Around the theatre web for Monday, March 10th…
First off, the ecoTheater blog has this post about lighting:
On average, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that approximately 1.34 pounds of CO2 are released into the atmosphere for every kilowatt hour burned. If we were to extrapolate that figure to determine the carbon footprint of a typical regional theater resulting from its use of theatrical lighting equipment we would find that the “Generic Theater Company,” running 150 ETC Source Four lighting instruments with 575 watt HPL lamps an average of six hours per day would produce about 253,000 lbs of carbon dioxide per year (we could, of course, fuss around with the “hours per day” figure I decided on, but I spent a few years as a theatrical electrician at an SPT and have a good idea just how long those instruments are really burning from day to day in a theater with a full production and rental calendar). That’s nearly 130 tons of greenhouse gases, and is roughly equivalent to the energy use of fifteen average U.S. households annually.
LED’s are currently being touted as the future of theatre lighting, but until you can use them as a focusable point source (i.e. you can get sharp edges and project images with them), we will still be using incandescent sources for much of our lighting gear. Also, while everyone seems to pretend otherwise: LED do burn out. They don’t do it as often as other sources, but some are flawed, and some burn out early (how many “30 year” fluorescent lamps have you replaced after just 6-7 years?). It must also be simple and cost effective to replace an LED cluster before there will be widespread adoption of this technology.
ARTicles has three posts (probably more) about the problem with arts coverage and criticism in today’s media, one specifically dealing with the current trend of user/random audience member criticism becoming more prevalent than that from media companies.
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…the Catch-22. Newspapers don’t have enough resources to review most productions. And if a production doesn’t get reviewed, it and its potential audience must rely on mass consensus reviews by amateur theatergoers.
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Lewis Segal, chief dance critic for the Los Angeles Times, learned Friday that the paper will no longer support a full-time dance critic. His position is being eliminated. This after a week in which he wrote three feature-length reviews, a Sunday piece and a long obit.
The Playgoer also has two posts I’d like to highlight. One about subsidiary rights, and one about censorship/appeasing the non-audience (my description, not his):
I didn’t. And neither apparently did Craig Lucas, who has just withdrawn his latest, A Prayer for My Enemy, from their next season over the clause.
A Boston production of My Name is Rachel Corrie is the starting point for the second post:
Lombardo’s rationale could be deployed to justify buffering any number of controversial–or once-controversial–plays. To take him at his word, you’d assume his theatre would also stage, say, Inherit the Wind in conjunction with a pro-Creationist play. Might some communities still into “traditional” male-female relationships be right in asking that even A Doll House to share a bill with, I don’t know, some Victorian family melodrama like East Lynne?…
…by running for cover behind as many “diverse views” as possible, we deprive the theatre of that special frisson that can only come from confronting the unpleasant. Even if it is “wrong.” Think of that ending from Wallace Shawn’s Aunt Dan and Lemon, for instance, where the heroine leaves us with an atrocious monologue justifying Kissingerian ethics on warcrimes, assassination, and such. Now imagine someone coming out after the show having to explain to you, “Now boys and girls, that was just a play. We don’t really think that.”
One NYC StageHand touches on a related subject, personal feelings about what is happening on the stage you are working at:
In this case, the US flag was on a staff USR. I was in a bucket 25″ in the air which always allows one a different point of view on things. In the turmoil the flag got knocked to the deck. Not a big deal. But then the knocker proceeded to step back and forth, from US to CS and back, over the staff and flag. Now the staff had one of those tips you would find on a pike, rather pointed and was right at knee height, a physical danger. I had two reactions…
I think that is a good place to end, as it brings up this question: Although the majority of those that work in the arts tend to have what would be called a “liberal” view of the world, not everyone has the same opinion about any given topic. How do your personal views about current “hot” topics (religion, Iraq, sex, homosexuality, Israel and Palestine, politics, abortion, etc…) affect your work on productions that may show or promote the opposite view? Are co-workers that have views that seemingly contradict their being in theatre (such as being anti-gay) able to tolerate constantly being around the idea that they dislike?
Hudson & Gaines
