February 2011 Blog Posts (19)

SERAPID, Inc recently updated their web site: www.serapid.us.

A product-centered focus, technical expertise and navigational ease were the factors driving the original design concept. In this update site visitors will find smoother navigation to the products and solutions they seek from SERAPID right on the home page.

Additional product updates include new standard specifications for the Telescopic Mast, and product…

My engineer friend Rod, who pointed out some flaws in my math regarding the moon platform a couple of weeks ago, dropped me a note after last week’s post with some additional questions about the pneumatic system. In the midst of that email conversation, he wrote, “We try to design things such that if they fail, they fail safe. Not always possible, but always worth the consideration.” A simple statement, but worth unpacking.

The term failsafe, as defined by…

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I’ve been thinking a great deal about Claude Monet’s paintings of haystacks. If you aren’t familiar with them – and cannot be bothered to click the link I’ve just given you because, well, that’s HARD – Haystacks is a series of impressionist paintings of,…

Until the last few years, if you wanted to do theatre sound and get a degree or emphasis in audio, you had to make due in undergrad with special projects style courses and practical experience, and then apply to one of the theatre masters programs with an audio emphasis, or find a fine arts program that offered audio instruction. Sound is just beginning to be taught in general undergraduate programs as a mainstay of the curriculum, and it will be a long while yet before it's as basic as…

Just home from Denver where I spent the weekend at the Colorado New Play Summit, hosted by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. This was a great weekend of world premieres, staged readings, and other events (like the playwrights slam--where invited playwrights read from their new and unfinished material). I'm a little beat -- there was a curtain every three hours. It was a FANTASTIC weekend, but I haven't even had time to breathe, let alone put my thoughts together about it. So I'm…

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Wybron's™ new Mobile Light Lab, a 48-foot pop-out-equipped trailer…

This week, wrapping up this (longer than I expected) series on the moon platform for Arabian Nights, we’ll walk through the construction of the moon platform we’ve been looking at, including details about the framing, the pneumatics, and the backup hand-brakes. More importantly, as promised, I’ll include some photos and some drawings.

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About twenty years ago there were a sets of regulations outlined that addressed the needs of persons with special handicaps. These needs are handled differently in various countries around the world, but the general intent is to assure that buildings and facilities are equally accessible by everyone. In the United States this is commonly referred to as the ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act. The…

In my last blog post, I suggested that what might have addressed some of the problems faced by both the initial production of Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (affectionately known as iHo) and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is a new culture of openness: inviting, allowing, and expecting audiences to engage with work before its finished and polished. Such transparency would help us learn about the…

During the tech of one of our last shows, a guest designer and I were discussing the computer playback system ASF owns and bemoaning that my budget doesn't have enough leeway to upgrade or replace it, since in the way of programming the software is out of date.

One of my operators (who is only a few years my junior) popped off that at least we were computerized and not having to deal with CD or MiniDisc. This led to me to my own tirade about when I was an engineer and my…

Continuing my series on Stage Managing, I'll wrap it here after writing on Stage Managing 101, Basic SM Duties, Basic SM Tools - Clothes, and …

[originally posted at www.culturalweekly.com]

As we watch the live feed from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, I am brought back to similar scenes last December, as the capital of Belarus erupted in protests against a presidential election that international observers said was falsified. Over 1000 people were beaten and thrown into jail. Among them were members of the Belarus Free Theatre, a theatre that began in 2005 during…

The last two weeks we’ve looked at the physics involved in moving, stopping, and holding in place a fairly large scenic platform. Last week, I mentioned in the comments that a good friend of mine, Rod, who works as a civilian engineer for the army, had some things to say about last week’s post (you can see his comment here). He raises important considerations that I thought were worth examining,…

Recent announcements for the government to down-size and slash budgets on both a National and State level have had a chilling effect on the arts community. Plans to kill departments like the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fly in the face of logic when the other announced goal is to improve the quality of education and better prepare a workforce that is competitive on an international scale.

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The recent opening of the New World Center in Miami Beach, is home to the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy. The building is designed by Frank Gehry and Partners and features a stage lift utilizing SERAPID LinkLift Lifting Columns.

The New World Symphony fellowship program is for graduates of distinguished music programs providing them the opportunity for leadership positions in orchestras…

I write this blog on a break during a 10 out of 12. Originally I'd thought I'd write a post about the differences between designing for a published work, versus designing for a new work. But instead I'm finding the challanges of period music more on my mind.

My current project at ASF is a sound design for a "The Flag Maker of Market Street," a new play by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder. The play is set in Montgomery Alabama in 1860 in the months leading up to the Civil War.…