In the fairly recent past, an active subject of conversation that kept resurfacing was the content of current shows in the commercial sector. Namely, the fact that a majority of new productions on Broadway are based on pre-extant Intellectual Property. Of course many artists aren’t too thrilled about this when...

More
  • September 4, 2010
  • 1

Perhaps I am a mis-creation No one knows the truth there is no future here And you’re the DJ speaks to my insomnia And laughs at all I have to fear Laughs at all I have to fear You always play the madmen poets Vinyl vision grungy bands You never...

More
  • September 2, 2010
  • 14

At the recent Chicago Theater (anti-)Conference hosted by Theater Wit, I received a lot of questions about events. I’ve got some pretty strong feelings about them. I’ve planned about a zillion and I gotta say, I rarely love the process. But, I like going to events. I enjoy knocking back...

More
  • September 2, 2010

Earlier this month, I spent three days indulging in an activity which is a rare luxury for a technician who works in small theatres: a complete cleaning and inspection of our lighting inventory.  We went top to bottom–every single lens barrel was taken apart, every lens cleaned, every reflector checked,...

More
  • August 26, 2010
  • 5

This past weekend at the Chicago Theatre anti-Conference (#ctac, if you feel like swimming up the Twitter stream), erstwhile arts-administrators-turned-funders Christy Uchida, Boeing Chicago’s Community Investor, and Paul Botts, from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation, gave conference attendees the gift of some hard-won insights through a discussion entitled, “If...

More
  • August 25, 2010
  • 9

Collation line.  Apparatus.  Strip of terror.  Whatever you call it, it’s that somewhat inscrutable line or two of apparently Enigma code between the text and the annotations, particularly in a modern edition of, say, Shakespeare.  It might seem irrelevant or irretrievably geeky, but there are all kinds of important, dramatically...

More
  • August 24, 2010
  • 2