Tag Archive
Ask and you shall receive… an educated guess
Yesterday, news that Chicago’s Mercury Theatre was facing foreclosure made its way around the the web. Out of that, the size question was inevitably raised about the theatre, as it is an intimate space, but with a larger house than most with that size of a stage (my count was 285 seats at the... »
The audience. Part 2: the reason for our work.
Those of us that write about working in live entertainment tend to go on about the things we work with. Shiny new gear, and old crappy gear; working conditions, co-workers, employers, locations, fun/odd/terrible things that happened during a show, etc… But often we forget about the entire reason we are working on a production:... »
The audience. Part 1: If they tend to be older, why do we get the gray hair?
Many theatre professionals have a love/hate relationship with the audience. On one hand, we want them to enjoy the production. On the other hand, we want them to not disrupt the production with actions normally equated with the maturity of a 13 year-old. Here are just some of the odd and inappropriate behaviors... »
Old, experienced, and anew.
One of the debates currently going on asks “why are we still producing so many OLD plays? Why are we not producing more new plays?” Last night I was privileged to be working on a play I had done years ago. And though the play itself was familiar to me, and the text much older... »
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... »
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... »
“New Media” ain’t all that new.
It seems every other year there is a new internet fad that everyone jumps on. Currently it is Facebook and Twitter. Theatres are told they must use these sites/services in order to find new audiences, and frequently jump on the bandwagon without knowing what to do when they get there. The usual refrain is... »
Hudson & Gaines
