Industry Theatre Newsroom Page 81

BroadwayHD was named winner in the Outstanding Innovation category and the winner of the Outstanding Product/Service category at the 2020 Global Business Excellence Awards.

Sony Music Masterworks, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, today announced it has made a strategic investment in Seaview, a leading theater production company headed by Tony Award-winning producer and entrepreneur Greg Nobile.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), the theatrical union that unites, empowers, and protects professional stage directors and choreographers throughout the United States, announced the results of its 2020 Executive Board election at its Annual Membership Meeting on Monday night

Radial Park Presents provides custom entertainment services, from concerts to fully staged shows and everything in between, featuring Broadway's brightest talents, for customers seeking extra-special entertainment at their next event.

The Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC) and Columbia Law School will continue their multi-year partnership with the announcement of the first full semester course offering entitled The Theater for Change: Reimagining Justice Through Abolition.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) and TheFrontOffice (an entertainment development company founded in 2019 by director, Wendy C. Goldberg) have partnered to create the Freelancers Relief Fund: Theatre Designers providing a limited number of rapid response grants of $1,000 each for scenic, lighting, costume, sound and projection designers who have had theatre employment within January 2019 - March 2020. 

Encouraging news out last Monday about a potentially effective COVID-19 vaccine that could be widely available by April of next year. For many organizations, that is bittersweet news - it might guarantee over a year of closure, but there is at least starting to be an end in sight to the uncertainty, if nothing else. Outside of the United States, we also saw plenty of encouraging news out of Australia that is seeing more and more of its stages re-open at 50% capacity. As they push to return to 100%, they may be able to provide a roadmap for the rest of us as to how we ramp back to normal as quickly, and safely, as possible.

Theater Resources Unlimited hosts weekly Community Gatherings every Friday at 4:30pm via Zoom, to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of COVID-19. Ask questions, bring answers, be part of a community - it's an opportunity to network with theater professionals and talk about keeping theater alive during these challenging times.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre has announced that the public can attend NAMT's 32nd Annual FESTIVAL OF NEW MUSICALS by making a donation to NAMT ($30 donation for one day / $50 donation for both days).

The Broadway Green Alliance has announced two up-coming free GREEN QUARANTINE virtual seminars on November 19th and December 10th. The series of free virtual learning opportunities began in March 2020 as a way to channel the collective creative problem-solving, community building, and storytelling skills of the theatre community.

The Lincoln Theatre will host a free, one-day informational workshop on Saturday, December 5, for local artists, arts organizations, and individuals interested in developing their performing arts product for the stage. This workshop will be conducted via Zoom and requires a reservation.

Tony Award-winning producer Hal Luftig, in association with the Broadway Podcast Network, announced today the launch of his new podcast, Broadway Biz highlighting the careers and creatives it takes to build a Broadway show on Wednesday, November 18.

spikizi is a new app which gives performers thousands of authentic accents immediately, wherever they are, using the phone in their pocket.

Octopus Theatricals announced today the formal launch of the Producer Hub, an online resource dedicated to  showcasing and supporting the work of independent producers working in a  variety of live performance producing models through shared business and educational resources and networking.

SETC professional screening auditions for the 2021 SETC Professional Spring Auditions are underway! Due to COVID-19 related issues, SETC Professional Screening Auditions will be held online via video auditions for ALL STATES. They have extended the screening audition deadline until Nov. 24.

This week, we have stories of two different regions - first, a story out of New York City where off-Broadway theatre's and other small venues have filed suit against the state of New York to receive permission to start reopening. We also have the opposite side of that story out of DC, where one small venue has reopened for indoor theatre performances under a pilot program from the city. We also explore how the Kennedy Center has kept in person performance alive in their venues, as well as more labor disputes - this time between labor and management and not between the Unions themselves.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), the theatrical union that unites, empowers, and protects professional Stage Directors and Choreographers throughout the United States, applauds the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Creative Artists Agency has hired Dr. Sharoni Little as its head of global inclusion strategy.

Open Stage Project is hosting a FREE, Business of Broadway virtual panel on November 10, 2020 at 4pm ET.

The Joy-Jackson Initiative with Black Theatre Girl Magic presents “A Town Hall for the Live Theatre Community: BIPOC Equity in the Arts.”

The League of Professional Theatre Women will present an Oral History Project event with the award-winning composer, lyricist, playwright, and actress Micki Grant on Monday, November 16 at 6pm on Zoom. Admission to the event is FREE. The interview with Ms. Grant has been prerecorded, and will be followed by a live Q&A.

Just in time for Halloween Caitlin Baer will present a reading of her dark play The Society featuring Sophia Anne Caruso (Beetlejuice), Nikhil Saboo (Mean Girls), and Nathan Salstone (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child).

Seven months into pandemic-related closures of cultural nonprofits throughout the Central Puget Sound Region, ArtsFund releases new data tracking the ongoing impacts to the sector and the communities it serves.  The snapshot captures October data from 47 Central Puget Sound arts, cultural, and scientific nonprofits, and focuses on employment impacts, digital programming, and reopening. 

The Women in the Arts & Media Coalition will host a digital presentation of the 2020 VintAge Award, which celebrates the voice and vision of women in the arts and media as they age.

The pivot continues. Over the course of the last week, we have continued to see more stories about theatres going digital, going outdoors, going to the postal service - all in the name of creating art in a world that we have not seen in our current collective experiences. Much of this pivoting is coming from a need to survive, but what is being discovered is deeply inspired, and likely to impact the form for decades to come. We've seen it ourselves through our BroadwayWorld events platform - what started as a small experiment has grown to sending nearly half a million dollars in ticket revenue to our partners, with thousands of new audience members connecting to these artists in a way we couldn't have predicted one year ago. Beyond the changing art, the industry is at a key moment in institutional evolution - make sure to check out the essay from the late Diane Rodriguez we link to later in the newsletter. But ultimately, artists make art, and we also have some highlights of artists at all points in their careers continuing to find ways to create even as the world we're used to endlessly shifts around us.