[Daphne's last blog from the ETC CUE event. Here are the rest of her posts: Welcome to Cue, ETC Introduces Gio Lighting Console, ETC Debuts LED Source 4,…

I wanted to talk this week about estimating labor, but while I was writing, I decided it made sense to dispel some common myths about labor in our industry first. That’s the topic of this week’s post: what we don’t know that we need to know about labor in theatre.

Myth 1: If an employee has a title that denotes “supervisor,” then they are exempt from minimum wage and overtime.

The US Department of Labor has very strict—and very clear—definitions of…

Hearing conservation is a difficult subject to bring people on-board with. Hearing loss is usually gradual and doesn't…

[Daphne Mir (@lekogirl) will be blogging for us all week while she attends the ETC CUE conference. Here are the rest of her posts: Welcome to Cue, ETC Introduces Gio Lighting Console,…

I think I may be getting old.

When I was a younger playwright, I had more patience for the multitudinous, bureaucratic, nonsensical tasks associated with submitting my work for various contests and grants and residencies. You want a 15-page sample instead of a 10-page sample? Sure thing. You want one copy without my name on it, then a separate title page WITH my name on it? I can make that happen. You want me to print my play on vellum using an ink jet cartridge filled with unicorn…

[Daphne writes in about Fred Foster's keynote at the ETC Cue event today. The big news? Fred and ETC debuted their upcoming LED Source 4. Here are the rest of her posts: Welcome to Cue,…

I woke up this morning and headed to work early to finish preparing for ASF's first techie summer day camp - "Behind the Curtain." We've done acting for various ages, stage combat, singing/dance camps for quite awhile, and this summer, the curriculum has been expanded to offering a camp catering to the kids interested in back stage. Our tech staff divided up the first day into chunks to introduce the kids to our various specialties, and met at the end of the day to touch base at where to go…

More news from Daphne out of the ETC Cue event...Here are the rest of her posts: Welcome to Cue, ETC Debuts LED Source 4,…

First things first--the full length, uncut interview with Arlene Hutton and Mark Lutwak, as promised last week.

This week, I wanted to take a break from the interview series to talk a little bit more on the topic of Theater for Youth--both from an acting and writing point of view.

If you've read my blogs from the beginning,…

Greetings from Madison, Wisconsin! Well, not really, I'm still in Las Vegas, but lighting designer, programmer, techie and costumer Daphne Mir (@lekogirl) is blogging from ETC's Cue End-User…

Greetings! I just spent all day in a car traveling the highways through California and Nevada, and I have to say, I'm really glad to be home, and instead touring through all your wonderful photos. I'm always amazed at the wonderful work that you guys do. I have a friend in another town, and we keep in touch online -- and I invariably start each conversation by telling her just how impressed I am with the amount of work she gets done. She's an absolute over-achiever. Well -- I feel the same…

[Daphne Mir (@lekogirl) will be blogging for us all week while she attends the ETC CUE conference. Here are the rest of her posts: ETC Introduces Gio Lighting Console, ETC Debuts LED Source 4,…

Value engineering refers to a specific set of methods and procedures designed to optimize the value of a product or service, based on the relationship of function over cost. Every product has a particular function for which it is intended; balancing a product’s ability to fulfill that function against the cost of producing that product defines its value, and maximizing value—maximizing function while minimizing cost—is the goal of value engineering.

If we consider each…

We can find good guidance for how we should do things in the theatre from some fairly unrelated sources.

The Sterile Cockpit Concept:

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) wants commercial airline pilots to be focused on their work during crucial…

So, I've been blogging here at TheatreFace for more than seven months now, and it occurs to me that I began my tenure here by expressing the hope that this blog would offer opportunities to connect with people... and it most certainly has. The exchanges I've had with folks--typically in the comments on my posts, but also on Twitter and Facebook--have been very gratifying. I've been challenged,…

I joined Myspace and later Facebook almost under protest at the insistence of my then theatre students at UAB in the fall of 2006. I remember the day all too clearly, sitting in my office, as one of my students took over my computer and directed the browser of my eMac to facebook's "create account" page. As unwilling as I was, quickly I became a convert, as I learned that not only could I keep up with my students, I suddenly had the means to keep up with not just my close family but most of…

Hi guys!

Firstly, apologies for being MIA last week. Real life things unfortunately came up and kept me away from TheatreFace. This week I'm back with another interview from the Last Frontier Theatre Conference!



Mark Lutwak is the director of education at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. As artistic director for Honolulu Theatre for Youth (1999-2005), he commissioned, developed and produced 25 new plays. He was also the director for Happy Worst Day Ever, a…

http://www.playbill.com/playblog/2011/07/mac-haydn-theatre-seeks-help-after-fire/

If you're able to help, please do!

Last week I described three common estimating approaches: analogous (top-down), parametric, and bottom-up. We looked at how these approaches increase both in accuracy and in the effort required to complete them, with the analogous approach being the least accurate and fastest to complete and the bottom-up being the most accurate and most-time consuming to generate. However, each approach to estimation has a time and a place, and this week we’ll take a look at how and when to best deploy each…

We’ve talked about safety on catwalks before, and we looked at building safe scenery, too. However, I recently visited some theatres with shows up that lead me to believe this warrants further discussion. Fall prevention isn’t just about technicians on catwalks, scaffolding, or ladders – it applies to performers, as well.

There are…