schools
Chicago: Michael Merritt Awards this Monday, May 3rd.
Columbia College still won’t release the MerrittAwards.org URL, instead using it to promote their own theatre programs instead. They can’t even be bothered to mention the awards, the foundation, or even link to another source. So, despite this being the 17th year the Merritt Awards have been held, I’m stuck directing you to a... »
Theatre fire codes must be heeded, but good luck finding them
A BackstageJobs.com user’s e-mail lead me to this discovery. This person had discovered that the theatre they were working in had no fire extinguishers. This would seem odd to pretty much any theatre person in the US, if not the world. The reasoning given by building management was that because the sprinkler system could... »
FCC gives the official finger to theatres and live entertainment
The Federal Communications Commission has ordered all users of wireless microphones to find new broadcast frequencies by June 12th, 2010. Friday’s order came after years of legal wrangling over the 700 megahertz band by Broadway (the only entertainment grouping that could afford to challenge it) and cellular phone and internet providers. The FCC’s order... »
The obligitory look back at 2009
I tell myself that I’m not going to do one of these, and then remember that they are marginally useful. Here’s just a few of the stories we looked at in the last year. Learn past or repeat… Chicago started off 2009 with the loss of its free downtown trolleys. Tourists (especially those heading to... »
Kids aren’t stupid.
I attended a show Friday with about 600 students, approximately ages 6 to 12. (I already see many of you shuddering at the thought.) Granted, many of these kids could have cared less about being there. There were pockets of them in each class that wouldn’t have stopped talking or started really watching the show if... »
Amateur rigging can result in injury, or death.
And I include amateurs operating professionally rigged systems in the above statement. Recently, @thtrbob posted some Youtube videos on his blog “Confessions of a Chicago Theatre Addict.” They were intended to be a followup to his previous post about his love of “Peter Pan” and not being able to get access to the Flying By... »
What I’ve missed
Tonight, students of Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nevada will present “The Laramie Project” as scheduled, after a judge ruled that parents objections could not legally force the school to cancel the production. A parent group had filed suit against the school district, claiming the the productions of “The Laramie Project” and “Rent”... »
Passings
The entertainment world lost some friends this past week. Ric Wagner, co-founder of Concerts in the Country, and other Maryland artistic endeavors, drowned while trying to rescue his son from the Atlantic Ocean September 21st. His son survived. Producer and artist manager Greg Ladanyi, died September 29th from sustaining a severe head trauma while on tour... »
Around the theatre web for August 8th, 2009
IATSE Local 482 has filed a grievance against the University of Illinois protesting U of I’s hiring of a non-union, out-of-state company to install hoist systems in the university’s Assembly Hall. Local 482 members have been picketing Assembly Hall for the last two weeks, claiming this violates their contract with the university. IATSE has... »
Quote of the Day for June 25, 2009
“The presence of music did not directly produce a more effective subsistence economy and greater reproductive success, he concluded, but it seems to have contributed to improved social cohesion and new forms of communication, which indirectly contributed to demographic expansion of modern humans to the detriment of the culturally more conservative Neanderthals.” -Thomas H. Maugh... »
Hudson & Gaines
