This past week, as a sort of holiday gift, small LA theaters were treated to an upgrade in the form of a new social network at bigcheaptheater.com. Somewhere between the yahoo group and facebook, this network has already reached 100 members in it’s short life. A mere 5% of the population the group built over 10 years, but notable for the week it has been around.

Started in the spirit of expanding the tools of Los Angeles Theater Artist to connect and group fluidly through the scene, bigcheaptheater.com allows for a very casual web to be digital articulated at an easy to remember web address.

It will ultimately be up to the greater Los Angeles Theater Community wether they care for or desire this expansion of infrastructure or if the group will continue to be adequate enough to provide for those producing theater that is both big and cheap.

Click here to download a PDF of the Dec 18 - 21 edition of the LA Stage Times

**** Productions that emphasize departures from conventional form, content and/or style are encouraged to apply. *****

Theater Specs:
– 35-40 seats
– Stage dimensions are 18′ wide x 22′ deep x 14′ tall
– Floor is sprung wood on foam pads
– We have 28 dimmers (1.2K) — all Edison plug — and an adequate inventory of instruments

TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

Email info@sonofsemele.org with a word document that covers the following things.

1) NAME:
2) COMPANY/ORGANIZATION:
3) PROJECT:
4) PHONE:
5) EMAIL:
6) NARRATIVE:
a) Description of the proposed project (300 words or less)
b) Background/History statement for the artist or organization (300 words or less)
c) Names and brief bios of the Producer, Director, Designers and Cast. (If not clear, also include the cast size.)
d) Beyond regular lighting/sound, do you have any specific technical needs?
e) Do you have requests for the performance run? Weekend, front-of-week, evening, matinee, etc.?
If you have restrictions or preferences, please explain.
f) Is there anything else we should know?
7) ATTACHMENTS:
a) The script if available (pdf format preferred)
b) Photos of past work or of the proposed project.

For more information about Son of Semele please visit www.sonofsemele.org.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) today announced its first round of funding for fiscal year 2009, including Access to Artistic Excellence, Challenge America Reaching Every Community Fast Track, and Creativing and Aging in America grants, and Creative Writing Fellowships for individuals. The Arts Endowment will distribute $23,215,500 in this first round of fiscal year 2009 funding to support 1,951 projects by nonprofit national, regional, state, and local organizations nationwide, as well as to 42 poets.

FYI - On a quick skim we noticed Circle X, CTG, LA County Arts Commission and Cornerstone.
For the full release and listings of the grants, please go to
http://tinyurl.com/6drkmv

The one that most intrigued me, of course, is where Los Angeles ranked in the “Top 25 Best Cities for Theatre”. Well…we made #12. Not bad. Sure would like us to crack the top 10 though. Here’s the list for your own personal perusal.

And here’s how Los Angeles fared in ALL categories. Sure would like to see what sort of formula was used to come up with these numbers. Check back at www.bitter-lemons.com for an update.

Until then, a musing: how can we as a Theatre Community crack the top 10 of this fabled and most prestigious list? Something to ponder perhaps.  And aspire to?  Maybe someone just needs to sleep with the right editors. Volunteers? Although our inability to reach that sacred top 10 might have to do with the fact that LA was ranked as the least intelligent and least friendly of the top 25.

Yikes.

Though we did crack the top 5 in most stylish, best luxury boutiques and weather.

Double yikes.

Originally Appeared at The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts

The best way to curb planetary debasement? Conserve resources. Use less, think differently and, most importantly, don’t depend on recycling to protect humanity from becoming an endangered species.

This simple but habit busting truth was the main theme in the conversation among panelists on Sunday, December 7, as part of Moving Art’s - Moving Green Mini-Expo. The theatre company organized the event as part of their presentation of E.M. Lewis’s Song of Extinction at the Ford Theatre in Hollywood. Several tables with ecologically friendly products and programs were set up in the lobby and on the patio. There was even a Smart Car to ogle and learn about. After the matinee, four leaders from the public and private sectors discussed practical strategies for reducing planetary impact.

The audience gleaned excellent tips and information from Jessica Aldridge from the Burbank Recycle Center; Stephanie Barger, Founder and Executive Director of Earth Resources Foundation in Costa Mesa; Natalie Freidberg, Manager of All Shades of Green sustainable living center in Silverlake; and Ian Garrett, Executive Director of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA) in Los Angeles. The panel was moderated by Rebecca Rogers, a member of the NRDC Leadership Council and Executive Producer of the documentary film F.L.O.W..

Conservation at home or at the theatre requires small shifts in thinking about how and why we use resources. According to Garrett, the first step in theatre is to increase the life cycle of materials that typically function for a 6-week, or even shorter, run. Lumber and set materials can be donated to other theatres or used in subsequent productions. Non-toxic paints and sustainable lumber can be used for set construction. Energy efficient vehicles can be used for touring shows and materials transport. The goal is to reduce human exposure to toxic materials, reduce waste in landfills and incinerators and to, ultimately, conserve dollars, since most non-toxic, sustainable materials are still more expensive than those that aren’t.

CSPA is collaborating with Earth Arts Partnership in Venice (brought to you by the green folks at the Electric Lodge) to build an infrastructure for the storage and transportation of theatre materials and to encourage a green arts business model.

Lighting efficiency is another key area where theatres can save energy and money. Using tools from the EPA website, CSPA tracks the amount of electricity used by a theatre production and estimates the amount of equivalent energy used in gallons of gas, or barrels of oil, or the amount of energy used in the average American home over a one year period. He made the case that sold out houses at the theatre means less energy being used at home, which even with a single run of a show can eliminate the carbon foot print of one house per year. The upshot: go to the theatre to save energy!

Conservation at home begins with properly insulating your house. Freidberg said that up to 44% of home heat or air conditioning is lost when a home is not well insulated. She added that this one step is more important than installing solar panels, if you want to practice sustainability.

Another easy step is to reduce phantom load, or, the miscellaneous power that is used by all those devices in your home or office that remained plugged in when they’re not in use. All Shades of Green sells Smart Strips that sense when a device is in use or not and automatically turns off to stop power drain. This small step can significantly decrease your power bill, especially if you use a lot of cell phone chargers, computers, camera battery chargers, etc. To dispose of the worn out batteries, Ikea, Home Depot and Ace Hardware reclaim them.

According to Barger, if we really want to reduce energy use and limit our dependence on fossil fuel, we all need to stop using plastic bags. Californians use over 19 billion plastic grocery bags each year. Grocers generate over 31 million plastic bags every day. These bags break down into smaller pieces, but they never degrade. They accumulate in landfills or cling to fences and bushes or end up in the stomachs of sea turtles and other marine animals who can get tangled and drown.

Californians have a huge opportunity to reduce pollution in the oceans. Barger’s small but mighty Earth Resource Foundation implemented the “Hold On To Your Butt” campaign that, in one year, changed the laws in Orange County and turned all the beaches into smoke-free zones. Rapid change like this comes from a fusion of personal and political will. She spoke to a clichéd but truthful reality: that organized citizens can and do change laws and make the world a better place.

One law that Barger would like to see changed is the amount it costs waste haulers to use municipal dumps in Orange County. She compared San Francisco’s fee of $180/ton to Orange County’s at $19/ton. Which dump do you think has more waste in it? But if the rates go up and, at the same time, the recyclables market is suffocated by global recession, what happens? There are no easy answers, no simple equation to make everything balance just so. But it is clear that recycling is not the best prescription for preventative planetary medicine, especially when the economic incentives dry up like so much soda in a puddle.

A startling illustration of this came from Aldridge who explained that papers and cardboard at the Burbank Recycle Center are sorted by hand then baled for shipment to companies who remanufacture the material into new products. Many of these companies are located in India or China. With global recession, no one’s buying. The bales are piling up on the warehouse floor. There is no more room for locals to earn money by selling cans and bottles, and these people are turned away. Similar scenarios are happening across the country. There is no room for our recyclables. We have to use less and conserve.

The good news is that we have an incoming administration that is engaging us instead of making us want to curl up in a ball with our fingers in our ears and our eyes squeezed shut. From the dude selling his cans and bottles to the corporate executive trying to figure out how to keep people employed, to the mother trying to keep her kids warm in winter, this new political climate can help everyone ride out the tough times. The federal government can actually inspire and support the work of artists (ala a new Works Progress Administration…it could happen) and the work of each of these panelists, all of whom use their particular expertise to educate people, companies and governments, so that all members of society reap the benefits.

Inspiration is what led Moving Arts to organize the Green Expo at the Ford. Song of Extinction is ripe with metaphors that weave between ages and cultures, scholars and businessmen, the animal world and the music of the spheres. Lewis suggests that there is no break in the continuum, that all life resonates and that death is not the dividing line that we perceive it to be. We can ignore this profound truth, or we can choose to honor these ephemeral connections. The key is to conserve Earth’s riches for the quality of life of all living things and for those that will come long after our bones turn to dust.

Allshadesofgreen.net

Burbankrecycle.org

Earthresources.org

Sustainablepractice.org

Click Here to Download the Dec 8 - 11 Edition of the LA Stage Times

Internet driving directions have been available for over a decade now. MapQuest is a bit old school and Yahoo Maps picked it up a bit, but it seems Google Maps are everywhere now. They are in our browsers, in stand alone programs, embedded on everyone’s website and a feature on our phones. If you don’t have an iphone or android you might have a GPS instead or you might have all of these. In the car dominated roads of Los Angeles you might even be so old school as to have a Thomas Guide in the pocket behind your passenger seat.

So, if I can Google any address and get step by step directions with an estimation of transit time from any other location, print it out, text it to myself or email it my smart phone (if I didn’t look it up there to begin with) and plug it into my GPS to have a robot speak turn by turn directions to me and show me live traffic conditions, WHY do so many theaters give me such detailed directions on their website?

These detailed directions from the north, south, east or west are general and don’t take into account alternatives if traffic is bad or a road is under construction. They aren’t necessary. Maybe, if you have parking (who has ample parking?) you want me to know how to get into it, but I don’t need directions from Pasadena to your parking lot or to know that the neighborhood behind your theater is permitted for one block south of Melrose. You just need to tell me where to park if I drive.

What would be useful? Transit directions. There are over a dozen transit agencies in the area: Metro, Culver City Bus, the Big Blue Bus, Burbank Bus, Foothills Transit, Santa Clarita Transit, etc. and they operate local buses, rapid buses, commuter buses, subway, light rail and heavy rail. It’s confusing to try and get around on the buses. But with traffic, the fluid cost of gasoline, and the expense of parking, wouldn’t it be great to know how to get to your theater without a car? And how to get back home.

I’m not asking for you to give me full details, but maybe a list of the buses that come within a quarter mile or even a half a mile of your theater. Unless you’re tucked in the hills or back in a nieghborhood I can only imagine that there are buses passing by regularly and that you may be lucky enough to be close to a metro rail stop! I know for a fact the theaters on Santa Monica, that is to say Theater Row, get radio interference from the buses passing by.

Google does now offer walking and transit directions. Metro, the largest such agency in LA, is not on Google Transit yet (Burbank is though), but they are in talks to be up soon(ish?). That might solve a portion of this issue. And if you can find a bus that goes nearby you can get the walking instructions. Hopefully, with the passing of Measure R, we will see even more convenient and extensive transit options.

But, until we all know the bus system, the subway gets to Santa Monica and we can get bus by bus instructions for transit on Google or our tom tom, why not make it easy for me to get there? Maybe I’ll have to get there a little earlier and stay a little later to catch my desired bus. Maybe I’ll have a couple drinks from concessions cause I don’t have to worry about driving and I don’t have to pay for parking or the valet for the restaurant down the street. And maybe I’ll even stick around the area for a while and help with the local feeling by eating nearby in a walkable restaurant or kill some time in a local shop. Best of all I’ll arrive without any road rage and be more open and excited about the show.

Deadline for Submission: January 21, 2009

Award: $250 and production videotape

After a successful Outworks 2006, 2007 and 2008, The Louisiana State University Department of Theatre in Baton Rouge is pleased to announce that we are now accepting submissions for Outworks 2009, a festival of new lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or queer (LGBTQ) themed one-act plays.

Submission Guidelines

· Submissions must be the author’s own original work. Each entry shall be free from copyright restrictions and the author agrees to hold LSU, its officers, and directors free and harmless from all copyright claims.
· Scripts must be LGBTQ-themed.
· Submissions must be one-act plays, ranging from (10) ten to (20) twenty minutes in length.
· There is a limit of two scripts per playwright.
· All Entries should be submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format via e-mail to outworksfestival@gmail.com.
· Deadline is January 21, 2009
· Scheduled production dates are April 28-May 3 of 2009

Submissions will be read and scored by a faculty/student committee. The committee will select between three and six plays. There will be $250 in monetary compensation awarded to each playwright of the chosen scripts, each play selected will be guaranteed three staged performances and each playwright will receive a video of his/her production. Playwrights wishing to attend the festival are responsible for all travel expenses.

The LSU Theatre Studio season retains all rights and privileges concerning casting, production, and programming for Outworks. LSU Theatre reserves the right to:

a. Reproduce as many copies of the play as are necessary for distribution to the judges and participants in the production.
b. Videotape the performance for archival purposes.
c. Use the title, author’s name and images from the production for publicity purposes related to the Outworks Festival.

The final play list will be announced February 21, 2009.
Submissions sent via email are preferred. Please send submissions or inquiries to:
John Mabry, Outworks Festival Curator, at: outworksfestival@gmail.com

The LSU Theatre Studio Season

The LSU Theatre Studio season, produced by the Louisiana State University
Department of theatre, offers audiences an “alternative” theatrical
experience. Providing a diverse and exciting schedule, the LSU Theatre
Studio Season highlights the tremendous talents of the LSU graduate and
undergraduate students (B.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D.) both on and behind the
stage.