Breaching the Fourth Wall

One doesn’t get very far in a conversation with a thespian without the course of conversation shifting to the dying art that is theatre.  As much as I love hearing the eulogistic ramblings of an artist who’s been told her medium is no longer financially viable, I can’t help but believe otherwise.

I spent last week in Manhattan, seeing as may shows as possible on a college student budget.  Although I did watch tourist-drawing powerhouses like Rent and Avenue Q, and tried and true revivals like Patti LuPone’s Gypsy, it August: Osage County that restored my faith in American drama and The Great White Way.  A recent transfer to Broadway from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, August follows the dysfunctional falling apart of an Oklahoma family after their patriarch disappears.

One of the few successful collaborative works I’ve seen in a long time, I bordered on giddiness as I witnessed actors superbly acting out Tracy Letts biting script, causing the three and a half hour run time to fly by unbeknownst to audiences. Almost as quotable as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you’ll find yourself torn between outright laughter and cowering from Violet’s drug induced rampages. The set, which called for nine discreet, playable spaces, is beautiful not only for its functionality within the world of the play, but also as a standalone piece of artwork.  The lighting is realistic and yet subtle in its reinforcement of action.

I urge you to go see August if you can make it to New York City by October and discover for yourself that however faint, the pulse of American drama is still beating.  Heavily favored to win this year’s Tony for Best Play, you wont regret the expense of a Broadway ticket.  If you’re a student, don’t forget to flash your ID.  You’ll save a bundle and still get to see full priced quality theatre at the same time.

(2/7 Open Topic) 

I’ve been recently discovering Pageflakes, a customizable website which allows you to keep RSS feeds and widgets in one place.  During my compilation of RSS feeds, I ran across the following useful website.

Live Design is an online magazine which writes about notable events and technology in the live entertainment business.  The latest tools for lighting, audio, automation, staging, pyrotechnics, and rigging are featured and staffing changes at the world’s leading manufacturing and rental companies are included as well.  Designers and engineers are often interviewed about their latest projects and it is a major way universities market their graduate and undergraduate programs to potential students.  Live Design is a useful resource for potential students looking to find a long-term program or professionals who are looking to become certified in specialty or brush up with a master class.

Employment opportunities are listed on the site in addition to educational ones.  To the far right of the main page are several search fields for finding conferences, job openings, shows of interest, and useful online tools for technical theatre folks. Pretty snazzy, eh?

Yet the site’s strength stems from its streamlined and accessible content.  Finding information by subject, popularity, or date is easy and segmented into logical categories.  At the same time, popular or particularly noteworthy articles are posted on the site’s main page, meaning that readers don’t inadvertently miss something newsworthy.

The only setback from the print version of the magazine is the photos. I’m a visua person and love seeing designs and layouts in full page, high resolution spreads. The small images don’t do the original photos or designs justice. Perhaps its publishers need to keep some reason to encourage readers to subscribe to the print magazine as well…

Despite a few nitpicky visual setbacks, Live Design is a site worth bookmarking and keeping tabs on.

Zotero is an online tool which can be used to store bibliographical information about resources found online.  Any researcher’s dream, Zotero can store notes and export bibliographies in any number of formats.  Using Zotero, I created an annotated bibliography on theatrical resources.  One of the entries can be found below:

Wronski, Todd. “Theater in American Higher Education: Respected Discipline or Academic “Poor Cousin”?.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 24.3 (1990): 107-115.

This article examines the place of undergraduate theatre programs and whether or not they are at an equal footing as other academic departments or if they are, as is often complained by theatre academics, the “misunderstood artist” given inferior treatment by university administrations.  Todd Wronski examines the history of theatre as an academic discipline and notes the important distinction between the study of theatre literature and the study of theatre production, which is much newer to the academic scene.  Despite the attitudes of theatre academics that they are treated differently than their cohorts in different disciplines, Wrinski also notes that they achieved equal footing in the 1950s, and that theatre department’s tendency to isolate themselves from “campus politics” is why they feel distanced from institutions.  Theatre administrators and professors must more actively engage in universities as a whole if they are to feel as though they are at equal footing as their associates in other disciplines.

Stage management is ultimately about the clear communication of important information to a wide range of people. One of the ways a stage manager facilitates her job is to assemble a callboard, a bulletin board of pertinent information for anyone involved with the show. It includes the staples like rehearsal schedules and emergency information, but also has useful lists like local restaurants that deliver and the nearest acupuncturist. The stage manager maintains the board throughout rehearsals and the run of the show, always insuring that it is updated and organized. Nothing is more satisfying than stepping away from a beautiful mosaic of brochures, printouts, and pushpins perfectly aligned, knowing no one can ever plead ignorance when al pertinent information is cleanly displayed.

With my history of stage management, it is little surprise that I was swept off my feet when I was introduced to the callboard’s digital sibling, Pageflakes. Finally, a site that allows me to organize my frequently visited websites and resources in one place! My excitement nearly rivaled its level at the release of Sharpie’s silver colored marker.

The additions to my Pageflakes began with RSS feeds, allowing me to view headlines from sites I regularly visit on one page. I began to think about which sites I regularly visit for general theater news, and added the first flake to my page, the theatre section of the New York Times. As someone who grew up living thirty miles outside of the Big Apple, I might be a bit biased about the importance of the publication, but as the home of Ben Brantley’s reviews and any updates about the Great White Way, it is a must read for anyone in the industry. Soon to follow was Playbill.com, made famous by its Broadway programs, which covers theater news on a national scale. Honing in on the technical side of theatre and live events, Live Design quickly became a flake as well. Live Design is the live production standard for news on notable designers, projects, and product releases.

Deviating away from general theater and live entertainment production news, I also found a series of blogs about arts administration, their issues, and how those issues affect productions as whole. Using an anything flake, I quickly created another RSS subheading for arts admin and added Theatre and Entertainment Law, Butts in the Seats, Arts Marketing, and Ghost Light.

My last column of RSS feeds is dedicated to the other primary type of live events in the entertainment visit: concerts. Just as much work for production folks comes from live concerts as from straight theatre, and it is a sector of live entertainment that one would be foolish to ignore. As such, I’ve included three major news sources for live musical acts: Pollstar, the Mix, and Live Music Blog. All three, especially Pollstar, are bibles of information checked by artists, promoters, producers, and venues alike.

Having added RSS feeds of my most frequented sites to one page, I created another page for searches and bookmarks. A search of Pageflakes and blogs is preloaded on this page to search for a number of tags related to live event production. Adding to the convenience of having all of my information in one place, I also uploaded my Diigo bookmarks into its own flake.

As if my own bookmarks weren’t enough, my social bookmarking soul mate’s bookmarks also make an appearance in my Pageflakes. My soul mate is UTTheatre, a production aficionado from Tennessee. Although there are no unique gems among his bookmarks, he’s developed a comprehensive index of online sites related to theatre technology including manufacturers websites, user product reviews, rental houses, and humor. Tapping into UTTheatre’s bookmarks and adding them to my Pageflakes saved me thee effort of compiling these sites myself.

As a fun little addition to the search/bookmarks page, I also added a photo box which features images tagged stage, concert, or performance. Much of live entertainment is about composition and design, and viewing photos of different performances can only help to inspire.

Though RSS feeds, bookmarks, and pageflakes stirred the organizational excitement of the part of me that stage manages, an online tool called Zotero created the same reaction in my inner student. Designed to help keep track of online resources (and generate bibliographies!), it prevents a lot of the backtracking that occur in online research. My final Pageflakes page is dedicated to the resources I found and then tracked using Zotero. My favorite find was an archive of videotaped theatrical productions, called Theatre in Video. Most research materials for theatre either are text-based or in the form of an overpriced ticket. Theatre in Video is a comprehensive online alternative to Lincoln Center’s video archives, which need to be viewed at their facility in New York. On the complete other end of the spectrum, I found full ebook on the implementation of theatrical technology in Shakespearean England. Too cool! On a slightly less optimistic note, the final two articles included on my Pageflake, “Theatre Education” and “Theatre in American Higher Education” both discuss the state of undergraduate theatrical education and what steps administrators need to take in order to improve their programs.

The content of my Pageflakes is about as varied as the ways in which I am involved in live entertainment. These sites are important to the student and the practitioner that I am and hope to continue to be. For the moment, I’ll be content to the step back and admire the ability of an online site to aid me in streamlining the information I view online most frequently, and I don’t doubt that my Pageflakes will see additions in the months to come.

Half the fun of surfing the web and interact with others online is the ability to play detective (or stalker, if taken to the extreme) by piecing together bits of information to form the identity of someone who is otherwise defined only by username.

While exploring the social bookmarking site del.icio.us, one such user became the subject of one of these puzzles. I’d stumbled across UTTheatre while looking through sites on stagecraft and theater production and, after scanning through the topics that he tagged, discovered that his tagging practices lined up beautifully with my interests.

What do I know about UTTheatre directly? Not much. There is little user information directly listed, but I can infer a great deal from which sites he tags. His most popular tag is theatre, followed by entertainment, and stage. Yet what separates him from many of the amateur theatre practitioners online is he is also a well versed in professional theatre demonstrated by his inclusion of more sophisticated tags like LORT (League of Regional Theatres), AEA/Equity (the actors and stage manager’s union), and DMX (a command protocol for theatrical equipment). Though most of his tagging is related to stage production, he has ties to Tennessee, also suggested by the University of Tennessee username, and enjoys sports.

UTTheatre does a lot of tagging (over 300 separate sites!) and is diligent about posting comments for each, although many of his comments do not include much beyond the name of the page. Despite the lack of commenting, his bookmarks make a great index of online resources for major theatrical manufacturers and suppliers as well as general information about what is going on in the industry.

My primary complaint about UTTheatre’s tags is they could be better organized. For all of the well-tagged resources listed, the basic lists and cloud viewing options do not do the content justice. That being said, for virtually every subdivision of technical theatre, UTTheatre has a tag and several sites listed.

Blog readers will not find anything truly out of the ordinary by searching through UTTheatre’s delicious profile, but it is a great launch pad for anyone looking for information on different aspects of live event production that has not already established an extensive database of their own online resources. From the office supply and organization needs of a stage manager to the gadgets and tools of the stagehand, UTTheatre’s page makes a great starting point for anyone interested in staging live events.
Half the fun of surfing the web and interact with others online is the ability to play detective (or stalker, if taken to the extreme) by piecing together bits of information to form the identity of someone who is otherwise defined only by username.

While exploring the social bookmarking site del.icio.us, one such user became the subject of one of these puzzles. I’d stumbled across UTTheatre while looking through sites on stagecraft and theater production and, after scanning through the topics that he tagged, discovered that his tagging practices lined up beautifully with my interests.

What do I know about UTTheatre directly? Not much. There is little user information directly listed, but I can infer a great deal from which sites he tags. His most popular tag is theatre, followed by entertainment, and stage. Yet what separates him from many of the amateur theatre practitioners online is he is also a well versed in professional theatre demonstrated by his inclusion of more sophisticated tags like LORT (League of Regional Theatres), AEA/Equity (the actors and stage manager’s union), and DMX (a command protocol for theatrical equipment). Though most of his tagging is related to stage production, he has ties to Tennessee, also suggested by the University of Tennessee username, and enjoys sports.

UTTheatre does a lot of tagging (over 300 separate sites!) and is diligent about posting comments for each, although many of his comments do not include much beyond the name of the page. Despite the lack of commenting, his bookmarks make a great index of online resources for major theatrical manufacturers and suppliers as well as general information about what is going on in the industry.

My primary complaint about UTTheatre’s tags is they could be better organized. For all of the well-tagged resources listed, the basic lists and cloud viewing options do not do the content justice. That being said, for virtually every subdivision of technical theatre, UTTheatre has a tag and several sites listed.

Blog readers will not find anything truly out of the ordinary by searching through UTTheatre’s delicious profile, but it is a great launch pad for anyone looking for information on different aspects of live event production that has not already established an extensive database of their own online resources. From the office supply and organization needs of a stage manager to the gadgets and tools of the stagehand, UTTheatre’s page makes a great starting point for anyone interested in staging live events.

Searching through the social networking site delicious is like playing six degrees of separation. One search word can lead to a full chain of practical and even entertaining connections.

I began my hunt with “theatre production management” in the search field, which resulted in an advertisement assault peddling everything from speakers to pyro effects. The first diamond in the rough was eProduction, a site that helps to manage many of the paper heavy tasks of production management including contact list and rehearsal schedule distribution, notes for actors and designers, and reminders for deadlines and meetings. This site would be a valuable tool for stage and production managers alike and may also single handedly slow the deforestation of the planet with their intensive love for paperwork….

Through the user who tagged eProduction, I also found the SMNetwork. A social forum for stage managers of all levels of experience, it is a place for members of a very specialized profession to ask questions, establish friendships, and find professional opportunities. Forum topics include everything from what type of flashlights people prefer to use, different types of blocking notation for dance, and how to handle that finicky director that just doesn’t want to cooperate with the rest of the production team.

And for those of us who are interested in sheer entertainment rather than networking or productivity, Broadway Abridged is a fantastic find. A sure love for anyone who is interested procrasting a la YouTube or Facebook, the site contains parodied scripts of shows that are currently on the Great White Way. My personal favorite was the parody of the revival of A Chorus Line, harsh but hilarious look at the show much like an online version of Forbidden Broadway. After all, everyone needs a good chuckle when trying to avoid getting work done…

It only takes one post to know that David Cote is a theatre veteran.   Throughout his blog, Histriomastix, I am reminded of many a headset conversation with fellow crewmembers during less than engaging productions.  His dry sense of humor, irreverence, ego, and proper appreciation of a well-placed expletive all strike me as characteristically theatrical.

Published author and freelance writer for periodicals as varied as The New
The New York Times to Maxim.   His self-proclaimed love for Indian food, blasphemy, and alternative historical fiction immediately struck a chord with me, and his eccentricity and audacity as a writer punch to the forefront of websites centered on the New York City theatre scene.

David Cote does not worry about appearing controversial or confrontational, and in fact, may even relish it.  His avatar, a cartoon of himself in Elizabethan garb, is upstaged only by the drawing’s prominent middle finger, sending out a warning to readers that Histriomastix will not be a strictly academic or analytical blog, and those people who are easily offended need not read any further.  The tagline below the site’s header is “sound and fury from a New York theatre critic,” furthering the idea that rippling the pond should be the expected norm in his blog.

Beyond merely having a flare for the controversial, Cote seems to enjoy riling up his readers, especially if it leads to a strong reaction.  In “Catechism on a Hot Tin Roof”, a lengthy segue from theatre which touches on the author’s views on religion we get the idea that this site is meant to spark dialogue, not a one way diatribe. Capping off his hot post, Cote finishes by summarizing, “I don’t tell people they can’t believe, they can’t worship and they can’t try to convince other people of their beliefs. Much as I logically and ethically deplore religion, I don’t do that. I may ridicule, cajole and make sweeping rhetorical gestures.”  I’m sure these words were penned knowing that they would lead to the outcry of comments in response.

Histriomastix stands out from other sites that employ the same incendiary tactics, because it is clear he respects his readership.  Although he comes across as extremely opinionated and set in his ways, he dutifully and thoughtfully responds to each reader comment without the condescension that leads to a loss of credibility.  Such behavior is indicative of professionalism towards his readers despite differing viewpoints, and for that he earns my admiration.

For all of the debate fostered at Histriomastix, Cote maintains his image as a respectable theatre critic through well-developed reviews of New York City based productions and updates about the goings on of theatre companies and major awards.  His analysis of the 2007 Tony Awards and how the success of its broadcast versus other television programming that night and its correspondence to the role of theatre in American society was particularly notable.  The peppering of posts recommending which shows are worth seeing (and the lists are fairly comprehensive), one gets the sense that Cote is sees a lot of live theatre and has enough experience to speak authoritatively on the topic.

The design of Cote’s site furthers his image as a theatrical authority, especially concerning any New York City based productions.  His main page includes a healthy list of links to websites for artists, theater festivals, venues, news, and blogs.  The page’s layout emphasizes content: there are no large visual distractions on the page, and the large, black on white posts make text easy to read and  maintain the same visual that might be viewed at sites of accepted news authorities like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

Beyond being both controversial and content-driven, I enjoy reading this site because the language is entertaining while still having something to say.  Anyone who can use the transition “speaking of fucked up families” and have it segue into a coherent piece of writing deserves praise.  Posts with titles like “When the Fat Blogger Sings,” a post about hybrid theatre/opera productions further adds to the wittiness factor of the site, and reminds readers that Cote may be opinionated, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

All in all, Histriomastix is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in theatre, even if they are not familiar with or interested in the New York City theatre scene.  David Cote develops his online identity as one that jives with the theatrical types who might be visiting his blog.  Opinionated, controversial, but not without sense of humor, a reader gets a clear and consistent understanding of Cote’s persona throughout his posts, and although his voice may drip with a bit of sass and irreverence, Histriomastix is a worthwhile journey into bloggerdom.

Amidst the many, many blogs of amateur theatre critics online (and trust me there are many, covering the full spectrum of level of interest and quality), Violet Vixen stands out as a entertaining an informative read. Violet Vixen’s self titled blog is a mix of Los Angeles performance related analysis and reviews with the occasional commentary of films, television and current events, with a particular focus on queer theatre and those issues that most directly effect the gay community. A Los Angeles based graduate student with an affinity for theatre and performance art, Vixen’s post are a mix of informal familiarity, wit, and personal anecdote.

The front page of Vixen’s blog create the identity of a progressive thinker and a taste for the eccentric. Her blogroll includes site like A Daily Dose of Queer and Neil Gaiman’s Journal, neither of which are sites that would be considered mainstream culture.

Upon my first view of her site, the inconsistency of post topics of Vixen’s site turned me off. Not someone well versed in blogs, I like the more streamlined content found in print materials. Yet after my initial negative reaction to fluidity of subject matter, I found the potpourri of topics to be a healthy remedy an attention span I might describe as lacking. The variety of Vixen’s discussion ensured when my interest wanes from a particular post, I know the next one will bring a slight change of pace that may grasp my interest.  Additionally, each post brings a new surprise as your are never quite sure about what the next post will entail.

Not that Vixen’s posts are boring.  Her greatest strength is her ability to catch my attention within the first sentence of her posts.  I enjoyed the opening to her most recent post, What’s a Girl to Do? , which begins with the punch, “What do you do when a friend writes to say that there’s a fabulous queer femme performance artist you don’t know about who wants to perform in LA?” Not a dilemma I face too frequently, the question leaves me wanting to know more.   Many of her posts open similarly, piquing enough interest right away to keep me reading.

Violet Vixen successfully creates a memorable blog, most noticeably by making the connection between her name and the layout’s raging fuchsia color scheme. Although the design of Vixen’s site may visually support her two sentence identification as a Los Angeles based lesbian theatre student and aficionado, the onslaught of pink upon the entrance to her main page undercuts her credibility. Perhaps I am conditioned to appreciate sleek, simple designs and associate them with intellectual authority, but appreciating someone’s text, no matter how well written or insightful, is difficult to take seriously when confronted with a wall of text I most quickly associate with packaging for a Barbie Doll.

All in all a well done site with engaging writing created by a memorable persona.  Although Vixen may not be an “authority” she draws readers in with her well developed identity and entertaining reads.

We live in a state of information overload.

Daily, our senses our bombarded with innumerable messages by visual and aural means, and the ways in which we can keep ourselves informed and entertained are constantly growing. Between professionally produced television, newspapers, billboards, books, the internet, and our friends, we have an almost infinite number of methods of communicating and messages to be communicated all competing with one another for our limited attention.

When combined with the thoughts and worries of our daily life, it’s a wonder our heads don’t explode.

In the realm of entertainment, especially live events, my interest in how production values, including lighting, sound, pyrotechnics, projection, and special effects, help to further the experience of a show.

Live events, when compared with the rest of the entertainment industry, may seem like a narrow category, but it is surprising just how frequently we are the intended recipients of presentations. Guerilla theater on city streets, corporate presentations to shareholders and industry professionals, theme park rides, and ninety-nine seat equity waiver houses, and even university lecture halls are all viable venues for the live presentation of ideas.

Yet amidst these different options, the collaborators behind each project strive for the same goals: presentation of ideas and communication of a story, and it is how these ideas are conveyed that fascinates me, especially because direct, oral communication is a universal experience. Everyone knows what it feels like to sit through a bad presentation or performance. Whether it was the overuse of technical flash and trash meant to distract an audience from the a lack of plot or an unnecessary amount of special effects employed by a designer with not enough appreciation for simplicity, technology does not make or break a live event. But on the other end of the spectrum where microphones feedback, lighting is not bright enough, and the video footage takes just a second too long to be cued, one quickly discovers that a solid foundation of the most basic of production values can mean the difference between being captivated by the content of a presentation and being distracted by that tiny flickering light just in front of a speaker’s lecturn. As most of have had drilled into our heads at one point or another, presentation is key.

This blog will be my attempt at exploring the clockwork behind live events. What are producers finding worthy of putting in the public eye and how effectively are they doing it? What are the trends in live presentations? What tools are being used and which industry professionals are making the biggest splash?

As a dabbler in all things related to live entertainment (read: I’ve sold my soul to technical theater and production management) I’m intrigued by all things related to it and hope to understand it.

Coming from a collaborative and often crazily artistic industry, all feedback is welcome and appreciated. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats, the house lights are about to go down….

Looking forward to the discovery,

AlltheWorldsAStage