Interview with Wan-Jung Wei: OISTAT’s Youngest Executive Director Wan-Jung Wei is the youngest Executive Director of OISTAT: International Organisation of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians, since its inception in 1968. She is a choreographer and arts manager with an MA in Arts Politics, known by her dance and politics friends for having special or […]
Misconceptions is a new play opening this May in NY, presented by physical theatre company Blessed Unrest, written by the Emmy-nominated playwright Steve Wangh, and directed by Jessica Burr. Described as “A very serious – and very funny – play about abortion”, the production discusses the social and political landscape in the USA about women’s […]
Karen Johal is a British south Asian actor who hails from Birmingham in the UK. In 2014 Karen moved to New York City to train professionally at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After graduating in 2017 she was subsequently cast in The Public Theater’s production of Julius Caesar directed by Oskar Eustis, and soon […]
GalaPro is a theatre accessibility app that provides real time translation and captioning for theatregoers. Owned by The Shubert Organization, the GalaPro app offers a variety of services on demand for audiences on their phones. About GalaPro GalaPro. short for GalaPrompter, was setup in 2015 after the founders Hagai Pipko and Dr. Elena Litsyn saw […]
We all like the allure of a shiny new thing. On tour, there’s something initially exciting about being the first theatrical show in a theatre, but then you get there and realize you’re not getting to test drive a slick new theatre with all the bells and whistles. Instead, you’ve become a beta tester for a building and you’re going to find all the kinks the venue staff will have to eventually work out.
Resa Mishina is a New York based dancer, actor, singer, and gymnast. She is a proud native of Yokohama, Japan, and spent her childhood years in Japan and Singapore. She started competing as a gymnast when she was 8 and has placed in several national and international competitions. In 2009, Resa was hand-picked by the […]
The Tank NYC presents the World Premiere of Immense Joy, a new show devised and directed by Anna Kohler. Inspired by the writings of Clarise Lispector, Immense Joy is scheduled for a run from 8 – 18 September 2022 at The Tank NYC. Immense Joy The Tank presents Immense Joy, a new work devised and directed […]
Opera Hack is a first-of-its-kind gathering of artists, designers, and technology experts from around the world dedicated to the advancement of the art form of opera. Teams of artists and technicians will collaborate and compete with proposals to meet challenges in the opera industry. Participants will have the opportunity to network with creators from different cities […]
As we move into our third year of navigating a global pandemic, the way we experience theater continues to refine itself and adapt to new forms of technology, inclusion, and innovation. Backstage’s awards editor Jack Smart perhaps put it best when he said, “Big picture, years from now, looking at the entertainment industry in general, the pandemic is going to have these great benefits because it was an opportunity—or an obligation—to reassign some values, to reassess, to rebuild, even.”
If you wanted to, this past weekend, you could finally dine inside a restaurant, attend an indoor catered affair, visit MoMA, catch a movie on the big screen, sit inside a coffee shop, or go to the gym—but you could not have enjoyed one of New York’s most quintessential experiences: live theater.
Joel Veenstra is a professional stage manager, production manager, producer, and improviser. He stage manages large scale celebrity galas, including the Legacy Awards, honouring numerous A-list luminaries, and also serves as the University of California’s (UCI) Claire Trevor School of the Arts’ (CTSA) Drama Department’s Associate Chair of Production. In addition to being an Actors […]
Joel Veenstra is a professional stage manager, production manager, producer, and improviser. He stage manages large scale celebrity galas, including the Legacy Awards, honouring numerous A-list luminaries, and also serves as the University of California’s (UCI) Claire Trevor School of the Arts’ (CTSA) Drama Department’s Associate Chair of Production. In addition to being an Actors […]
As designers specialized in theaters and performing spaces based in Vietnam, me and my company SLA designers have been visiting and scouting a number of theaters and performing art spaces in the country for over five years now. We have also been meeting and exchanging with various professionals of the entertainment industry such as show directors, technicians, event organizers and investors.
Momoko Sugai is an actor, dancer and singer originally from Chiba, Japan. She relocated to United States in 2010 and has been working as a performer in various states after she graduated from Fullerton College (CA) where she trained in Musical Theatre.
It’s almost impossible to concentrate on what’s in front of us right now. We’re all so overloaded with stimuli that the average attention span has shrunk to goldfish lengths. My husband scolds me on a daily basis for scrolling through my phone as I half-engage with whatever TV show we’re watching. I sometimes find myself being surprised by plot points that occurred months ago because I was playing Best Fiends when they were introduced. That’s why I’ve always loved seeing movies in the theater. I turn my phone off, the lights go down and I’m laser focused on the giant screen in front of me for two hours. Unfortunately, many other cinemagoers are not as disciplined. I’ve seen people read the New York Post on gigantic iPads in the middle of a dark movie theater. Drinks and snacks are an essential part of the movie theater experience, but they create non-stop ambient noise. I also live in New York City and New Yorkers love to have full, one-sided conversations with characters in movies and are more than willing to loudly explain mundane plot points to their companions. So where can anyone go to have a chance of consuming entertainment without being distracted by their devices and their fellow culture enthusiasts? The theater.
An open letter to Playbill has been released by a national network of theatre workers in the USA, requesting that clear rates of pay are required on all jobs. The organisations are gathering signatures of support in ensuring Playbill’s job site embraces pay transparency.
The process of buying a ticket has never been more straightforward or more secure, thanks to technology. Long gone are the days of standing in line at a box office or being put on hold on a landline phone. If you have ever bought a ticket, you have probably become inundated with emails and social media campaigns with ticket offers. But with live entertainment and theaters around the world closed, what did I buy with this “ticket”?
In part two of our series with The Smith Center, we looked at engaging with sensory friendly companies. In part three we are finding out the process for putting shows together and how this works on the day with Melanie Jupp.
Melanie Jupp is the Associate Director of Education and Outreach at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and has served as project lead for The Smith Center’s sensory friendly programming, which is accomplished through the collaborative work of numerous individuals and departments of The Smith Center. Sensory friendly programming is one step presenting venues can take toward prioritising inclusion in their organisations.
It is difficult to recognize a once-in-a-lifetime moment when it’s happening. We strive to adhere to the principle of “living in the moment” but it is a hard concept to wrap your head around when there are so many things to think about every second of the day. It is one of many reasons people go to the theater: to escape reality and immerse themselves in a world either better or simply different than their own.
Recently, I was on a crew of three working a small event at a community college. As the audio engineer on the call, one of my tasks was to set up a small lobby PA before the event and take it down once the theatre portion was underway (the first half an hour or so was one person talking into a wireless mic, so I had ample time to go out and retrieve the PA). The rig consisted of one rolling rack of gear and a large Mackie powered speaker on a stand. Cake, right?
My name is Todd Hutchinson and I’m the Vice-President of the longest continually running community theater in the state of Vermont, The Springfield Community Players. We are looking for your help. But, before you can help us, first you must get to know us.
As I finish my show on the Las Vegas strip at 11:00 pm, it’s already 4:00 pm tomorrow in Australia. My friends in Montreal and New York are probably already in bed at 2:00 am. My London people are just getting up or in the case of some of my friends, just getting home at 7:00 am. Whereas the folks in Dubai have probably just started work at 10:00 am. I feel like half my time is spent staring at the World Clock app trying to work out the appropriate time to text and FaceTime my friends and family around the world.
I have two weeks before I leave the United Kingdom for good and re-start or kick start my life again in the United States. And so I am busily trying to close up my life here in England while learning fifty pages of text for a one-man stage play that I will shortly be doing at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
It was 18:05 on a Thursday and I walked out into the floral air of the concert hall foyer. Filled with gold bannisters and plush carpets, the room was starting to fill. Tribes of classical music fans filled the foyer sipping champagne and pensively flicking through programs as they discuss the affairs of the day with each other.
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