c regulation is not warmly embraced. But grants that people were applying to arts council for -- transitioning to new space and make it sustainable. And those types of proposals were getting preference from teh Arts Council.

On teh commerical side, Disney and Cirque du Soleil, have the executive desire and the resources to make it happen, and they've done it. They feel it makes them stronger as a business.

Production Budgets.

Best place to insert talks about sustainaiblity is at beginning of design concept -- don't "add-on" sustainability. If you insert it from the beginning you come up with better product AND it's more sustainable. Inserted later it becomes a problem, not a parameter.

So how do you change the model of the production process? How many TD's are invited to early conceptual meetings? Not a lot of hands in the room. How many designers would like a TD at the first design meetings? How many were tauhgt to NOT have a TD at those first meetings? Many people taught not to think about production at early meetings b/c it will stifle creativity. taht has to change.

-There's a learning curve to letting people know what to do first, and not make a mistake. Don't want to do something that has bad baggage you didn't know about.

-New Paradigm - play around with new ideas in relatinoship to time, money, quality triangle needs to have "sustainability" inserted into it. Dream about a whole different design adn production process that includes sustainability as a value.

Think about production across seasons -- not just one season out, but three seasons out, so you can bring things back after 3 years, not bore audience, but still re-use stuff.

OBSTACLES & SUCCESS - Learning Curve - Materials and Tools

Guilt over watching sets go into dumpster.

Time is a big issue - do designers have time to integrate? Do TD's have time to research materials? If you haven't integrated sustainability since the beginngin, you don't have enough time.

Theatre production adn our time frame is very condensed, it's not conducive to new ideas, and taking risks in teh production process. Adn that's what sustainability is.

How many shopheads have time to learn anything new? Much laughter in the room. There's a lack of time to find new ways to do things.

Lighting sources -- the shift to LEDs and how the palette will change. People need time to mess around with fixtures and figure out what they can and cannot do, and how their colors work. Imagine finding studio artist and tell themthey'd like to paint a canvas in public, with new paints and new colors, and the canvas will be weird. A change in media changes the resulting art.

Solutions?

Get grants to hang around and do research. Explore and find out your palette.

Sourcing - A list of Forest Certifications, which went by too fast to type. I took a photo I'll upload later. "Amazing amount of drama among these organizations" they do not get along. Goal is the same, but they all have different methods. Get info on who wholesaler is to your lumber stores, and the wholesaler will know where the material comes from.

HArd thing to do is to STOP doing what you're doing. Stop using luan, stop using so much water to clean brushes. That's going to take some time. IT needs to be done in a measured, transparent way.

Collective Efforts - Businesses emerging, usually around centralized theatre production -- that can help with collection and re-use. There are a lot of shared warehousing activities in NYC and Austin. Give in what you had and take out what you need. Trust and cooperation among theatre companies.

Mixed Media Rig - start integrating new fixtures

Bristol Paints - "Aqua Service" - cleans your brushes and uses almost no water. Also doesn't dump paint solids into water stream.

Creative Solutions

Need to change process of entire organization. If you stretch out process of design, then it becomes a cash flow issue. So you have change how org works to provide what is necessary to become more sustainable.

First time to incorporate sustainable processes is hard, but gets easier.

Donyale Werle does fewer shows a year b/c it takes more time to be green. She makes less money b/c she's committed to it. It's an obstacle b/c many of us cannot afford to do that, but it's impressive and admirable trait to do.

NEW PARADIGM

Instead of old Good, Fast, Cheap, pick two...

Thisnk about collective stability. Calendar, Budget (labor and $$) and sustainability.

How can you make a stable production process adn keep everyting in basket and keep it sustainable?

Eco-Effective vs. Eco-Efficient.

Eco-Efficient - we'll do less bad. Change house lights to LED.

Eco-Effective - Do good. Change practices.

"It's a failure of imagination not to take this on."

We're always dealing with aprameters in theatre production. Just add one more thing onto the pile. It won't break the camel's back. WE're good smart creative people, we can do it.

Make sustainability a core value.

There's usually only or two people who are a voice for sustainability at a theatre. There needs to be more. Luckily the community is growing and gaining momentum.

REsistance to structural change -- you'll need to overcome this. New facilities can equal new structures -- but how can you incorporate these things in your current theatre? ORganizations change when executive leadership changes. It's at that point when you can get a lot of stuff done. Be opportunistic.

ORganizations that really dove into this we're

-Very community minded. Not just putting on shows that they wanted people to show up to. They went into the community adn asked people to be a part of process. This also helps with cmmunication.

-Local. They knew where they were sourcing things from.

-Intergenerational - companies that re-used and stored their materials.

-Positive - we're still in the "doing less bad" mode, which is OK. But we need to create a positive good.

See them at the Broadway Green Alliance table. Thanks and enjoy the Expo!

USITT 2013 - Push Me Pull You, Lighting Designer, Stage Manager Communication and Collaboration

2013-03-20T22:30:00.000Z

Alright! My first session at USITT! Gonna be lots of typos, but here we go!

Panelists are Judy Schoenfeld and Steve Shelley.

The process of cueing, running and archiving shows.

But first! Histories, eduction and background!

Steve Shelley started shows in high school, studied theatre in college, School of the ARts in N.C. Moved to NYC in 1980. Toured dance, designed for Broadway, Off-Broadway, Regional, Opera, Spoleto.

Judy. From Milkwaukee! No plans on being in theatre in high school and college. Got involved at Concordia University where she go ta little bit involved, and decided to work in theatre. Also went to NCSA. Trained in SM. Stayed in NC after graduation, then went to Great Lakes Theatre Festival to ASM. Did summer theatre on the side, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Where she and Steve met at Nebraska Rep. She's worked B'way, Off-B'way, regional, etc., etc... She does a lot of work on new musicals.

Usually Stage Managers get hired before lighting designers. Judy is usually the one who starts the communication, making initial contact, introducing herself, the rehearsal process, etc. Used to be a phone call, now via email. Group email to designers, inquire what they need before rehearsal starts.

Designers get call from producer, and get contact info for stage and company manager. Co. Mgr. will have business info, whereas SM will have production info.

Judy now: Designers quite often ask for script first.

Designers get draft of show first, but don't have most up-to-date script as they go into rehearsal.

Stage managers generally take over the script once rehearsals start -- "pretty strongly suggest that I should be the one in charge of the script". There were instances in her past where if she wasn't in charge of script the script wasn't paginated correctly, contained old info, wasn't formatted correctly... OTOH, sometimes an assistant director or someone else will hold on to it.

Obviously it's important to make sure SM and designer are working off script with same pagination.

DURING REHEARSALS

MEet and greet, designers meet and present -- LD's don't have too much to present. Once rehearsals start, best way to keep in touch is daily rehearsal report.

SM will often do break-out notes to dep't. or designer.

Some designers wish to be kept up to date on script with minute changes, others just prefer to know big changes.

Steve asks: Do LD's watch rehearsals more than run-throughs?

Judy: No. I don't usually see designers until we get to run-through phase, which is when I supply an up-to-date script, too, so people know what they're watching and have a place to write in cues.

SIT WITH DESIGNERS/SM's during run-throughs, so that you can ask questions and communicate about what cues go where, so SM's can start making marks about exact placement, moment of cues.

Judy doesn't do that too often during run throughs, though she will tell a designer any notes that a director has made about what cues they want.

Tech Process.

How do they tell where cues go?

Sometimes designers hand her a book with cues.

Sometimes post-it notes in scores,

Sometimes excel spreadsheets (which she doesn't like) They can be elaborate with cue numbers nad time for cue.

Judy prefers to get a script and see where they're placed in the script.

Some designers don't tell her cues until tech. "That's not as much fun" for me.

She doesn't call a lot of cues that way in the techprocess. She tells teh designer to do it then. If the director is waiting for designer to write cues, or designer is writing cues on top of what's happening, there's lots of starts and stops.

Shelley :Sometimes it's easier for designer to call a sequence, and then SM can watch and write them down. But if LD hasn't made cues yet -- tha'ts bad. Whole process grinds to a halt.

"You don't want ot be held hostage by one department."

When dealing with other unions and running a show, don't be the one who holds things up. You ahve to use the time well.

"I love to sit near the LD and have found that's OK by them. SOmetimes everyone gets their own table these days." Doens't like being spread out from everyone liek they do these days. Likes the eye contact you can get along the way.

It's important to tell SM placement, number, and length of cue, so SM knows how it will flow with other cues (e.g., automation.)

If it's a three-count/five-count or button cue, you wanna know that.

Steve likes to know early on where cue lights are, if there are any work light situtions, or specials, and where calling position is going to be. So if any cue lights are set up they can be at hte tech table, or transfered back to calling position.

At a certain point in tech process, you want the SM to be calling the cues while the designer is able to listen and give feedback. She appreciates it when the designer saves her notes during the rehearsal and gives them to her at a break as opposed to during run -- because she's got a lot to juggle. "I can't take that right now, can you please give that to me later?"

When tech process is stop adn go, adn you're going back into a sequence the challenge as a lighting designer is to fix the actual cue themself so they're in a better flow and mirror the other changes that are being made.

IT really is director who controls pace of rehearsal. SM needs to try to make that happen, making sure that designers get the time they need to work.

AS an LD your best defense to that is to take notes, and make themneatly to remember what you were writing.

If it's a volatile show, with many drmatic light changes, you have to accept the fact htat what you're presenting won't be perfect, but you have some work lights on at all times, so stage is safe, and at no point are you plunged into complete blackness. "So there's no way you can slam entire show into darkness as folks are moving around in choreographed manner."

As soon as you get into semi-performance, LD shuts up, or only uses LX channel on headset.

SM hears everything and everybody, and can hear designer working, needs to call cues over that.

Judy doesn't say "stand-by" anymore, becuase there's so many cues, there's no reason to say "stand-by" it's always going -- except for deck moves and other big cues/starts. Otherwise, just keep going.

"You guys write a lot of light cues now" -- Much laughter. In musicals you can have 10 cues on a page. Too much to ask to stand-by. Confusing to board op.

She'll "tolerate" hundredths cues ".25" but once show starts -- those cues are getting re-numbered.

Sometimes scenes moves, so light cues move -- and nubmers are out of order. Judy will change sequencing so it's in order. Otherwise in long run of show it becomes confusing. You lose the thread of the show.

Previews!

LD gives new cues based on rehearsal, and talk production notes after tech. Sometimes very specific, sometimes more latitude. Good idea to clarify what "anticipate" or other vague instructions mean.

Opening Night!

By contract, designers are gone. No more changes. SM still does performance reports, and in a long-running show, things might change timing wise. SM's ahve to communicate potential for changes and possible changes to designers.

By unwritten law, when director asks for change and LD not there -- SM needs to call LD and let them know. But ... sometimes that doesn't happen, and the change doens't have the LD's approval. "Should" But bottom line, sometimes it doesn't happen that way.

When an Aristic Director who pays your salary and is not respectful fo LD -- what do you do? You can't immediately contact designer. They may not be able to come look anyways. Hopefully you have a director who's respectful of designer, too.

At ABT, Steve Shelley was instructed to make shows look the same in each new venue. Steve made the changes, but always communicated with LD what changes had happened, so they could call the directors back, and possibly get involved again.

Judy sharing story about moving lights on NEXT TO NORMAL on B'way instead of followspots. Moving lights acted as follows. But if they lost the moving light in the middle of the show -- which they did -- they'd lose a lot of lights. They brought the diesnger back in to create a backup plan so people were still lit if that happend again.

Steve's lesson from that if you'r edoing a show that's moving lights only, have an additive submaster built in so you can cover yourself.

Before opening night, LD needs to make sure SM has final paperwork so they can fix things if they need to.

DURING THE RUN

As the show goes on, SM provides daily show reports, which designer will get until end of show. But not a lot of contact with designer other than that.

ARCHIVING

SM's not that involved in archiving. For a long-running commerical show you archive right after opening. But in something like Opera, you put a produciton book together after the show which includes cue book, design guides, etc.

Chocolate at the production table: Very very important.

Questions from the crowd!

Videotaping:

Can't do with an equity show, but in school or dance, you can videotape a rehearsal so you as a designer have something to watch -- works well if it's a non-text based show.

With tech and notes process -- when you ahve a director give notes re: cue placement, what is preferred order? to LD? or to SM? How is it dealth with?

If SM says director wants it move here, tha'ts fine. If director goes to SM, they will communicate that to LD. But in tech most directors will address LD's directly. Always take calling script to tech, everyone will want to know exactly where cue is called.

What is main point of failure in communcation between SM and LD? Where does communication typically break down?

If SM's don't do their job and communicate, it will break down. "When I was very young and just got started -- this is embarrassing -- the very first thing i did we went into tech I didn't think about fact i needed to give LD new scripot with changes. We got ot ech table, and LD asked for updated clean script." Whoops.

For Steve, a "leser highlight" was working with a SM telling him where cue went, and SM said "You don't need a cue there." REally? He will listen to anything SM says re placement, but to be todl the cue doens' tneed ot exist, the SM is assuming job the LD needs to be doing. In that specific situation that w as the beginning of a downward spiral.

"Stage Managers shouldn't say that."

Do paper techs exist in reality, or just academia?

They exist in pieces for Judy. With lighting, not so much. Yeah, not so much.

During tech, what do you choose to fix on the fly, or go back?

If people are waiting on me, take a note, and go back to fix later. But sometimes if it has to be fixed or will screw everyone up next time it's run, he'll do it immediately. IF it's a "brighter" note, he'll go back and fix it.

What happens if you get to point where there are so many cues you can't call them all?

Judy - give it a few tries to see if you can do it. If not, then bring it up. Ask if there are other ways that it can be called or shortcuts taken so that it happens. Sometimes call gets abbreviated "Go, go, go" as opposed to full dep't and cue number.

But all ohter operators need to know when that happens.

That's one of few times she still says "standby" so everyone knows a quick section is coming up.

As SM, how do you feel about auto-following cues?

"Less that i have to say is not such a bad thing." Auto-follow is about designer. If it can make the cue happen and nothing changes, great! But if sequence isn't exactly the same thing and you need ot make it manual, SM should be OK with that. It's not about SM - it's about designer. It's SM's job to make show happen the way diesngers want ot make it happen. Judy takes pride in being able to do that.

"We live in a much more tehcnical world than we used to. Ther'es a lot of stuff that can happen."

Have you worked together since married? How'd that go?

IF you'r eworking with someone you're involved with you have to agree to disagre, and choose to leave it at the theater. Keep the personal part out of the theatre. No one else has to deal with your at-home squabbles. Working relatinoship didn't change that much after they got married.

In case of nightmare scenario, dictator director completely unwilling to compromise with designers, how do you handle it?

Judy has wokred with a lot of different people, and there are divas in all departments. You just have to check your ego. SM's are not allowed ot have diva fits. If SM has huge hissty fit during tech, nothing gets done. B/c SM runs tech, even if they make sure it doesn't look like that. You just have ot figure out where its' coming from and how to work with the person. Sometimes it's impossible and its' impossible to teh end. Not all experiences are easy.

STeve has been in situations where he's been completely berate, and in those situations, his job is to prdocue wath the director wants onstage. Even if his opinoin is different. If director has a clear vision, even it's a demeaning approach, the job is still to produce and put onstage whatever the director wants to see and hiopefully they will recognize that what they're asking for is not achieving what htey wante.d In terms of personal realtinoships, try to talk to themon teh side, adn not call them out. When Steve HAS had a fit, all he's done is lost hte respect of the crew. It's never served him well or served the process or made it go quicker.

Then make choice if you will eve rwork with that person again.

Thank you and good night!

Stage Directions at USITT!

2013-03-17T22:42:31.000Z

Hello all! Inspired by Rich's blog about USITT, I figured I'd post my schedule for the show as well! As always I'll be live-blogging any session I go to, and uploading photos and longer posts every day as well -- so come back often this Wednesday to Saturday to check out the show virtually!

And if you're going to BE at the show: Say hi! Drop me a line if you're going to be there, or say "Hi" at one of these sessions! Twitter (@stagedirections) will be the best place to find out where I am throughout the show, and for info on any of the prizes, contests and cool swag or Tweet-ups that happen during the show.

And for all attendees: Be sure and stop by the Stage Directions booth (#100) for a book signing! Eric Hart will be signing copies of his new book The Prop Building Guidebook: For Theatre, Film, and TV. More info about the book signing is available here!

Here's my schedule!

WEDS - March 20

6:00 - 7:15 p.m.
Push me, Pull you Lighting Designer, Stage Manager Communication and Collaboration

7:30 - 10:00 p.m.
Opening Night speakers and party

THURS - March 21

9:30 - 10:45 a.m.
Reimagining Theatre with Green Ideals

11:00a.m. - 1 p.m.

Expo Only! On the other hand, the Expo floor is going to be MOBBED with students looking for swag. So I will probably we taking some video of the mayhem, then quietly drinking coffee with some friends.

5:30 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.

Rosco User Meet-up! I will be joining other Rosco users as they talk about new tools ideas. (I may pop out a bit to go to the "Integrating Traditional Rendering and Models with Digital Media" session...)

FRIDAY - March 22

9:30 - 10:45 a.m.
USITT Distinguished Award Winners in Conversation

12:30 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Eric Hart Book Signing at the Stage Directions booth!

At some point during the day I will head over and check out the Young Designers' & Technicians' Forum on View

5:30 - 6:45
Incandescent Profile vs. LED Profile in the Light Lab.

SATURDAY - March 23

I admit, the early morning sessions on Saturday are HARD. And I make no guarantees. But I will be attempting to get to the

8:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.
Preparing Props People

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Stump the Riggers!

Followed by all the awards, drawings and auctions that happen next.

Go ahead and share your schedule here! I'd love to know what you're up to, what you find valuable at the show, and where I might run into you!

Stage Directions Hosts Eric Hart Book Signing at USITT

2013-03-17T22:12:27.000Z

Eric Hart has built many things in his careers as props artisan. During his time at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Santa Fe Opera, New York City’s The Public Theater and as a freelancer, he has built an enviable portfolio of fascinating, detailed and ingenious props. And now he’s built a book. The Prop Building Guidebook: For Theatre, Film, and TV, from Focal Press, is already available in the U.K. and will be released in the United States on Monday, March 11. To celebrate the achievement from one of their most popular contibutors, Stage Directions magazine is hosting a book signing with Eric Hart at their booth on the USITT Expo show floor. On Friday, March 22, at 12:30 p.m. Eric will set up shop in Stage Directions booth #100 on the show floor, signing copies of The Prop Building Guidebook.

“I’ve always been amazed at Eric’s work, and The Prop Building Guidebook is no different,” said Stage Directions Editor Jacob Coakley. “I’m ecstatic we get to host him and his book at the USITT show, where I know so many people will appreciate it.”

The book signing will start at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, March 22 in Booth 100 on the USITT Stage Expo show floor. It takes place during an “Expo Only” period, ensuring that no one will have to miss a seminar to get a copy.

The Prop Building Guidebook: For Theatre, Film, and TV, from Focal Press, lays the groundwork for an artisan to determine what materials and techniques to use to build props. Walking the reader through the various tools and techniques used in historical and contemporary prop-making, the author presents a process for deciding the materials and methods to build any prop. With an explanation of how the craft and its products have developed over time, the budding artisan will understand not just how and when to use certain techniques or materials, but also why to use them and what advantages they give. It arms the prop maker with a structured procedure for approaching the construction of any prop. Illustrated with step-by-step examples of how to use each construction method, and explanations of different types of materials, this book gives the beginner prop artisan a strong foundation to approach the construction of props and answers the question, "How should I begin?"

Eric Hart has built props for numerous theatres on and off Broadway and throughout the United States. He has worked with some of America's top actors, directors and designers at the Santa Fe Opera, the Actors Theatre of Louisville and the Public Theater. Eric has also constructed props for display and exhibition including the holiday window displays at several major New York City retail stores. His photography and articles about props have been published in Stage Directions magazine and on his popular blog, Prop Agenda. Eric currently lives in North Carolina with his wife, Natalie, and two cats.

For more info about The Prop Building Guidebook, including How-To Videos and extra chapters, please visit www.propbuildingguidebook.com.

For more info about Eric Hart, please visit www.props.eric-hart.com.

Awards!

2013-02-25T06:54:36.000Z

So the Oscars just wrapped up. I didn't win the contest at my Oscar party, mainly because I got a little too Les Mis happy -- I thought it would win more of the big awards. In the end I lost by two. Oh well!

When I wanted an Oscar, I wanted it because of my acting. I also wanted a Tony for my acting. Neither of those is likely to happen any time soon (or ever), but it's still fun to watch the ceremonies and imagine myself giving an acceptance speech, or doing the talk show circuit in the run-up to the show. What about you? What awards do you want to win? Who do you thank in your speech?

Awards!

2013-02-25T06:54:35.000Z

What Do You Need?

2013-02-04T05:44:15.000Z

This upcoming weekend a handful of people dedicated to community theatre will be meeting in Arlington, Texas, to decide on the best way to keep helping community theatre. The American Association of Community Theatre (AACT) is having their winter board meetings this weekend, and, as a member of the board, I will be there. The AACT provides a lot of services to its members (discounts on script licensing, discounts on theatrical supplies, insurance, a biennial performance festival, and more) but we're trying to do more. We want to make sure that as an organization, we're offering our members what they need to produce more and better theatre. (You can kinda see how that dovetails with Stage Directions' mission...)

And that's why I'm writing this blog post. What do you need to create better theatre? What would help you out? How can we help? Tell me what you'd like to see an organization do to help you out, and I promise I'll bring it up in the meetings!

Adaptation

2013-01-28T02:07:24.000Z

This past weekend I went to see a production of A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music. Yes, it was totally legit. In fact, Anthony Burgess wrote the show himself after feeling that Stanley Kubrick didn't do right by his novel when Kubrick adapted it into a movie. Burgess used the same music Alex DeLarge loved for his play -- Beethoven's Ninth, Fifth, and other orchestral pieces, and then wrote lyrics to go over it.

And, of course, as is my wont, it got me thinking about OTHER novels I'd like to see transformed into musicals. Here were a few of my ideas:

The Hunger Games -- Think Oliver! (Food! Glorious Food!) meets Les Mis.

The Shining -- Phantom of the Opera meets Billy Elliott.

50 Shades of Grey -- Oh wait, someone is...

A Catcher in the Rye -- Just the thought is probably enough to set J.D. Salinger spinning in his grave. My god, can you imagine the all-white Broadway posters?

The Wealth of Nations -- Rent meets Death of a Salesman.

What novels do you want to see turned into a musical? Tell me in the comments! That can be jokes like this, or a book you'd honestly love to see as a musical. Just go ahead and share your thoughts!

Thank You Five Minutes!

2013-01-21T06:52:36.000Z

My wife and I were out to dinner with a friend last night, and she kept looking at her watch -- When we noticed and asked about it, she said she had to play a show that night, and she was worried about being late. She then proceeded to tell us the story of how she had been caught earlier in the week at a gig that ran long, so she ended up having to sprint between two casinos on the Las Vegas strip just to make her call time. She did, thankfully, but I imagine she ticked off more than a few pedestrians as she barreled through the crosswalks! How about you? What's the craziest thing you've ever done to make your call time? What's the craziest thing that happened to make you miss your call time? Let me know in the comments!

How Far Can You Stretch It?

2013-01-14T08:03:45.000Z

Spent my time in two theatres this weekend, seeing two original shows. They couldn't have been more different. One was an absurdist take on office life, the other a dance-infused piece about the less-than-glamorous road that leads someone into the oldest profession on earth. The completely different natures of the two pieces made think a little more deeply about the techniques a show uses to tell itself. Either show would be lost if it tried to use the other piece's language, or lighting, or costuming. Which got me to thinking: How far can you push a show before it isn't the play it wants to be any more? Shakespeare can handle a lot of interpretations -- modern dress, gender swapping, and more -- and remain Shakespeare. But if you don't say "To be or not to be," it ain't Hamlet. What is the point at which a play stops being itself? And how do you know the line? I'd love to hear your thoughts -- and I'd especially love to know how far you've interpreted Shakespeare, or seen it done. Share your thoughts with me here!

Thoughts on LES MIS, the movie

2012-12-26T07:00:48.000Z

So, in addition to being Christmas, Dec. 25 was also the day the Les Misérables movie came out. And yes, I was sitting in the theatre on opening day, waiting to be blown away. I both was, and wasn't.

First off, the fact I was in the movie theatre itself was a minor miracle. I love Les Mis, I love it to death -- and in fact, I already had. The show opened in London in '85, and Broadway in '87. I soon had the cast recordings and practically wore the tape out. I burned through several different versions of the tapes. I knew every lyric -- even when they didn't make sense. (Sometimes cast recordings can be confusing if you don't know the staging that goes along with it...) I saw the touring production, then the Broadway production, then multiple times. And after a while, like everything else, my tastes changed, the musical didn't, and the pleasure centers it used to activate in my brain just didn't respond. It was like gum, it had lost its flavor. So when I heard about the movie version, I was nonplussed.

Until I saw the first behind the scenes/trailer. I was weeping in the first 30 seconds. Suddenly the music had brand new life, brand new meaning, and was just as powerful as the first time I'd heard it. I knew I'd need to be there opening day.

And so I was.

But while the musical -- in parts -- was really, really great, there were other moments where it went very wrong, and landed with a wet thud, like a dishrag.

First off, Anne Hathaway, amazing. And Amanda Seyfried? I think she single-handedly rescued the part of Cosette from complete irrelevance. Hugh Jackman was by turns brilliant or mediocre.

I think the big problem with the movie was exactly it's hook for me: The ability for actors to sing their parts live, rather than lip-sync on film to pre-recorded tracks. While this sounds like a great idea -- Hey! Let the actors act! In the moment! -- It's also a recipe for disaster. In a musical, there's not as much room for interpretation as in a play -- especially a machine like Les Mis. The tempo is laid out, the orchestration is laid out -- there's really no varying. The song hits the climax in the same spot every night. As an actor, all you can bring is your voice and the color of your voice. But you're going to be singing it the same way every night, and the next actor is going to sing it the same way, too.

That's completely upended in this show. Actors are free to speed up, slow down, belt or get quiet -- wherever their interpretation takes them.

Look, Les Mis didn't get to be one of the most popular musicals in the world because the music doesn't work. There's a reason the songs are so powerful. They're written well. So by giving actors their full head of steam and letting them run roughshod over all that, you lose a LOT of that power. You lose a lot of the choices that made the songs so great.

Sometimes this works. See my remarks about Anne Hathaway. But other times I just wanted to shout at the screen: JUST SING THE DAMN SONG!

I understand film is a different medium than the stage, and things that work on stage wouldn't work on film, and I applaud them for their innovation and bravery in taking this project on. But sometimes I felt a little exasperated.

Anyways -- that's what I felt! Who else has seen the movie? What did you think?

LDI 2012 New Tech Breakfast - Friday, Oct. 19

2012-10-17T21:30:00.000Z

Hi everyone! Starting at 8 a.m. Friday, October 19, I'll be liveblogging the new tech Breakfast for LDI right here! The New Tech Breakfast gives manufacturers 5 minutes to quickly tell people what new gear they're showing at LDI. It's a GREAT (if whirlwind) way to see all the new and shiny gear at LDI. Friday the New Tech Breakfast covers Lighting and Projection. On Saturday, the new tech breakfast covers Audio, Rigging, Staging, Special Effects and Lasers! So swing by Friday to check out the live feed!

Photos might be a little slow this morning -- tethering software giving me fits, but I'll upload as soon as I can.

Everyone's getting set up...

First up is Black Tank. LED fixture manufacturers, making compact fixtures. Now partnered with Rosco. Miro Cube 4C is their new product. Plugs right into wall, anywhere in world. RGB has been converted to quad chip tech. Variable beam angle by changing beam diffusing lenses.

Osram Sylvania up now. Kreios FL LED work light designed specifically for theatre. 3,000 lumens, (300 watt halgen lamp equiv.) 60W of power. CCT=3000k, same as tungsten.

German Light Products up now.

Impression x4.

Two products from SceneX, static LED’s. IP65 RGB PAR, suitable for permanent outdoor installations, cable ties with power and data in and out. Each have IP65 connector. Onboard menu for full-fixture config. GLEC Video processor. Ergon 10 is their front panel for it. Runs without fans.

Robert Juliat

LED Profile spotlights, the Tibo and Zep.

Tibo 75 W LED Profile, 15/35 degree or 30/45. 26 pounds. Remote power supply. 3 color temps, 3000k, 4000k, 6500k.

Zep

150W LED Profile. Equiv to standard 750W tungsten fixture. Newly designed 150W LED source. 3200 or 6000K color temp.

Apollo

PrintScenic gobos for LED fixtures. Developed their own printing process for a printed gobo with true colors and true bloack. “All plastic gobos warp for you all the time.” So printing process had to go onto glass, so the focal point doesn’t change. Stack a dot on a dot, so can get good detail and yet remain true black.

Also intro’ing. 200W Fresnel LED and 200W Profile and 200W RGBA Profile.

Creative Stage Lighting

New things for people to take a look at: Avolites Interactive Media server ran the LED’s at the Olymipcs – just 2 of them for all the LED mapping. Priced very competitive.

Avolites released Titan OS 6, which has more pixel mapping and new features: cue lists, cue stacking.

AV Lighting has the A12 in a tunable white version. LED wash light. No powerpoint, so may be getting the names wrong on this gear.

W-DMX

G4S – free update for G4 users, better frequency hopping and other upgrades. Black Box Mark 2, barnd new road worthy case. 3 and 5-pin DMX. RDM controller capability. Truss mount with quik-lok and DIM, and rack mount kits. Trady in any wireless and get one of their black box F1 units. Swedigh meatball and vodka party Satruday at 3 pm!

Interactive Technologies

Scene Station 3. Small attractive preset wall station that outputs DMX directly. SceneStation Studio software update. A programmer’s remote so you can manuall setup new scenes. Users remote to help clients. And a new front. But they’ve added a DMX effects engine in it now. Instead of 100’s of programming steps, you can overlay some great effects easily. 44HZ rate, 16-bit math, RGB, RGBA, RGBW, etc. effects, and more efficient power-wise as well.

PRG is not in the house, so we’re skipping them.

EntTec

E-streamer Mk2. 3 RU show recording and playback technology. Solid state. 2 configes. One with 4 DMX in/out., or Ethernet in/out. Both go 4-64 universes. Unlimited simultaneous show playback. Unlimited number of shows. DMX512, Art-Net and ESP protocol. Control and config via built-in web interface. New stuff: SD Card for show storage. 1RU height. Master shows via web interface.

DMX USB Pro Mk2 – “Pro 2”

Two output ports of DMX, so you can do 2 universe. Full RDM capability. Stand alone operation for unattended replay. One firmware version. True 1500V isolation separating all ports. Internal frame buffering. Comes with USB and break out cable.

D-Pro version 1.3

Device browser can display background image. Every patched fixture you can add beam color, device throw, etc. So now a simple visualizer. CMY, RGB support in color editor now.

Lex Products

Lighting Control Solutions.

Installation System has new backbone that allows for more product support, new dimmers with great new features. 2 pole relays in standard panel. I didn’t all that – so I’ll update this later. Internal monitoring system.

Doug Fleenor Design

AS of Sept, largets DMX splitter manufacturer. Unveiled world’s largest DMX splitter. Making a DMX-controllable MP3 player, so you can cue sound effects from lighting console.

3824 Paradise Rd. Las Vegas 89119 – Open Bar. 25^th anniversary LDI party. 8 pm. (AKA the 4Wall party).

City Theatrical

Gary Fails Work in the world of Broadway. Wirless world of Broadway very demanding. They provide nearly 100% of wireless on Broadwday, West End, etc. Color Kinetics and ETC added ShowDMX to their product line. ShowDMX Neo, and Vero and VeroNET outdoor transceivers. ShowDMX Vero uses Ethernet protocol, streaming ACN, pathport, RDM.

Moving Light Assistant. Moving Light documentation software. Recording parameters very difficult. Specifically written to make it easier to record and document moving lights. Records rig/gear data and programming data.

Pathway

Cognito console. Intended for high schools, ballrooms. Small console. Just a little bit bigger than a laptop. 7-inch touch screen. User interface designed like iPad, not need a manual. Designed for tasks you do over and over again : select, record and play lights. Everything is task oriented and using natural language controls. Works on POE. iOS compatibility, with apps. “Nito” Take pic of stage, touch screen, then have that setting come up. Booth 1839.

ETC

Matt Kern from ETC. New rigging product and rigging controls. Previewing a new swtich and new switching relay panel. Source 4 LED is officially at LDI (only previewed last year, it debuted at USITT). ETC Source Four Dimmer, distributed dimming system. Not phase control, not sine wave. Close to sine wave, but at phase control price point. Nearly silent. 0db rating at 2 feet. Stays that way regardless of temperature.

Nila Lighting

Boxer product. Replaces 1000W PAR cans. High-brightness LED’s. Varsa – AC and DC input.

Zero Energy Lighting

FlexArray. An LED soft-focus Fresnel light. RGBAW, various color temperatures.

PRG did show up, so here they are.

Intro’ing the V276 control console. Softare and hardware product, smaller, ultra-poratble of v276 consoles. MBOX studio software, similar featured software to MBOX extreme that also runs on Mac. So now you have full control system on Mac. Also showing True Color HS and Photon fixture.

Leprecon

Watson - New distributed dimming system.

CAST Software Release 29.

Goal to make WYSIWYG release faster for LD’s. Cuts and adjustments tool. Quick, quick, quick. Quick fixture tools. Can stick the tool anywhere, collapse any part of it. Shaded view selection. Can grab a fixture , multiple selcect, then change anything right there. Procution team info wizard. Choose every aspect of production, then track all info associated with production: email, names, deadlines, etc. Smarter tooltip info. Truss indicators, can quickly show where truss connectors are visually. Layout Groups. Create titel block, and then put it anywhere, don’t have to recreate everything. Blacktrax—debuting. Realtime tracking technology. Based on wysiwyg. Completely bi-directionsl feedback of anything you wanted to track-lighting, media servers, etc.

Light Converse

Visualizer. He’s mumbling a lot, and the video doesn’t have any volume. See it: 25-60 fps in visualizer. 500 moving light fixtures with no rendering time. Can be connected to any ArcNet or DMX console to program. Or direct OEM capability with some consoles. Integrated with Vectorworks for easier paperwork before viz. Bi-directional data exchange with Excel as well. Feed it: You can feed content to it, and have it work in its virtual world, esp. with 3d mapping. Track it: Real time live object tracking system to interact with environments. “Soon to be released.”

Light Converse Server. Server mapping and Studio.

OmniSistem

Very small wireless receiver and transmitter. Receiver is size of lipstick. Transmitter is called the hummingbird. UPlighting System. 12 LEDs. 6 RGBA, 6 RGBW. Two LED Ellipsoidal, 50W, with zoom in different form factors.

Coolux Media Systems

Widget Design 4.0 – helps integrate interactivity into Pandora’s Box. Control for any device via built-in webserver. Can help you put in motion control and facetracking and mapping them to lights and video. But new in v.5.3 in Pandora is an interaction level with touch feedback from live inputs. They’re doing camera tracking as well.

The last few bits of this show has been all about camera tracking and interactivity in 3D space. Via IR trackers, fast cameras, etc. We’ll see how that plays out on the show floor! I’ll try and update this later with some photos I took. Thanks all, and be sure and follow @stagedirections on twitter for updates throughout the day from the show floor!

LDI 2012 New Tech Breakfast - Saturday, Oct. 20

2012-10-17T21:30:00.000Z

Hi everyone! Starting at 8 a.m. Saturday, October 20, I'll be liveblogging the new tech Breakfast for LDI right here! The New Tech Breakfast gives manufacturers 5 minutes to quickly tell people what new gear they're showing at LDI. It's a GREAT (if whirlwind) way to see all the new and shiny gear at LDI. On Saturday, the new tech breakfast covers Audio, Rigging, Staging, Special Effects and Lasers! So swing by Saturday to check out the live feed!

Morning everyone! We're just about ready to get started here! Buckle up and let's go!

Ascension Lifts

They manufacture portable wheelchair lifts.

Protégé – up to 42” stages.

Comes out of a crate, plug into a standard outlet, put it in place and start using it. Only draws 2 amps. No tools required. Completel ADA compliance. Perfect for portable stages. Lifts save a lot of floor space by eliminating ramps (ramps require 1 foot horizontal for every 1 inch rise – 36-foot ramp for 36-inch stage.)

Virtuoso goes up to 60 inches. That’s their top limit.

Le Mark Group

They supply gaff tape, show flooring, and Dirty Rigger gloves. 10 distributors in states. Ever chew up your hand during a load-in? They wanna stop this.

OmniSistem

Built business in club sound installs. Now they have a Beta 3 line array, and they think they’re great for night clubs. They also sell amplifiers. 4 channel amp. XA4.14. Powers 4 double-18 subs. 4 ch at 1700W at 8 ohms.

Pangolin Laser Systems

World leader in creating laser light shows. Flagship software is Lasershow Designer 2000. Laser Designer Quickshow is a smaller package for DJ’s and nightclubs to get into. IF you spell Lazer with a Z, it’s for you. Lasershow Designer BEYOND is new software. Power of 2000, ease of Quickshow. Intro’d last year, improved for this year. New innovations: Can create true multimedia shows with audio and video timeline. Can crossfade between multiple audio and video effects. LaserTech has been expanded to pre-viz and control multiple lasers, and create effects across them all.

Laser Net

More lasers! Scanner Pro. They manufacture the laser projectors that Pangolin controls. Showing the professional line of ScannerPro on display today. 4W-25W lasers.

Birket Engineering

Aegis Wireless Control Systems for Pyro. Firelinx is wireless distributed control system designed to integrate pyro safety into your normal show control. Resolved 20 safety deficiencies in standard systems and handle show enable/stage logic functions. They think wireless is fundamentally unreliable. Firelinx can make system reliable even if wireless is not. They’re controllers are a true matrix, not just a master->slave relationship. They stay synced and can talk to each other to stay in touch. On the pic, red line is wireless that peaks during showtime. But during showtime Firelinx uses very very limited RF. SO they can control a large number of channels that don’t have to go thru RF.

Look Solutions

German company, invented first fog machine that didn’t need to be plugged in. Debuted all-in-one tiny fogger to big applause -- Pump, battery, hazer all in one. Get 5 minutes of fogging out of it. Was too busy taking pics to catch the name. I’ll get it in a sec. HA! Not my fault! He didn’t say the name. I asked him after, and it’s called the Tiny S. It’s very cool.

FlutterFetti

X-6 Electric Launcher. Can be controlle d via DMX to open valves. It can shoot streamers more than 100 feet. Been around for about 8 years, but it’s wired, and requires electricity. The new X6 is entire launcher. Battery, wireless controller and launcher in one.

CITC

Bringing organic haze into fog with Aquamax. Designed not to leave a drip on your equipment. Uses little fluid to create a lot of haze. Stays in air for 2 hours. Keeps equipment clean, and you don’t needa lot of time to prep room. Just enough haze to create even atmospheric effect. You don’t want curls or holes, a good haze is even. A/C systems will take haze out of air, and you need to replenish. But if you have a haze that lasts longer, you use less, so you have less chemicals in the air and you use less. When you have low chemicals in your fluid mix that’s organic (oxygenated water) they can get much more out of a gallon. 4 oz / hour in their testing. Tested this for months on lasers—and the front-surface mirrors never got any film build up. Two fans at front of unit plus deflector to director stream. The temperature of fog is mixed with ambient air to keep consistent temperature and consistent field of haze.

Ultratec SFX

Marni's losing her voice, so this is a quick one: Nitrogen Low Fog machine. Booth 841. Uses Nitrogen instead of CO2, which is a concern in some districts.

And that's it! We're out! See you on the show floor!

What Won't Happen at LDI 2012

2012-10-15T05:06:30.000Z

LDI is such a big show, but that doesn't mean it can't be any fun. Here's my joking take on all the crazy things that won't happen at LDI this year. I hope you laugh, and tell me what you think won't happen at LDI this year!

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Gun Gag

2012-10-08T06:00:59.000Z

I got an email the other day from TheatreFace.com member Lauren asking about the gun gag for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In case you're unfamiliar, at one point George threatens Martha with a shotgun, but when he pulls the trigger, a parasol pops out. It's a fun moment -- but not a simple gag for the props department. Lauren was wondering how people built the gun. I remembered that a couple years ago I shot some video at USITT of Greg Bell from Otterbein University explaining how he built the gun for their production -- so I figured I'd share that video below.

But like any other props challenge, there's more than one way to do it well. So I'm putting the query out to you: How'd you handle the gun gag? Share your tips below!

The Anonymous Theatre Company

2012-09-17T03:02:34.000Z

I was talking with some friends this week and conversation turned to headshot trends, audition monologues, and the process of writing a play in the rehearsal room. One of my friends told me about The Anonymous Theatre Company in Portland, Ore. They cast a show -- but no one except the casting director knows who's in the show. Everyone rehearses one-on-one with the director. On the day of the performance the actors enter the theatre in street clothes with the audience, and say their first line from the seats -- after that, they join the cast on stage and the play goes on. It's a one-night only performance. That makes the actor in me terrified. What do you think? What's the most unusual process you've ever worked on as an actor?

Hot Set

2012-08-27T06:00:00.000Z

Was watching Indiana Jones on TV tonight and caught a commercial for Hot Set on the SyFy network. I don't want to sound too much like a network shill, but I'll be tuning in. The show pits Hollywood set designers against each other in a competition style reality show. Sure, sure, I know -- Hollywood, not theatre, but c'mon! They're gonna have a ridiculously short amount of time to build an awesome looking set they know nothing about for a capricious and demanding set of judges who don't know really what they want until they see it and are probably going to give them conflicting demands. How much more like theatre could that sound??!?!?!? So yes, I'll probably be tuning in. Meanwhile -- why don't you tell me what the quickest you had to build a set was? What was it for? How'd it turn out?

[Pic on the left from the SyFy website for Hot Set.]

2012 Tonys

2012-06-11T06:00:00.000Z

Congrats to all the nominees and winners at this year's 2012 Tony Awards!

I'm writing that prematurely, and after the fact. I haven't watched the Tonys yet -- I live out on the West Coast where it's time-delayed, and I was also actually out watching theatre this evening, so while everyone's won -- I still haven't seen the show. I *have* seen clips of it though, thanks to YouTube, which I'll gladly share here. Got any more? Let me know, and I'll embed them here.

What was your favorite number at the Tonys? Who got robbed? And when do you think they'll actually show the "creative" awards on TV? (Even PBS doesn't show them any more!) [UPDATE: The Tonys does have a YouTube channel, though, where they have posted *almost* all of the "Creative Arts Awards." I've embedded all available segments below -- The Tony channel doesn't seem to have posted segements 1 or 2. :-) )

The cast of Book of Mormon opened the show and introduced the host, Neil Patrick Harris

Here's Neil Patrick Harris' opening number:

And here's Jeremy Jordan and the cast of Newsies:

And Jesus Christ Superstar gets down

Danny Burstein from Follies

Caissie Levy & Richard Fleeshman from Ghost the Musical

Matthew Broderick & Kelli O'Hara and the cast of Nice Work If You Can Get It

Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis from Porgy and Bess

Steve Kazee & Cristin Milioti and the cast of Once

Elena Roger & Ricky Martin and the cast of Evita

The cast of Hairspray aboard the Oasis performed via satellite.

Missed the beginning of it, but here's the cast of Godspell performing

Here's the "Year in Plays" bit, including a fun number from the cast of Peter and the Starcatcher and moment from One Man, Two Guvnors, which I didn't get ot see in London, but my wife did.

Here's Hugh Jackman's acceptance speech:

And to end it all, here's Neil's recap song:

And here's all the Creative Arts Awards that the Tonys have shared...:

Norbert Leo Butz giving the award for Best Sound Design of a Play

Beth Leavel giving the award for Best Costume Design of a Play

Best Costume Design of a Musical

Best Scenic Design for a Play (Including a shout out to the Broadway Green Alliance!)

Best Scenic Design for a Musical:

Best Lighting Design of a Musical

Best Lighting Design of a Play

TheatreFace and Rosco Gobo Photo Contest Winner!

2012-06-04T06:44:55.000Z

Wow. Just… Wow, people. I knew this contest would be popular, but I had no idea. People voted more than 32,000 times in this contest! That’s a lot of voting. I’m here to tell you there are some people who really, really wanted to win this one. Before I announce the winner, though—let me first thank EVERYONE who participated. Everyone submitted a photo, everyone who voted, everyone who helped spread the word. And of course, a big thanks to the contest’s sponsor, Rosco.

So now, without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to share that the winner of the first TheatreFace.com and Rosco Gobo Photo Contest, with 14, 572 votes, was …

Michael Diederich, and his photo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Thanks, everyone, and keep your eyes peeled for the next contest!

TheatreFace and Rosco Gobo Photo Contest Finals!

2012-05-29T05:00:00.000Z

It's finally here! After all your submissions and all your voting -- it's time to choose a winner! The eight finalists in the TheatreFace and Rosco Gobo Photo Contest are listed below in alphabetical order. Take a look and then GO VOTE!

Voting will be open until 5 p.m. Pacific Sunday, June 3. You can only vote once, but you can invite all your friends, co-workers and random acquaintances to vote here. They do not have to be members of TheatreFace to vote -- so get the word out!

Winners will receive a Rosco SimpleSpin gobo rotator, plus 10 standard Rosco gobos. And, of course, bragging rights forever. :-) You can follow along with the results here.

So GO VOTE!

Michael Diederich – Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Paul Green - The Battle of Algiers

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Nathaniel Jewett – “The Blinding of Gloucester" Scene from King Lear

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Ethan Krupp - The Winter's Tale

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Amanda Clegg Lyon – Please Don’t Touch

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Porsche McGovern - John Gabriel Borkman
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Jason Tollefson – Rent

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Angelina Vyushkova - Seussical the Musical
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