Off Stage Conversations

Hello, this is Andie Arthur, Executive Director of the South Florida Theatre League and I'm here with Off Stage Conversations, where I take a look at what the national and international theatre community is talking about.

Gender Parity

This week is Gender Parity Discussion week at HowlRound, with the weekly howl on twitter tomorrow afternoon. There's a lot of good discussion happening, both on HowlRound and off.

Brad Erikson (the executive director of Theatre Bay Area) interviews Carey Perloff, the artistic director ACT who talks about the management side of the gender parity issue and childcare.

Playwright Lauren Gunderson interviews playwright Lydia Diamond.

Lauren Gunderson also has some practical ideas on how to address parity.

And Monica Byrne points out that this is a practical issue and instead of focusing on hand-wringing -- we (as theatre artists) should do something practical in response. Boycott theatres not committed to gender parity in 2014. Change won't happen unless there is an incentive to change.

Auditions and Rejections

Melissa Hillman writes from a producers' perspective on why we have auditions. Meanwhile Rica Bramon Garcia writes for BackStage on why actors need to embrace rejection.

President Obama's NEA Budget and the Tax Code

Obama's Proposed Budget includes increased funding for the NEA, but arts advocates are concerned about the capping of income tax deductions.

If This Works, We're Doing It

Three Chicago Theatre Companies band together to hire a joint development director.

Stop Settling

Megan Reilly talks about how designers need to stop settling and create vivid designs with respect to their limitations.

TCG Takes on Audience Engagement

David Loehr of 2amt is now working with TCG on audience engagement. The post is mostly an intro post to David and 2amt, but I'm posting it here because it has this piece of great wisdom:

And for the love of God, if your company retweets people praising your company over and over, stop that. Your followers already like you, they don’t need convincing. Potential followers don’t want to see the hard sell, that’s an instant turn-off.

Both David and I have said this before, but it bears repeating. Do cool things and the social media audience will follow. There is even a cartoon about this.