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According to a Princeton economic senior’s thesis, women playwrights are having their work produced at the same rate as men, proportionate to the ratio of submissions.

It appears that the conventional wisdom is true: women submit fewer plays than men. But there is also a big surprise.  While it is true that plays written by women are sometimes disregarded because they were written by a woman, apparently female artistic directors and literary managers are predominantly the ones that are biased.  Males in the same roles rated scripts equally, regardless of if the playwright was supposed to be male or female.

Kris Vire has a great post up on Time Out Chicago with Chicago female artistic directors and literary managers responding to this new report.

The full report can be downloaded here.

H/T to Kris Vire for tweeting this.

From the press release:

The Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP) will launch practice exams for the rigger - arena, rigger - theatre, and entertainment electrician certification exams on July 15. The web-based practice exams will consist of 50 questions and are available from that date forward for $35 at www.goamp.com. Candidates should go to “candidates” and then follow the menu to ETCP, where can they choose one of the three exams.

The ETCP Council reports that there is a certain amount of fear surrounding the exams because many candidates have not taken an exam in quite some time and/or may be unfamiliar with computer-based testing. The 50 question practice exams will provide candidates with a valuable tool for self assessment. There is no application process with the practice exams; so any interested candidate will be able to take the exam privately at home, at the office or on the road whenever it is most convenient for him or her.

“I speak with candidates every day who are intimidated by this exam,” said Meredith Moseley-Bennett, the ETCP certification manager, “Our hope is that the candidates who opt to take the practice exams will go into the actual exam feeling more comfortable and confident because they have gotten a general sense of the exams beforehand. Since the practice exams are exactly one-third of the test questions of the final exams, the candidates can time themselves for one hour to make sure they are answering the questions within the proper time-frame. At the end of the practice exams, candidates will be provided with a score report that is divided into the broad areas of the content outline which will help them get a sense of the areas that need more attention.”

The ETCP Council members are key leaders drawn from entertainment business, labor, facilities, associations, and academia representing the diversity of the entertainment industry. Membership includes AMPTP, BASE Entertainment, Broadway Across America, The Broadway League, Cirque du Soleil/MGM MIRAGE, CITT, Disney Theatrical Productions, ESTA, IAAM, IATSE, InfoComm, The League, Live Nation, PRG, NBC Universal, SHAPE, TEA, and USITT. ETCP is an ESTA initiative created to promote industry safety.

The Boston Globe has this great report on the circumstances surrounding the failure of North Shore Music Theatre:

Ivan, whom Kimbell termed a friend after working with him for 12 years, knew the theater had financial problems when he took the job, he said. But it wasn’t until he had started that he recognized their extent.

The information, however, was readily available in the theater’s public filings. North Shore, which had deficits in 2005 ($492,184), 2006 ($107,856), and 2007 ($621,240), had an accumulated liability of about $4.6 million in mortgages and other notes.

Kimbell said the debt was not his fault. His $252,473-a-year job called for him to oversee virtually everything on stage, but not the business side of the organization.

“I haven’t been responsible for the finances of North Shore Music Theatre since something like 1990,’’ he said.

Fellows, the board chairman, doesn’t necessarily blame Kimbell or his successor Ivan.

“No, but more to the point, I don’t hold Barry responsible for that,’’ he said.

Despite its existing debt, theater leaders decided that borrowing more was their only solution. The slumping real estate market foiled that idea. A bank appraiser pegged the 22-acre theater property at $4.9 million. Already owing $5 million, the theater couldn’t borrow from a bank.

Fellows’s wife, April, did loan the theater $400,000, using as collateral a house the theater had for actors staying in town.

Meanwhile, Ivan had a staff revolt on his hands. By the summer, six of the 10 managers working at the theater upon his arrival had left.

“When you come in and you’re trying to fix something and trying to ask about accountability, people often don’t like that,’’ Ivan said.

But Matt Kidd, an associate producer at the theater from 2004 to 2008, also questioned Ivan’s commitment to the North Shore. He found it galling that the theater put up Ivan in a hotel for several months in 2007 when he was working part-time in Beverly. Ivan, who maintained a home in Connecticut, later picked up the hotel tab when came on full time in February 2008.

“He didn’t really want a thing to do with the community,’’ said Kidd, who eventually quit.

Clark, the education director, also criticized Ivan, contending that he had never run a theater before. But Fellows said Clark’s department was in disarray, with four of its seven workers having complained to the human resources department about their jobs.

“I left because I could see it was coming to an end quickly,” said Clark, now the executive artistic director at the Boston Children’s Theatre. “It would be a professional embarrassment if I stayed.”

Of course, the big question left by some of the above statements is: if Ivan and Kimbell were not in charge of funds, then who was? And why was it Kimbell’s decision to continue producing in Boston while the theatre in Beverly was being repaired?  Who was really in charge there?

H/T to The Playgoer for bringing this article to my attention.

Six years ago today, after 16+ hours of labor for my lovely wife:

Then with his temporary pet squirrel:

And today, too cool for school…

Happy Birthday, Keith!

(and sorry, I won’t be getting that tattoo of poop on my butt, but thanks for suggesting it kiddo…)

j-Pointe, the blog of Chicago’s own Joffrey Ballet, brings us this Pic of the Day, and many other great shots on this post from October of 2007.

Taken from backstage at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.

“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 II, writing about Nicholas J. Conard’s discovery of a 35,000 year old flute.

This should be posted in every school’s music rooms and every Board of Education building.

Do you use Twitter?  Do you think the Iranian election was a scam?  Do you want to screw with Iranian security forces searching trying to shut down the sites of those writing about the election and protests?  Now you can!  Set your Twitter profile to be in the GMT +3:30 (Tehran) timezone, and set your location to Tehran.

Granted, it might not do much, but if they are searching for Twitter users that tweet about Iran from inside Iran, having a few thousand incorrect profiles would certainly slow them down.

And now back to your regularily scheduled theatre news.

Being a father now myself, I have begun to understand how difficult it is raising a child.  The clothing, feeding, and sheltering of a child is simple.  Showing them how to be a good person is hard.

My father ensured that I understood common courtesy. That I should stand up for myself but also admit my mistakes.  To keep trying until I get it right.  He taught me compassion, especially to creatures smaller than myself.  My brother and I seemed to be the only kids that would try to avoid or move bugs and spiders instead squashing them.  I’m happy that I could show my son the same understanding.

While some parents of my friends seemed to be trying to find their inner child, and therefore acted like teenagers, my father was always an adult.  I can only hope that I have the strength and maturity that he demonstrated.  It’s easy to be a guy.  My father showed me how to be a man.  I hope that I’ve made, and make, him proud.

Usually a small opera company generates national headlines by premiering a bold new work from a known artist.  Skylight Opera Theatre of Milwaukee has manged to garner national attention by canning it’s artistic director, giving the relatively new managing director the additional duties of artistic director, and hiring his wife to direct “Herman the Horse,” (link corrected 6/20) a children’s show that she wrote.

The cause of this step back into community theatre with a professional budget? Budget cuts. This is a trying time for nearly every arts organization in the US. Many well-loved institutions have folded due to the current economy hitting them when they were at a weak financial point.  But the positions cut here do not seem to show a well thought-out plan.

• Artistic Director: Position eliminated.  Duties folded into Managing Director.
• Company Manager: Position eliminated. Duties either added to either Managing Director or Production Director.
• Box Office Manager: Position eliminated.
• Assistant Box Office Manager: Position eliminated.
• Custodian: Position eliminated.

These are drastic cuts, and will affect the company relatively quickly.  It is difficult for a company that has been able to have separate Artistic, Managing, Company, and Production directors cut back to only two of those positions.  From a financial standpoint, what sense does it make to eliminate both box office managerial positions but maintain the box office assistants?   The general assumption is that the managers should be capable of doing the selling at the windows and phones, not that the “ticket sellers” can easily manage the box office.  Most cutbacks force the managers do additional “grunt work.”  This may be the first time that a company will have too many soldiers, and not enough generals.  (The custodial position being eliminated will seem easy at first, as most people should be able to pick up after themselves.  The problems will become evident when building systems need maintenance or repair, and no one left knows what to do.)

The restructuring decisions were made by the Executive Committee of the Board, not by any one individual.

But the biggest sign of problems with these cuts is at the top.  The Artistic Director position was held for the last five years by a long-time member of the company.  The current Managing Director, who now adds Artistic Direction duties to his job, was hired just over a year ago.  He has stated that it was his and the board’s decision to eliminate the AD position and give him the duties of it.  The appearance of a power grab is not helped by his previous work as an AD, director, and singer. It can certainly seem to those outside the company that the MD was feeling artistically stifled in his job, and felt that he could serve the company best by controlling not only the purse strings, but the shows themselves. The hiring of his wife to direct a show that she wrote, “Herman the Horse,” which the company will produce and tour, does not do much to dissuade from that idea.  A board rarely knows of the day to day workings of a theatre.  Someone had to suggest these specific changes to them.

To top it off, yesterday Musical Director Jamie Johns was fired for “insubordination and attacks on the Skylight Opera Theatre.”  Johns had publicly and vocally opposed the “restructuring.”

Some have raised the idea that perhaps those in the eliminated positions were not good at their jobs.  That may well be, but why not simply fire them as opposed to eliminating the entire position?  A box office needs someone to manage it.  Artistic leadership should not be arbitrarily changed simply due to a budget crises.

New York’s Innovative Theatre Awards have announced that they will begin issuing an Outstanding Stage Manager Award.  The Off-Off Broadway awards may be the first in the US to recognize Stage Managers along with other members of the production team.

Beginning in January of 2009, as a part of their assignments IT Award judges were asked to evaluate how the technical elements of the production flowed together. Those scores will help inform the committee who will review applications and make the final decision. The application asks for examples of the Stage Manager’s organization and leadership.  Two letters of recommendation are also required from people who worked with the Stage Manager on the production.

The OSM (Outstanding Stage Manager) Committee is made of eight individuals that include stage managers as well as directors, actors, press, producers and crew. OSM Committe Chair, Stephanie Cox-Williams said “There are awards for directors, lighting designers, sound designers, set designers, actors, etc., but without a Stage Manager to put all of the pieces in motion, correctly and on time, those elements would not make a cohesive production.  The IT Awards, is taking a big step forward by recognizing the unsung heroes of the stage.”

Let’s hope other awards groups take the hint. While chances are good (based on their track record) that we won’t be seeing a Stage Management Tony Award for at least 20 years, it’s nice to see NYC finally leading the way in at least one thing related to theatre.

H/T to Nick Keenan for bringing this to my attention.