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Tag Archives: producing
Filmmaker Christopher Morrison recently released his film, The Bellwether, a psychological thriller about the sociocultural pressures women face. The film, written and directed by Morrison, is almost entirely a solo piece for the remarkable Alex Reid, whose performance in it is masterful. I've known Christopher for many years, and know his work as an advocate and ally, so I had a keen interest in this project. I spoke with Morrison from his home in Brussels.
Bitter Gertrude: One of the strengths of male allyship in gendered oppression is that cis men will listen to other cis men and take their opinions and analysis far more seriously than they do the opinions and analysis of everyone else. How do you see this film working as part of your advocacy for human rights?
Christopher Morrison: First of all, one big hell yes in agreement that that is such a problem. I see it in action on a daily basis in so many spaces, and have been guilty of that myself for sure. I did try to make a film where a woman always had center stage and was making her argument, and we had to take both the characters and the arguments seriously. I, personally, see so few films doing that, especially content written and directed by men. So as an advocate, that was something built into the film from the jump– simply providing uninterruptible space for women's voices to be heard. This was also what the gender parity on the crew was about as well, consciously giving those artists a voice in this particular production and story. And, I suppose it is unfortunate that this needs to be said (but these days it does), I was interested in not just a positive abortion story but a story that made it very clear that abortion needs to continue to be talked about openly and the shaming around it needs to be addressed.
BG: Say more about the film's gender parity. Was that a deliberate choice?
CM: Hugely deliberate choice. We fought for parity so hard on this movie. On set it was exactly even, but we fell out in post, unfortunately. But was close, something like 45 to 55%. And they were deeply involved co-creators. The executive producer, Ioana Matei, was involved every step of the way from concept to post, providing her input. Our editor, Stephanie Sibbald, was given carte blanche for the first two passes at the edit. Our great DP Gabi Norland and I worked together on every shot. Many, many shots are Gabi's creation and her concept, and she made the film better with her obvious talent and experience. There are so many more; the film would not have been possible without their input and expertise.
BG: In the film industry, the male voice is undeniably the most prominent, and most films are made envisioning a male audience. I think part of the strength of Bellwether could be in a man speaking to men about the reality of the societal pressures the rest of us are under.
CM: I think it's still amazing and sad how few men take time in their life to just listen to what most women have been through. We see our own lives reflected back on us constantly in the media and it makes us assume that everyone's experience is the same. In The Bellweather, the audience is spending 70 or so minutes with a woman who is struggling to make her voice heard and just how frustrating and institutional that push-back is in the world. I tried to make the institutional misogyny very present in the Conspiracy.
BG: Films that show women abused or tortured have become controversial. I know you're very aware of these issues, so it must have been a difficult decision to show her torture. What was that decision making process like for you, and why did you ultimately decide in favor of showing her torture?
CM: I must admit I've made a pledge to myself that this will be the last time I show a woman's torture as main plot, as essentially entertainment. I'm a huge horror fan and I believe that time is up for that trope. When I was writing The Bellwether, I decided that was needed to physicalize what I mentioned above, trying to drag institutionalized misogyny into a very present and physical form that could be a genre film's antagonist.
BG: One theme that feels prominent to me is humanity as represented by bodies and sensory perception, with a lack of humanity as its opposite. Joanne's torture is aural, her story is shown to her through visual images, she's intent on the woman working for "them" to speak to her face-to-face. There's a lot of screen time given to breath. Her breath is a constant marker of where she is emotionally, and when she's speaking about her abortion, she's leafing through a huge Bible, which immediately made me think of the lines in the Bible where life is said to begin at first breath. "They" attempt to reduce Joanne to one function of her body.
CM: Thank you for noticing the breath! I tend to use that in everything I direct and/or write. I find it so visceral and a way for a flat medium to reach us physically. I have a physical background and finding ways to give a physical experience to a film audience is always something I'm interested in. Everything you point to is an attempt to remind the audience that there is a physical person on screen experiencing this physically, and to remind the audience of their own bodies.
When I sat down to write this I wanted to write a positive abortion story. Having been the male counterpart to two abortions and the friend escort to two others I saw first-hand the pain and the relief and the questioning and how physical it is in terms of recovery. And as it is still a taboo, particularly in America, I really wanted that in the fore. I wanted to highlight the physical recovery of an abortion along with the mental issues that can come along with it, mostly pushed on women (and some male partners) from the outside. But I wanted the abortion in her past so a lot of the torture had to be physicalized in the present through the Conspiracy. Attacking her aurally is my equivalent of all of the societal talk about how ashamed women should feel about their abortions.
BG: Tell me more about creating the shell personalities device. As a woman, I understand deeply what it means to create different personalities for different situations. Women in meetings can't just say, "No, that won't work"; we have to say, "I wonder if we could think about considering this aspect." I've known a ton of women, myself included, who have been in hot water with management, labeled "aggressive" or "too challenging," just for forgetting (or refusing) to put on that fake feminine shell personality when dealing with men. I wish men could be a fly on the wall to see what happens when they leave the room. Women drop that shit so fast! So the idea of having a shell personality over your "real" personality is something with which I am completely familiar. What's unfamiliar to me is the idea that those personalities don't interact or know about each other. What's the metaphor there? What do you want people to take away from that?
CM: It first started as a way to make the script watchable and to make it interesting to a high caliber of actress. But once I settled on the concept, the thematics became very obvious. The metaphor was one I feel very keenly in my own personality separations and my struggles to integrate them and feel whole. I would want the audience to just see the basic idea: what parts of you are in control and when and where do they come from in your life and your past? And is that a good thing?
I did want this film to be something active. As it is said in the art world sometimes, "you might only get this one 'x.'" I wanted my one feature to say something. I feel it does say something. It doesn't do everything right, just like I'm an imperfect ally and advocate, but it's my attempt and it's out there and I'm proud of that.
Learn more about The Bellwether here.
Tagged activism, feminism, producing, screenwriting
Arts Marketing and Alignment
(This piece is by guest blogger Adam Thurman.)
It has been a while since I wrote something in depth about arts marketing but this current exciting moment in the field where new leaders are coming in prompted a moment of reflection that is hopefully worth sharing.
In marketing we talk about a lot of things like branding, audience development, the impact of social, etc.
I want to talk about alignment.
Alignment is defined as a position of agreement or alliance.
And when you look at great companies that earn more then their fair share of attention, dollars, etc., what you see is significant alignment.
The visuals, the messaging, the customer service, the programming all make sense.
The sales goals, the selected audience target, and the marketing mediums all make sense.
And of course the reverse is true. If key elements are misaligned then your marketing message will be too weak to break through.
So as you hit your new roles keep your eyes open for misalignment movements.
Does your pricing say elite but your message say "theater for all"?
Does your messaging say customer service is important but the level of pay and training for your FOH staff say "you guys are replaceable"?
Spoiler: That's probably the case.
Note those things. Note them even though you may not be able to do anything about them yet. Talk about them before you have a solution. That's the value of your fresh perspective.
And the spend your precious time and energy working to bring those things into alignment. That's your opportunity. It's your opportunity to create an organization that makes sense when you look at it critically.
When the marketing aligns with the goals, values, revenue model, people, etc., then the marketing can do incredible things.
I've got one of those fancy credit cards. You know the type, made of metal, high annual fee, that sort of thing.
Whenever I have to call that number I get straight through to a human representative. No phone tree, no holding. It takes me maybe two minutes to handle any need.
The same day I have to call one of those no-frills airlines to pay a fee. It is the exact opposite of the other experience. Call center. Long hold time. It may have taken 30 minutes.
It is fair to call the first customer experience good and the second bad. It would also be fair to call both experiences properly aligned.
The fancy credit card folks are making a set of implicit and explicit promises about what they offer card holders. So they have to make the significant investment of time and money to make it work.
The no-frills airline is making an entirely different promise. They don't promise friendly or warm service. They promise a cheap flight. Being cheap about their customer service is one way to achieve that goal.
So let's say an arts organization decides to highly value customer service. That implies a series of alignment choices.
You probably need to pay above market rate.
You probably need to invest in training.
If you can't do that then you are out of alignment.
But let's say you legitimately cannot afford the investment. Then a smart choice may be to reduce the emphasis on service and try the following:
Limit the hours your box office is open.
Prepare yourself for high turnover and make sure you have a good pipeline for finding new candidates.
Maybe you can change the way people enter or exit the venue in a way that reduces the need for FOH staff.
I'm not saying these are good ideas, but they are aligned ideas. They make sense when the end goal is considered.
But the mistake I see so often is to say one thing, do the other, and hope no one notices.
We notice.
Smart marketing is about pushing toward that alignment.
Adam Thurman is an experienced arts marketing professional and consultant. To contact Mr. Thurman, email mission.paradox@yahoo.com.
Tagged leadership, marketing, producing
Film, Theatre
Representation Matters: People with Disabilities Are Done Being Your Inspiration
Photo of a version of the American flag with the stars configured to look like the symbol for disability. (Photo credit: money.cnn.com)
We need a long, hard examination of the way we're representing people with disabilities on our stages and screens. We talk a lot about equity and inclusion, but almost always ignore people with disabilities in those discussions, leaving our industries far behind where they should be on this issue.
We're still so far behind that casting PwDs as PwDs is controversial. Able-bodied people fight hard for their "right" to cast able-bodied actors to play us, then shut us out of every aspect of the process. Able-bodied people insist they're doing "extensive research," yet portrayals of PwDs are more often than not astoundingly inaccurate, more about how you see us than how we really are.
We're still so far behind that casting PwDs has been called "exploitative," as if our physical presence must always be measured by the gaze of able-bodied people. It reminds me of the way sexist writers claim women are "flaunting" their bodies by simply appearing in public. Our physical presence in the world as PwDs (or women, for that matter) is not about you. Our physical presence as PwDs is so deeply othered that any public performance is automatically suspect– it must mean something. Add to that the relentless infantilization of PwDs by able-bodied people, and our every appearance as actors results in a flurry of pearl-clutching about how we're being "displayed," "used," or "exploited," as if PwDs are children who need protecting instead of actors who need jobs.
It's "exploitative" when we play ourselves, but ennobling when you play us.
During preproduction for the film The Upside, released in January 2019, producers refused to consider actors with disabilities for the role of Dell Scott, a quadriplegic character, instead first casting able-bodied actor Colin Firth, and then replacing him with Bryan Cranston, drawing criticism from disability rights activists. (Photo by David Lee/The Weinstein Company depicts Cranston seated in a wheelchair on a busy city street, laughing as actor Kevin Hart stands on the wheelchair behind Cranston, leaning down and laughing.)
We're still so far behind it's considered a special kind of acting triumph when an able-bodied actor plays us because, like actors who gain weight or allow themselves to be made "ugly" for a role, they're working hard at lowering themselves, appearing less glamorous, less desirable, less perfect. The actor is ennobled by their humility, by the sacrifice it took to present themselves pretending to be what we are every day of our lives.
We're still so far behind that the types of stories we tell about PwDs all center around our difference: inspiration porn, tragedies, the Manic Pixie Sick Girl (and as she's lowered into her grave, he realizes he has finally learned how to live), and the DEI Sidekick (Hi. I'm here to make the producers look inclusive and the protagonist look sympathetic oops time to die to provide motivation for the protagonist). There are more (so many more) but you get the idea.
Please note that all of these are almost always played by conventionally beautiful, thin, able-bodied white people, and that these issues are intersectional. While this piece focuses on PwDs, bear in mind that people of color with disabilities are facing two major hurdles; female-identified and genderqueer people of color with disabilities are facing three, etc. Women of color are in fact the vanguard of disability rights activism.
Writer and activist Imani Barbarin, who runs the blog Crutches and Spice, is the force behind #DisTheOscars, an advocacy campaign around disability representation in the media. (Photo by Madasyn Andrews depicts Barbarin, a Black woman with long, thin dreads, smiling in a garden setting, wearing a blue flowered dress and a black jacket, with one of her crutches visible on her arm.)
In the United States, between 13 and 19% of the population are PwDs. That's a sizable population, yet we are aggressively shut out of every aspect of visual narrative, our stories stolen from us and told by able-bodied people, for able-bodied people.
This begs the question, "What are our stories?" It's an important question, because the answer is: ALL OF THEM, KATIE. We're a massively diverse population occupying every race, gender, sexuality, age, belief, and socioeconomic status. The vast majority of our stories are not "disability stories." We are people with disabilities– people first– and the majority of our lives are spent wrapped up in the same issues everyone else has. Yet nearly every film, play, or show that hires an actor with a disability is doing so specifically to tell a "disability story"; when that narrative is over, the actor is released. We're rarely allowed to tell any other kinds of stories. Disability is only represented when the story is about disability in some way.
Because we are hired far less frequently than able-bodied people, even with similar training and experience, we're seldom in the room when these stories are developed, and if we are in the room, we're one voice– often brought in late in the process as a low-ranking temporary hire ("disability consultant"). It's no wonder that stories about PwDs are so often about the impact the PwD has on an able-bodied person.
Lack of representation is a vicious circle. Because we are so seldom represented as anything but life support for able-bodied inspiration, PwDs are almost never considered for "straight" roles. It never occurs to producers and directors to cast an actor with a disability in a story not specifically about disability, because they, like the rest of us, live in a world where PwDs are dramatically under-represented throughout all of our media and have come to see that under-representation as "normal."
Our industries create fantastic, imaginary worlds, but we can't imagine a Juliet with a mobility device? Our imaginations can comprehend time travel, dragons, talking animals, alien cultures, telekinesis, and 500 different kinds of afterlife, but a disabled Hedda Gabler is incomprehensible? You think that if you cast a PwD, the narrative becomes about the disability because those are the only stories we allow PwDs to tell.
Marilee Talkington, a brilliantly talented actor, has a long career of playing both blind and sighted characters. Talkington has played blind characters on several TV shows recently, drawing praise from the National Federation of the Blind and their #letusplayus campaign. (Photo by Cheshire Isaacs depicts Talkington from the shoulders up: a white woman with curly red hair, blue eyes, and coral lipstick, wearing a wine-colored sleeveless top.)
Allow people with disabilities to tell all kinds of stories, including our own. The right to portray someone different than you is not the exclusive province of the able-bodied. Able-bodied people defend their right to play us with "It's called 'acting'" without ever once considering that we can do it too.
Hire people with disabilities at every level, from conceptualization to casting to audience management, not just in temporary positions meant to shield you from controversy. When you talk about "inclusion," remember: we're here, and we are not going away.
Tagged activism, actors, casting, directing, disability, film, producing, social justice, television
Culture, Theatre
Your Nonprofit is "Committed to Diversity"? How Diverse Is Your Board?
"People ask me sometimes, when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine." — Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Few consider it odd that almost all Supreme Court justices in the court's 229 year history have been white men, but many considered Justice Ginsberg's statement to be highly controversial. The idea of an all-female court seemed upsetting and threatening to many people, but an all-male court has always seemed unremarkable.
In nearly every nonprofit company in the US, the board of directors is overwhelmingly white and male. One or two white women or Black men on an otherwise white male board is considered "diverse." And when they get a seat at the table, women and people of color struggle to be heard in white male-heavy environments, their voices discounted, their points of view ignored. Endless studies and articles discuss this problem. Entire industries have developed around corporate diversity consultants.
This has enormous repercussions on every aspect of our lives in the US. Health services, education, social services, legal services, civic and environmental advocacy, the arts, and international relations all have significant nonprofit presence. White men– usually white, able-bodied, cisgender, straight men with Christian heritage– control these industries, set their priorities, and determine how resources are distributed without significant input from other points of view.
Few people outside of the nonprofit world know how much power the board of directors has. Most of us know that the board hires the head of the organization, a decision that has enormous repercussions for the institution as a whole. The head is the gatekeeper for every aspect of the organization, and it has been an ongoing, pervasive problem that the people boards choose for the big chair are almost always white and male.
Just as importantly, boards approve annual budgets, and where the money goes– and where it does not– directs everything about a company. Is your building ADA compliant? Do your staff go through regular diversity and equity training? Do you do hiring outreach to communities that are under-represented in your staff? Is budgeting for any of those a priority or considered an "extra"? What we choose to fund has far-reaching effects on every aspect of our organizations.
You cannot be "committed to diversity" unless your Board is diverse. We need to ensure that our boards have an understanding of a multiplicity of experiences, have a wider range of contacts, and can speak with authority to a wider range of people. A diverse board has innumerable benefits while a homogeneous board has just as many drawbacks and limitations.
When boards hire a new company head, they see a white man with little experience as "a fresh new voice" but a woman or person of color with the same (or even more) experience as "not ready." They see a white man who has failed in other places as "a risk-taker" or "a maverick" but see women or people of color who have failed in other places as just failures. White boards give white men the benefit of the doubt while judging women and people of color too harshly. They see white men as being able to speak to a "universal human experience" while seeing, for example, a Black woman as having a limited, specifically Black and female, perspective.
Our culture assumes that all positions of power are rightfully white and male, and any diversion from that is a deviation from the norm– a place made specially for difference. We assume that white men are "neutral," able to make decisions unweighted by identity-related points of view, and that everyone else is irrevocably marked by their identity, their judgment skewed by their distance from white maleness. Yet it is a certainty that whiteness and maleness are very specific points of view that clearly impact judgment.
A white person will not have the experience to always recognize and understand racism when they see it. A cisgender man will not have the experience to always recognize and understand sexism or transphobia when they see it. When confronted with racism, many– perhaps the majority– of white people reject it, defend it, or make excuses for it. When confronted with sexism, the majority of men reject it, defend it, or make excuses for it. Men insist that stories about women can't be universal, but automatically assume that stories about men are. White people insist that Black, Latinx, or Asian stories can't be universal, but automatically assume that stories about white people are. A film with an all-Black cast is a "Black movie," but a film with an all white cast is just "a movie." We label any story that's not white, male, cis, hetero, and able-bodied as a creation for a niche audience, but the truth is, there is universality in any story, because there is far more that binds us than separates us. White men have been trained to see themselves as "neutral" and everyone else as marked by their distance from that neutrality. This is all summed up by the images below. These are male:
And these are female:
Even in simplistic cartoon icons, something extra is needed to denote "female," because neutral is read as "male." Every position of privilege is "neutral" and everything else is measured by its distance from that privilege, requiring modifying adjectives or visual markers.
Of course this point of view is a direct result of living in a culture that bombards us with this messaging relentlessly. It's a catch-22: If we want to change our cultural messaging to embrace the universality of all human experience, not just white male human experience, we need to create that messaging in our culture– through the art, the marketing, the writing, and all the other cultural artifacts currently produced by organizations that overwhelmingly favor the work of white men, hire white men, and promote white men to positions of leadership.
While the gatekeepers are mostly white and male, gatekeeping throughout our culture will have a necessarily limited perspective. When the gatekeepers are homogeneous, outside perspectives, outside needs, and outside trends will always be imperfectly understood or even missed entirely. Having a diversity of voices in the room so dramatically improves an organization's ability to serve its community, one would think a diverse board of directors would be a requirement for obtaining and retaining the 501c3 nonprofit status. As nonprofits, we exist as "public benefit corporations." Who are we benefiting if the gatekeepers in our organizations are all drawn from the most privileged demographic in our culture?
It all boils down to this:
There is no "commitment to diversity" without diversity.
We need to diversify our boards or stop claiming we have a "commitment to diversity."
Tagged diversity, feminism, leadership, producing, racism, social justice
Culture, Film, Theatre
A Memo to Gatekeepers Regarding Whiteness
Bitter Gertrude is thrilled to host our first guest blogger ever, the brilliant Ming Peiffer!
Dear People In Positions Of Power,
When you decide to NOT produce a white artist's work do NOT tell them it's because they are white.
Using POC as scapegoats for why you can't program a white artist's work not only devalues the POC work you are (finally) giving a chance to see the light of day, BUT it also absolves you of your responsibility and complicity in creating an unfair media world that portrays the world as white and not how it actually is. You're basically saying, "Normally this would be given to a white person but look where we are! We just can't! Maybe the pendulum will swing back next season!" And you're not paying attention to the fact that it "normally going to white person" is not normal at all. And is a prime example of systemic racism and systematic erasure of POC and "Other" voices. (It also signals to me that somewhere you believe this is a passing fad instead of real institutional change you are embedding.)
Moreover, it's re-enforcing the false narrative that whites are not succeeding right now. C'mon. Look at the TV. Look at your seasons. Look at the rest of the country. Look at the president.
White people are doing fine.
It is certainly easier to blame a faceless POC than hurting the feelings of a white artist you have a relationship with but y'all need to pony up and take responsibility for the necessary and commendable changes you ARE making in your programming and explain to them that your definition of "worthy" work has expanded and that their work simply did not make the "worthy" list this year. And that your previous definition of "worthy" was racist. Was white.
DO NOT MAKE IT SEEM AS THOUGH DECISIONS WERE NOT RACE-BASED BEFORE.
They were race-based before, you just couldn't see it.
Do the work people in power. You might have to have some hard conversations and disappoint some of your friends but it's better than creating more animosity towards POC and spreading an abhorrently false narrative that their whiteness is what's keeping them from success.
It's hard to be honest but it will be worth it and everyone will make better work because of it.
Ming Peiffer is a playwright, screenwriter, and activist from Columbus, Ohio. Her play USUAL GIRLS will be produced at the Roundabout Underground as part of their 2018/19 Season. Her work has been developed and/or presented by New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theater, HERE Arts Center, The Flea, The Wild Project, New Ohio, Soho Playhouse, The Gene Frankel Theater, C.O.W., Theater for the New City, FringeNYC, Horsetrade Theater, Yangtze Repertory, among others. Awards/Fellowships include: NYTW 2050 Fellowship, The Kennedy Center's Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award Recipient (i wrote on ur wall and now i regret it), The Relentless Award Honorable Mention (USUAL GIRLS), The Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center NPC Finalist (USUAL GIRLS), Playwright's Realm Fellowship Semi-Finalist, Princess Grace Award Semi-Finalist (i wrote on ur wall and now i regret it), Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award Finalist. In TV/Film, Ming has been a staff writer at Netflix and Hulu, and is currently developing her own series with Color Force and F/X. Additionally, she is adapting Weike Wang's "CHEMISTRY" into a film for Amazon and a comic book into a series for AMC.
More about Ming Peiffer here.
(Top image courtesy of Creative Commons license CC.BY.3.0; bottom image provided by author)
Tagged Ming Peiffer, new plays, playwrights, producing, racism, social justice, television
"Why Do You Have to Make Everything Political?"
Quote from the artist Ai Weiwei (source: @aiweiwei_art)
"Why do you have to make everything political?" This is a common question my fellow white people like to ask when someone offers a cultural critique of a popular musical, film, video game, or TV show. "It's not political! It's just a cute story about a boy and his dog (or whatever)!"
All theatre is political theatre. All films are political films. All games are political games. All TV shows are political TV shows. Let's break this down.
What does it mean for something to be "political?" Let's start with the obvious: the dictionary definition is useless for navigating complex social issues. Dictionaries are written by people, not by Lexica, Infallible Goddess of Language, and are updated all the time as usage changes. Dictionaries are vital and have important uses, none of which include wielding a dictionary definition as a sword to demarcate the limits of a complex social issue. I love you, dictionaries, but for this, I need to set you aside and dig deeper. I need to look at context.
Lexica has better things to do than write your dictionaries, mortals (photo: ela-e-ele.com)
When people say "Why do you have to make everything political?' they're using "political" to refer to the social messaging that's inherent in any work about race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, size, class, religious minorities, etc. Let's cut to the chase: They mean, "I do not wish to examine the ways in which this work depicts and/or impacts marginalized people in our culture."
All plays, films, games, and TV shows are political because they are about people in relationship to each other and to their social context, and because they are created within a social context, not in a vacuum where symbols and metaphors are wiped clean of all meaning. All works contain messages about privilege, about marginalized people, about who is important and who is not, about who we should take seriously and who we should laugh at, about which issues facing our culture are serious and which are easily dismissable or even comical. Social messaging is inescapable in the narrative-based work of theatre, film, video games, and television, whether you choose to examine it or ignore it.
In order to ignore the social messaging in a work, you have to be able to ignore it and willing to ignore it.
A film that people consider "universal" and "apolitical" is a film that neatly and seamlessly reinforces dominant culture and privilege. People with privilege see depictions of that privilege as "normal," "wholesome," and "apolitical" in ways that it's impossible for people without that privilege to do. There is no "apolitical" work; there is only work that reflects the world view of cultural privilege back to those with cultural privilege, who see that as "normal" and unmarked by any particular political point of view. Those without that privilege hear the political messaging loud and clear.
Is the Harry Potter series "apolitical"? Why was the character Lavender Brown cast with a Black actor in every film, then recast with a white actor when the character became Ron Weasley's girlfriend? People make all sorts of excuses for that ("They had to recast when the part had lines and they just happened to cast a white actor"), but I have 20+ years experience in casting, and I know that excuse is nonsense. More importantly, the casting of a tiny character might seem like a minor detail for white people, but you aren't the young Black girl in the audience picking out the few Black faces in a film series that you love, only to see her replaced by a white girl when she finally becomes part of the main story.
Why do people claim that Disney films have recently "become political," decrying the supposed "liberal messaging" in films like Zootopia, Frozen, and Mulan, but are just fine with the sexist messaging of older princess films ("Your happy ending is to marry some dude; no other plans or ambitions you have matter enough to mention"). Little Mermaid is considered "apolitical" but contains an uber-sexist narrative where a young woman must remain silent in order to "win her man," and the "happy ending" is leaving her home, family, culture, and entire lower half of her body behind to be some douchebag's wife. That is obvious political messaging, but messaging that supports the male cultural privilege we consider "normal," so we don't read it as such.
Daisy Ridley and Carrie Fisher at Star Wars Celebration in 2015. (Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Was Star Wars truly apolitical before The Force Awakens' Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) and Rogue One's Jyn Erso (played by Felicity Jones) sparked male outrage about "feminism taking over Star Wars"? Because I seem to recall mainstream filmmaking's first self-rescuing princess (played by the late great glorious giver of no fucks, Carrie Fisher) grabbing the blaster out of Luke's hand, flatly stating "Somebody has to save our skins," and ordering Han Solo "into the garbage chute, flyboy," then killing Jabba her damn self with the chain he used to enslave her as a bikini-wearing sex doll. Yet the original trilogy centered around a straight white male, Luke, so the films still read as "normal" and "apolitical" to white men, despite many young women reading that message loud and clear. But it was the 70s and early 80s, so, despite the obvious feminism baked into the character of Leia, her strength could be read as just another part of her allure to men as she was detoured into a romance with Han Solo and stuffed into an objectifying gold bikini. ("Keep fighting against that slave outfit," Carrie Fisher told Daisy Ridley.) Rey and Jyn are standing on the ground that Leia broke. Neither one is detoured into a romance or forced into a bikini (so far, at least), so there's no way to silo them into the archetype "Hero's Girl," making the internet's various fuckboys very angry while most men were, evidently, thrilled by both films.
"Why do you have to make everything political?" comes in various specific flavors, one of the more popular being "Why do you have to make everything about race?" The same principles hold; race is an aspect of every social encounter and every work of art is created within a specific cultural context– films are created by specific people, not found on the forest floor during JJ Abrams' morning constitutional.
"Holy shit, dude! Is that Episode 8?!" (source: nonabrooklyn.com)
If you are white in the US, chances are watching an all-white film does not register to you as "political," but people of color will notice they have been completely left out. White people react with anger upon the release of a single Black-centric superhero film yet see no problem with the dozens of superhero films that leave out people of color or relegate them to minor roles. Those nearly all-white films did not register as anything but a realistic depiction of the "normal" world to those white people, yet the Black world of Black Panther– the fictional African nation of Wakanda– is "too Black" and therefore "too militant." The trailer is typical superhero film fare, just with Black actors as the heroes. See for yourself:
It's impossible to imagine what is "militant" about that trailer unless you believe every other superhero film is "militant." It's impossible to say that a film with Black leads is "too Black" unless you see the world as normally white, unless you see heroes as normally and naturally white.
"Why do you have to make everything about race?" Because WE make everything about race by creating, spreading, and aggressively protecting the racist idea that "white" is the world's normal, default setting, and that anything else is special, distinctive, and added to a white world by white benevolence. When a box standard superhero film that runs on the same kind of ass-kicking imagery every other action film runs on is scary and "militant" because the good guys are Black, you are making it about race. People of color think about race all the time because of the shitty, racist ways we treat them, not because they had some secret meeting one day in 1953 and decided to invent identity politics to vex us.
I'm not here to snottily insist that "your fave is problematic." I am right there with you. My faves are problematic. But instead of getting defensive, we need to be realistic about the ways in which media carries narrative and shapes our culture. No one is proposing detonating every existing copy of the original Ghostbusters or melting every copy of GTA into a gigantic plastic statue of The Spirit of Feminism. What I am proposing is that we be realistic about the impact that the works we consume and create have on marginalized people, that we listen to marginalized people when they talk about this rather than get defensive and argue, that we commit to getting better at this the way all artists are already committed to getting better at our art in every other way.
Tl;dr: "Why do you have to make everything political?" "Why do you have to make everything about race?" It already is. We're just pointing it out. Don't blame the person pointing at the pothole for the pothole's existence. Instead, let's work together on building better roads.
Tagged activism, actors, casting, directing, diversity, feminism, narrative, politics, producing, racism, screenwriting, social justice, video games
The "Playwright's Intent" and the Dangers of the "Purist"
It's always exasperating to see people scolding directors for "desecrating" a canonical play or a canonical playwright's "intent" because they cast actors of color, cast a disabled actor, or removed something racist (or sexist, antisemitic, ableist, etc) from the work. It's exasperating because it's the smallest and least artistically viable point of view to have about modern stagings of canonical work.*
Our "canon" has deliberately shut out women and people of color for a great many generations. Until fairly recently in western history, it was very difficult for women and people of color to become playwrights (lack of access to education being a significant bar), and for those who were playwrights, it was very difficult to get produced outside of certain theatres. Even if produced, the work of women and people of color was rarely considered "important" or "universal" enough to be included in the kinds of awards, articles, books, and university courses that created what we consider to be the "canon." Plays that were considered "universal" reflected specifically white and male points of view; plays that differed from that were considered specific to a cultural subgroup rather than "universal" in the vast majority of cases. Even today, most works in a traditional survey course are written by white men while "Black theatre" is its own category, often represented by a single play. In my undergrad education, that play was the short piece "Dutchman" by Amiri Baraka– we didn't even read a full-length play. "Asian Theatre," "Chicano Theatre," and "Feminist Theatre" are still often brief mentions as classes move directly to more important, "mainstream" writers such as Sam Shepard and David Mamet, with Caryl Churchill the lone female voice in an otherwise very male reading list.
Scholars and theatremakers have begun the process of interrogating the formation of the canon, as well as reframing the works we consider "canonical" within their specific sociohistorical context rather than continuing to pretend these works are "universal." This is vital work.
You only get answers to the questions you ask. Scholars and theatremakers are asking new questions about "canonical" works and the formation of the "canon."
When we stage canonical work, we have two choices. The first is what is mistakenly referred to as the "purist" approach. This approach holds that works should be preserved untouched, performed precisely as they were first performed. There's some educational value in performing work in historically accurate ways– at least as far as we can reconstruct that level of accuracy. Those who advocate for this approach believe they are defending the "playwright's intent," which means they somehow believe that their interpretation of the "playwright's intent" is the only accurate one. These people are, in my experience, overwhelmingly white and male, and, as such, have been taught from birth that their experience of the world is universal, and their interpretation of the world and its processes and symbols is "correct," so it's not entirely surprising that they believe they are the only ones who understand the "playwright's intent" and can therefore separate what is a reasonable interpretation of a work from page to stage from what is a "desecration."
There are many problems with the purist approach. First of all, no one knows the playwright's intent if the playwright, as is the case with most canonical plays, is dead. Even if the playwright wrote a 47-paragraph screed entitled "Here Is My Intent: Waver Not Lest Ye Be Tormented By My Restless Spirit," no one knows what the playwright's intent would be if he had knowledge of the cultural changes that occurred after he died. The audience for whom he wrote the play– the culture that understood the references, the jokes, the unspoken inferences; the culture that understood the underlying messages and themes; the culture to whom the playwright wished to speak– is gone, and modern audiences will interpret the play according to their own cultural context. Slang terms change meaning in months; using a 400-year old punchline that uses a slang term 90% of the audience has never heard seems closer to vandalizing the playwright's intent than preserving it. Would Tennessee Williams or William Shakespeare, masters of dialogue, insist that a line using a racial slur now considered horrific still works the way he intended? Still builds the character the way he intended? It seems dubious at best, yet this is the purist's logic. The playwright's intent on the day the play was written, the logic goes, could not ever possibly change.
It's important to continue to study these works unchanged. We must not forget or attempt to rehabilitate our past. But to claim that lines written decades or even centuries in the past can still work the way the playwright originally intended is absurd.
We have begun to understand that the "canon" and its almost exclusively white male point of view is not "universal," but is a depiction of the cultural dominance of a certain type of person and a certain way of thought. We have begun to re-evaluate those works and the "canon" as a whole as part of a larger historical narrative. This is why it is of great artistic interest to stage "canonical" work in conversation with the current cultural context.
When staging, for example, The Glass Menagerie in 2017, one must consider the current moment, the current audience. We can choose to present the work precisely as it was presented in 1944 as a way to experience a bygone era, or we can present the work in conversation with its canonical status, in conversation with our own time, in conversation with the distance between its era and our own, in conversation with the distance between the playwright's intent and the impossibility of achieving that intent with a modern audience, simply due to the fact that too much time has passed for the original symbols, context, and themes to work the same way they once did.
What does The Glass Menagerie— or any canonical work– mean to an audience in 2017? What can it mean? What secrets can be unlocked in the work by allowing it to be interpreted and viewed from diverse perspectives? What can we learn about the work? About the canon? About the writer? About ourselves?
The meaning of any piece of art is not static. Whether the piece of art is a sculpture created in 423 BCE or a play written yesterday, the meaning of any piece of art is created in the mind of the person beholding it in the moment of beholding. The meaning of each piece changes with each viewing, just as the meaning of what we say is created in large part by the person to whom we're saying it, which is why we can say "Meet me by the thing where we went that time" to your best friend but need to say "Meet me at the statue across from the red building on the 800 block of Dunstan" to an acquaintance. To insist that there is one "correct" meaning– always as determined by a white male– is to deny the entire purpose and function of art. You cannot create a "purist" interpretation without the play's original audience in attendance. The closest you can come is a historical staging a modern audience views as if through a window, wondering how historical audiences might have reacted, or marveling at the words and situations historical audiences found shocking– or did not. How many audiences in 2017 understand Taming of the Shrew as a parodic response to the popularity of shrew-taming pieces? Shakespeare's audience is gone and the cultural moment to which he was responding is gone, so the possibility of a "purist" staging is also gone.
This is 2017. Our audiences live in 2017. It's insulting to them to present a play written generations in the past as if nothing about our culture has changed since then, as if a work of genius gave up every secret it had to give with the original staging, as if art has nothing whatsoever to do with the audience viewing it.
We know better. Art lives in our hearts and minds, whether those hearts and minds are white and male or not.
*Of course I am only referring to interpretations that have received permission from the writer or estate, or stagings of work in the public domain. This is not– at all– an argument in favor of running roughshod over someone else's IP.
Tagged casting, civil rights, directing, disability, diversity, dramaturgy, feminism, playwrights, producing, racism
Disability, Expectations, and Disruption in The Glass Menagerie
Phoebe Fico as Laura and Karen Aldridge as Amanda in Cal Shakes' The Glass Menagerie. Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.
It was an honor to be invited to view a rehearsal of California Shakespeare Theater's upcoming production of The Glass Menagerie and write a piece for their blog. An excerpt:
"Lisa Portes' tight, muscular staging of Glass Menagerie at Cal Shakes creates yet another layer of disruption…by using all actors of color. The actor playing Laura (Phoebe Fico) is a young woman of color with a visible mobility disability. The physical presence of the actor's disabled body onstage as Laura disrupts the other characters' strenuous and relentless efforts to create a 'Laura' that is acceptable, both to themselves and to others, paralleling our culture's relentless efforts to contain and define women, people with disabilities, and people of color."
Tickets for The Glass Menagerie, playing July 5 – 30, available here.
Tagged actors, casting, directing, disability, diversity, producing, social justice
Do Black Lives Matter at Your Theatre? In Your Films?
Philando Castile in a yearbook photo. He worked as a nutrition services assistant for the Saint Paul Public School District.
I had intended to write about the Philando Castile verdict. Philando Castile was murdered because an officer claims he believed Castile was reaching for his gun when he was reaching for his ID as instructed. That officer walked free. Had Castile been white, I believe that officer would have heard and believed him when he said he was reaching for his ID, and my plan was to write about the narratives we put into the culture that created the officer's belief that Castile was dangerous.
Charleena Lyles, in a photo released by her family.
Before I could even sit down to write the piece, Charleena Lyles was killed, and Seattle police responded by issuing a statement bragging about their "deescalation training," as if to say, "We tried deescalating, but it didn't work! We simply had to shoot and kill a tiny pregnant woman holding a knife. We were scared for our lives!" Yet somehow, when it's a white woman with a knife– or a GUN– officers aren't scared at all. Billings, Montana. Chattanooga, Tennessee. What creates that difference?
Radicalized white men are one of the most violent groups in the US, yet violent white men are routinely deescalated. Take a look at this photo AP released, taken at a white supremacist rally in 2015:
A protester confronted a man– a man at a white supremacist rally celebrating the Confederate flag, so basically a hotbed of radicalized white men– and the white supremacist reaches for his gun. The officer's reaction? Look at his face. He seems to be saying, "Whoa there, buddy. Calm down, sir." The officer clearly believes the white supremacist poses no immediate danger. A white man literally reaching for a gun does not alarm an officer, but a Black man reaching for a wallet does. What creates that difference?
Tamir Rice in a family photo taken shortly before his death.
Tamir Rice— a child with a toy gun in a park near a youth rec center– was gunned down by an officer within two seconds of police rolling up. Two seconds. The officers did not take any time whatsoever to find out what was going on, let alone deescalate. It's pretty hard to be an active shooter when your gun is a toy, and Ohio is an open carry state, so he had every right to hold a gun in public. Then those officers let this child bleed out on the ground while they chit-chatted and waited for the ambulance instead of providing the medical assistance that could have saved his life. Those officers walked free without even so much as a trial, even though the entire incident was videotaped. The person who called 911 told the dispatcher that the gun was likely a toy and that Tamir was likely a juvenile, but as soon as the dispatcher heard "Black male," she categorized it as an "active shooter" and gave it the highest priority code. Why did the dispatcher automatically assumed "Black male" meant "DANGER," and why did the officer gun down a child in cold blood before even taking a second to assess the situation? The answer is of course "racism," but where does that racism come from?
Every time a Black person is shot by police, even when the Black person is unarmed, complying, has their hands in the air, or is just going about their business, the officers say they "feared for their lives." Look again at the officer in the photo above apparently saying, "Whoa there, calm down, buddy" to the white supremacist. Why isn't he fearing for his life? Why do officers routinely fear for their lives when faced with a Black person but so seldom fear for their lives when faced with a white person?
Our culture is saturated with the narrative "Black = DANGER." As content creators and gatekeepers, white people used that narrative to justify slavery (stating that if slavery ended, former slaves would erupt in bloody uprisings and chaos), and after the passing of the 13th Amendment, which limited slavery to convicted criminals, we use it to justify the mass incarceration of Black people. We flood our culture with these narratives, either through the content we create or through the content we choose to produce. It is one thing when a Black person writes a song that speaks the truth of the violence in their own lives. It is entirely another when a white gatekeeper gets wealthy by producing only songs that depict Black men as dangerous. White people have profited both culturally and financially from the brutalization and murder of Black bodies for centuries, and we have created and carefully maintained a narrative superstructure to justify it.
It takes one generation growing up with a narrative trope to see that narrative trope as "natural." Spinning out from the narrative trope "Black = DANGER" are the racist cultural notions that Black people are tougher and do not feel pain like we do; Black people commit more crimes; Black people ruin property values; Black fathers abandon their children. Our culture is saturated with these slanders, and they are quite literally killing people.
When a police officer makes a split second decision whether to fire his weapon or to say, "Whoa, there buddy," he has to deal with a lifetime of inundation with the trope "Black = DANGER," as well as a lifetime of inundation with the trope "white people are basically OK," which not only dictates how Caucasian-appearing people are treated but also fuels white resistance to our complicity– all our complicity– in the systems of oppression that maintain white supremacy.
My fellow purveyors of narrative, we can either work intentionally to disrupt these tropes or we can work to reinforce white supremacy. There is no in between.
When Tim Burton cast his film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, he cast all the roles with white people except the villain, who was Black. There was an outcry, and the predictable fragile white reaction– "It's just a movie," "He should have artistic freedom." Of course he has artistic freedom. We all do. But don't we also have a responsibility to understand and control the messaging we put out in the culture? We vet our work in every other way, so what makes race different?
We can actively fight white supremacy with the narratives we put into the culture, or we can continue to be complicit in creating the culture that leads to the deaths of people like Philando Castile, Charleena Lyles, Tamir Rice, and so, so, so many others. It's not enough to just cast Black artists and produce Black work (although that is an excellent start). White supremacy itself needs to be pulled up from the roots because we are hurting all people of color.
Native American people are murdered by police at an even higher rate than Black people (as a whole; Black men 15-34 are killed at the highest rate), a direct result of the centuries of dehumanizing stereotypes we put out specifically to ease our consciences about treating Native American people like vermin to be exterminated or expelled, like savages to be civilized, like magic spiritual conduits that exist for the benefit of white people. From Moby Dick to Star Trek: The Next Generation, the trope "I exist to take white people on a journey TO THEMSELVES," centering white people in Native lives, has permeated our culture. And in the case of TNG, it pains me to relate, the Native character below (from the 1994 episode "Journey's End") was a white guy in disguise all along! The white actor playing The Traveler (Eric Menyuk) soon replaces the First Nations actor, Tom Jackson. This example is the ultimate in cultural appropriation– a white dude appropriates a Native body and Native culture to bring another white dude spiritual enlightenment, then they both abandon the Native village in peril, because it's "not their fight." I love you, TNG, but this was egregious, even for 1994.
Shut up, Wesley
The dehumanizing tropes we create and disseminate through our plays, films, TV shows, video games, books, web series, music videos, fiction, and nonfiction are quite literally getting people killed. I wrote this earlier, for my article about Tim Burton, and it still applies:
When we talk about police "retraining," we have to realize that no amount of retraining has the power to combat the massive force of our popular culture. There's no police-specific training that can combat that without each individual officer personally committing to actively fighting those narratives in their hearts and minds every day of their lives – which, by the way, is something I think we should all be doing. Even then there are no guarantees that the narratives white supremacy relentlessly puts into their hearts and minds are all examined, understood, and held in check in that moment they stand before Black people with their guns drawn.
As the people who literally build western culture every day through the choices we make as we create and release our art, we have a responsibility to the people whose lives are being violently stolen every day to do better.
Narrative is the most effective way to create cultural shifts, which is why it's the favorite tool of politicians. Our narrative-based industries are the biggest bats and loudest loudspeakers in our culture. We are numerous and powerful. All we have to do is agree to approach our work with intentionality.
Examine what messages your work puts out into the culture, both in its processes and its product. Who are you hiring? Who are you casting? What stories are you telling, and how? Whose work are you choosing to support?
We examine our products and our processes in every other way. We always create with intentionality, so adding "examine messaging about race (and gender, ability, etc)" isn't burdensome. We have the power to change the culture; in fact, nothing else has ever done it. Every cultural movement, for good or for ill, had a master narrative at the back of it, created by artists and writers. Examine the master narratives behind the work you produce, because they're there, whether you examine them or not.
Tagged activism, casting, directing, diversity, narrative, playwrights, producing, racism, screenwriting, social justice, video games
Julius Caesar: Suddenly Controversial
A marble bust of Julius Caesar dating from the 1st century CE
The Public Theatre is staging Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as part of its annual Shakespeare in the Park, and hauling out that most overdone of concepts: Julius Caesar is POTUS! They're all in suits! It's AMERICA! This is exactly why I never directed Julius Caesar— it's just about the only approach that makes sense in modern America, and it's been done approximately infinity times. The Public's approach is about as controversial, given every past production of the last half century, as your niece's school production of "Transportation and You" where she plays a Happy School Bus.
You were great, McKayyLyee! (Source: Toddlerapproved.com)
I'm not saying the Public's production won't be great theatre. I'm saying that concept is not exactly unique or controversial. And yet, because this is Trump's America, this old-as-the-hills concept is suddenly Not Acceptable, and both Delta and Bank of America pulled their funding from the Public, joined shortly afterwards by American Express.
THAT. IS. INSANE.
Has no one read Julius Caesar? I mean, obviously Trump hasn't since he can't make it through an intelligence briefing unless "TRUMP <3" is inserted into every other sentence. I mean– has anyone complaining about this concept ever read (or seen) the play? Anyone at Delta, BofA, or AmEx? The play does not condone the murder of Caesar. While Caesar's desire to be king, his arrogance, and his deafness to criticism all threaten democracy, murdering Caesar results in disaster. The Public released an excellent statement, which says, in part
Our production of Julius Caesar in no way advocates violence towards anyone. Shakespeare's play, and our production, make the opposite point: those who attempt to defend democracy by undemocratic means pay a terrible price and destroy the very thing they are fighting to save. For over 400 years, Shakespeare's play has told this story and we are proud to be telling it again in Central Park.
In 2012, the Guthrie, another high-profile theatre, staged Julius Caesar with (unsurprisingly) the same concept, but of course POTUS at the time was Obama. Delta funded that production without a peep of complaint.
So what is this hypocrisy about? Why is Delta pretending to be offended about the Public production? Why is anyone pretending to be offended by this production, considering they've never been offended by that oft-used concept before?
William Sturdivant and Sid Solomon in the Guthrie's 2012 Julius Caesar. (Photo: Heidi Bohnenkamp)
Here's the paradox: Trump's arrogance, desire to rule like a king, deafness to criticism, and complete lack of tolerance for anything other than adulation mirror Shakespeare's Caesar, yet to say so openly is dangerous exactly because it is true– Trump will act like a king and use the power of his office and fame to retaliate.
Trump relentlessly abuses his power. He has no qualms about using the power of his fame and, more importantly, using the power of government to quash those who criticize him or disagree with him. You'd think that was unconstitutional, and that Okieriete Onaodowan placed checks and balances in the Constitution specifically to correct for that, and you'd be right, except the GOP-controlled Congress shows no signs of reining in Trump's dictatorial behavior, and are clearly willing to sell out our entire democracy for something as tawdry as a tax cut for the wealthy.
Congress won't move to stop Trump's democracy-destroying behavior unless doing so retains or increases their popularity. Trump's approval rating is quite low, but never dips below 35%, and that is a substantial percentage of voters who seem quite content to believe that the media, people of color, feminists, Democrats, Mexicans, LGBTQ people, Muslims, and the "coastal elite" are quite literally their enemies instead of their neighbors. Fed a constant diet of fear and hatred by the right-wing media for the past 20 years, they're happy to allow the GOP to decimate every legal protection we have in the mistaken belief that it hurts their "enemies," and the GOP Congress in turn is happy to allow Trump to abuse his power all he likes as long as he signs whatever they put in front of him. Our Rome applauds our Caesar's abuses of power while our Senate winks.
Meanwhile, those of us who can see the damage being done to our democracy by these abuses of power are left wondering what to do about it since no one who is tasked with protecting us is actually interested in protecting us (apart from the courts, and Trump is trying hard to change that). Whatever the answer is, just as Julius Caesar says, it's not violence. Having a bunch of Senators murdering Trump on the Senate floor (although arguably a real ratings getter) would eliminate a threat to democracy while actually threatening democracy itself. The cure is the same as the disease. It's sociopolitical homeopathy, and just like real homeopathy, it's costly and it doesn't work.
"Violence is not the answer" is an important message to get out to a culture that is experiencing a dramatic upsurge in politically-motivated violence and violent rhetoric. Yet this is the message that's considered "too offensive" because it depicts the violence it then goes on to condemn.
The damage Trump is doing to our democracy has already been done if companies are pulling funding from the Public's Julius Caesar out of fear of Trump and his followers retaliating against them for speaking the truth about Trump's similarities to Shakespeare's Caesar and stating "Even though he threatens our democracy, violence is not the answer."
Can we recover from the damage Trump has done when so many Americans are content to allow it as long as they can continue to believe it hurts a group of people they have been taught to hate? Can we recover from the damage Trump has done if our elected officials evacuate their constitutional duty to oppose that damage?
I have no idea if we can recover as a nation. I have to hope that we will, and that midterm elections will turn the tide. Until then, all I know is that I'm sending a donation to the Public Theater. If Delta, BofA, and AmEx won't help to pay those actors and techs, WE WILL.
UPDATE: Classical theatres across the country are receiving threats from conservatives angry about this one production. Please support your local classical theatre! If you can't donate, even a note of support would be helpful.
Tagged activism, directing, funding, politics, producing


Docklands Light Railway (DLR) customers are benefitting from an increase in services after extra trains were added to a number of the routes from the 23rd August.
The changes follows improvements made earlier this year to make services faster and more frequent across large parts of the network, and form part of a series of work over the next three years that will see a more frequent service across the whole DLR network.
Twice as many trains between Bank and Lewisham on Saturdays between 19:30-22:00.
A new seating layout to increase the space available inside DLR trains is also being introduced, making it easier for customers to board. Between now and the end of 2015, more than one third of DLR trains are being converted to have seating along the sides of the carriage to make it even easier to move between the seats. Despite the change in appearance, the converted cars will have exactly the same number of seats as before.


Looking as if they belong in a palace or an embassy, the chandeliers of the Tribeca collection are majestic in their distinctive style and brilliance. The fixtures use fluted rows and stacked, inverted layers of clear royal-cut crystal to create a mesmerizing look and an elegant design statement.
Dimensions: 24 x 28 in.


text:
Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland: Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence
Venkateswar Venkataraman, Robert Nagele, Teresa Duda, Rameshwar K. Sharma
Recent evidence indicates the presence of a novel α(2D/A)-adrenergic receptor (α(2D/A)-AR) linked membrane guanylate cyclase signal transduction system in the pineal gland. This system operates via a Ca2+-driven rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase (ROS-GC). In the present study, this transduction system has been characterized via molecular, immunohistochemical, and biochemical approaches. The two main components of the system are ROS-GC1 and its Ca2+ regulator, S100B. Both components coexist in pinealocytes where the signaling component α(2D/A)-AR also resides. The presence of ROS-GC2 was not detected in the pineal gland. Thus, transduction components involved in processing α(2D/A)-AR-mediated signals are Ca2+, S100B, and ROS-GC1. During this investigation, an intriguing observation was made. In certain pinealocytes, ROS-GC1 coexisted with its other Ca2+ modulator, guanylate cyclase activating protein type 1 (GCAP1). In these pinealocytes, S100B was not present. The other GCAP protein, GCAP2, which is also a known modulator of ROS-GC in photoreceptors, was not present in the pineal gland. The results establish the identity of an α(2D/A)-AR- linked ROS-GC1 transduction system in pinealocytes. Furthermore, the findings show that ROS-GC1, in a separate subpopulation of pinealocytes, is associated with an opposite Ca2+ signaling pathway, which is similar to phototransduction in retina. Thus, like photoreceptors, pinealocytes sense both positive and negative Ca2+ signals, where ROS-GC1 plays a pivotal role; however, unlike photoreceptors, the pinealocyte is devoid of the ROS- GC2/GCAP2 signal transduction system.
https://doi.org/10.1021/bi9929960
10.1021/bi9929960
Dive into the research topics of 'Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland: Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
guanylate cyclase 1 Medicine & Life Sciences 100%
Rod Cell Outer Segment Medicine & Life Sciences 80%
Pineal Gland Medicine & Life Sciences 70%
Guanylate Cyclase Medicine & Life Sciences 69%
Guanylate Cyclase-Activating Proteins Medicine & Life Sciences 66%
Calcium Signaling Medicine & Life Sciences 65%
Signal Transduction Chemical Compounds 60%
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Venkataraman, V., Nagele, R., Duda, T., & Sharma, R. K. (2000). Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland: Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence. Biochemistry, 39(20), 6042-6052. https://doi.org/10.1021/bi9929960
Venkataraman, Venkateswar ; Nagele, Robert ; Duda, Teresa et al. / Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland : Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence. In: Biochemistry. 2000 ; Vol. 39, No. 20. pp. 6042-6052.
@article{732744d1497c4b1c814b2c0855044a4a,
title = "Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland: Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence",
abstract = "Recent evidence indicates the presence of a novel α(2D/A)-adrenergic receptor (α(2D/A)-AR) linked membrane guanylate cyclase signal transduction system in the pineal gland. This system operates via a Ca2+-driven rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase (ROS-GC). In the present study, this transduction system has been characterized via molecular, immunohistochemical, and biochemical approaches. The two main components of the system are ROS-GC1 and its Ca2+ regulator, S100B. Both components coexist in pinealocytes where the signaling component α(2D/A)-AR also resides. The presence of ROS-GC2 was not detected in the pineal gland. Thus, transduction components involved in processing α(2D/A)-AR-mediated signals are Ca2+, S100B, and ROS-GC1. During this investigation, an intriguing observation was made. In certain pinealocytes, ROS-GC1 coexisted with its other Ca2+ modulator, guanylate cyclase activating protein type 1 (GCAP1). In these pinealocytes, S100B was not present. The other GCAP protein, GCAP2, which is also a known modulator of ROS-GC in photoreceptors, was not present in the pineal gland. The results establish the identity of an α(2D/A)-AR- linked ROS-GC1 transduction system in pinealocytes. Furthermore, the findings show that ROS-GC1, in a separate subpopulation of pinealocytes, is associated with an opposite Ca2+ signaling pathway, which is similar to phototransduction in retina. Thus, like photoreceptors, pinealocytes sense both positive and negative Ca2+ signals, where ROS-GC1 plays a pivotal role; however, unlike photoreceptors, the pinealocyte is devoid of the ROS- GC2/GCAP2 signal transduction system.",
author = "Venkateswar Venkataraman and Robert Nagele and Teresa Duda and Sharma, {Rameshwar K.}",
doi = "10.1021/bi9929960",
Venkataraman, V, Nagele, R, Duda, T & Sharma, RK 2000, 'Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland: Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence', Biochemistry, vol. 39, no. 20, pp. 6042-6052. https://doi.org/10.1021/bi9929960
Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland : Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence. / Venkataraman, Venkateswar; Nagele, Robert; Duda, Teresa et al.
T1 - Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland
T2 - Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence
AU - Venkataraman, Venkateswar
AU - Nagele, Robert
AU - Duda, Teresa
AU - Sharma, Rameshwar K.
N2 - Recent evidence indicates the presence of a novel α(2D/A)-adrenergic receptor (α(2D/A)-AR) linked membrane guanylate cyclase signal transduction system in the pineal gland. This system operates via a Ca2+-driven rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase (ROS-GC). In the present study, this transduction system has been characterized via molecular, immunohistochemical, and biochemical approaches. The two main components of the system are ROS-GC1 and its Ca2+ regulator, S100B. Both components coexist in pinealocytes where the signaling component α(2D/A)-AR also resides. The presence of ROS-GC2 was not detected in the pineal gland. Thus, transduction components involved in processing α(2D/A)-AR-mediated signals are Ca2+, S100B, and ROS-GC1. During this investigation, an intriguing observation was made. In certain pinealocytes, ROS-GC1 coexisted with its other Ca2+ modulator, guanylate cyclase activating protein type 1 (GCAP1). In these pinealocytes, S100B was not present. The other GCAP protein, GCAP2, which is also a known modulator of ROS-GC in photoreceptors, was not present in the pineal gland. The results establish the identity of an α(2D/A)-AR- linked ROS-GC1 transduction system in pinealocytes. Furthermore, the findings show that ROS-GC1, in a separate subpopulation of pinealocytes, is associated with an opposite Ca2+ signaling pathway, which is similar to phototransduction in retina. Thus, like photoreceptors, pinealocytes sense both positive and negative Ca2+ signals, where ROS-GC1 plays a pivotal role; however, unlike photoreceptors, the pinealocyte is devoid of the ROS- GC2/GCAP2 signal transduction system.
AB - Recent evidence indicates the presence of a novel α(2D/A)-adrenergic receptor (α(2D/A)-AR) linked membrane guanylate cyclase signal transduction system in the pineal gland. This system operates via a Ca2+-driven rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase (ROS-GC). In the present study, this transduction system has been characterized via molecular, immunohistochemical, and biochemical approaches. The two main components of the system are ROS-GC1 and its Ca2+ regulator, S100B. Both components coexist in pinealocytes where the signaling component α(2D/A)-AR also resides. The presence of ROS-GC2 was not detected in the pineal gland. Thus, transduction components involved in processing α(2D/A)-AR-mediated signals are Ca2+, S100B, and ROS-GC1. During this investigation, an intriguing observation was made. In certain pinealocytes, ROS-GC1 coexisted with its other Ca2+ modulator, guanylate cyclase activating protein type 1 (GCAP1). In these pinealocytes, S100B was not present. The other GCAP protein, GCAP2, which is also a known modulator of ROS-GC in photoreceptors, was not present in the pineal gland. The results establish the identity of an α(2D/A)-AR- linked ROS-GC1 transduction system in pinealocytes. Furthermore, the findings show that ROS-GC1, in a separate subpopulation of pinealocytes, is associated with an opposite Ca2+ signaling pathway, which is similar to phototransduction in retina. Thus, like photoreceptors, pinealocytes sense both positive and negative Ca2+ signals, where ROS-GC1 plays a pivotal role; however, unlike photoreceptors, the pinealocyte is devoid of the ROS- GC2/GCAP2 signal transduction system.
U2 - 10.1021/bi9929960
DO - 10.1021/bi9929960
Venkataraman V, Nagele R, Duda T, Sharma RK. Rod outer segment membrane guanylate cyclase type 1-linked stimulatory and inhibitory calcium signaling systems in the pineal gland: Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistochemical evidence. Biochemistry. 2000 May 23;39(20):6042-6052. doi: 10.1021/bi9929960

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Vital signs either q2h or q3h according to feeding schedule; if unstable, q1h 4. Bed meeting 8:30 AM daily: Charge nurse discusses planned admissions, discharges and off-unit procedures as well as status of patients in Labor/Delivery 5. , intra-venous alimentation and lipids) B. PM shift: 1. 7:00 to 7:15 PM: Shift change and nursing bedside report 2. Baths and weight done between 8:00 and 11:00 PM 3. Dressing changes for central catheters (Broviac q72h; femoral q48h) 4. Midnight: 24h intake and output totals calculated (based on current weight) 5.
To provide a neutral thermal environment, 48 Copyright © 2004 The Regents of the University of California Health Care Maintenance the incubator temperature should be kept at the temperatures shown in the following tables. 1 When the incubator is opened for procedures, use a portable overhead warmer with temperature probe and/or a Portawarmer™ to prevent hypothermia. 49 Copyright © 2004 The Regents of the University of California Intensive Care Nursery House Staff Manual Feeding of Preterm Infants INTRODUCTION: Proper nutrition in infancy is essential for normal growth, resistance to infection, long term health and optimal neurologic and cognitive development.
Be sure catheter cannot slip through the suture. Apply antibiotic ointment to umbilicus, cover with a dry 2x2 dressing and secure dressing and catheter with tape. 4. Location of catheter tip. Always verify location of the UAC tip radiographically; it should be in the abdominal aorta below the 3rd lumbar vertebra (L-3) and above the aortic bifurcation (usually, bottom of L-4). This will ensure that the tip is below the origin of the inferior mesenteric and renal arteries but still in an area of relatively high blood flow.


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Q: Label text does not update properly I have the following code to update my UI.
private async void startButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    progressBar.Maximum = 100;
    progressBar.Step = 1;
    fileListView.Items.Clear();

    var progress = new Progress<ProgressData>(pdata => {
        currentFileLabel.Text = pdata.CurrentFile;
        totalFilesLabel.Text = pdata.CurrentIndex + "/" + pdata.FileCount;
        progressBar.Value = pdata.Progress;
        fileListView.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string[] {
            pdata.CurrentIndex.ToString(),
            pdata.OldFileName,
            pdata.NewFileName,
            pdata.FileExtension
        }));
    });

    await Task.Run(() => Rename(progress));
}

This code does not update currentFileLabel and totalFileLabel properly. They are only updated after the Rename method completes its work. But fileListView and progressBar are updated without a proplem.
If I remove fileListView.Items.Add method, now labels are properly updated as well.

How can I update all the UI controls properly?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Location DB > United States > Texas > San Antonio > Lone Star Brewery
Lone Star Brewery
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Database Info
created by Allva on 12/4/2005 6:07 AM
last modified by mutatingcat01 on 10/17/2013 5:52 PM
Publically Viewable
This location has been labeled by its creator as Public, and therefore can be viewed by anyone.
Great place, can easily spend 4-5 hours here. Don't know why this was listed as "converted to condos"...as of March 2013, it's still very much abandoned.
Type: Building
Status: Abandoned
Accessibility: Moderate
Recommendation:	worth the trip
See a map of this location
unsafe flooring
Patrol in front parking lot
Interesting Features
part-time guard
24 hour guard
locked gates
welded doors
wooden boarding
Historical Dates
Closed: 1996
Required Equipment
breathing mask
Originally posted by MothMan:
The Lone Star Brewery was built on Jones Avenue in San Antonio Texas in 1904, with Adolph Busch as first President. It was closed in 1918 due to proibition but was reopened on Mission Road in 1933 and produced beer under the "Sabinas" brand name that was later renamed to "Champion" beer. In 1940 the name was changed from the Champion Brewing Company to Lone Star Brewing Company.
The tenth and largest expansion of the Lone Star Brewing Company was initiated in 1959 with the acquisition of the Progress Brewing Company in Oklahoma City. Lone Star operated that plant until it sold in 1973 to the Oklahoma League for the Blind. By the end of the fifties decade, Lone Star had gained the reputation as the World's Most Beautiful Brewery.
In 1976 the Lone Star Brewery was acquired by Olympia Brewing Company of Tumwater, Washington. The G. Heileman Company of LaCrosse, Wisconsin acquired Olympia and Lone star in 1983. In 1996 the G. Heileman Company was acquired by Stroh Brewery Company which closed the San Antonio brewery. In 1999 the Pabst Brewing Company purchased the Lone Star brand and moved the Lone Star production to the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio.
Soon to be turned into fancy pants condos...
Add your own story
Lone Star Brewery: Odds & sods
posted by Allva
Lone Star Brewery: First visit
Sun, Dec 4th, 2005
Lone Star: Second visit.
Sun, Feb 19th, 2006
Lone Star:Visit #3
Sun, Mar 12th, 2006
Mon, Feb 16th, 2009
texas beer
Mon, May 30th, 2016
posted by fatwax4
Mark all galleries as Seen
UPDATE!!!!!
http://www.thelonestarbrewery.com/
http://www.texasbr...s.com/lonestar.htm
Suburban Underground Vadders writeup and pictures:
http://suv.topcities.com/ls1.htm
Pictures of Lone Star while still in operation:
http://www.edsande...nting/buckhorn.htm
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This location's validation is current. It was last validated by 2Xplorations on 5/17/2017 3:51 AM.
on May 17 17 at 3:51, 2Xplorations validated this location
on May 17 17 at 2:22, fatwax4 updated gallery texas beer
on May 17 17 at 2:22, fatwax4 added some pictures to a gallery
on May 17 17 at 2:20, fatwax4 created a new gallery
on Jun 3 14 at 0:16, Steed validated this location
on Oct 17 13 at 17:52, mutatingcat01 changed the following: Status, Accessibility, Hazards, Recommendation, Required Equipment, Description
on Oct 17 13 at 17:48, mutatingcat01 changed the following: Latitude, Longitude, Co-ordinate Accuracy
on Feb 7 10 at 4:35, Steed validated this location
on Feb 6 10 at 5:57, Allva updated gallery Lone Star Brewery: First visit
on Dec 12 09 at 2:05, Opheliaism validated this location
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New info Korrin99 0 104 4/15/2018 9:18 PM by Korrin99
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text:
1937. Continued Destruction of Earth's Plant Life Places Humans in Jeopardy
By Science Daily, July 14, 2015
Unless humans slow the destruction of Earth's declining supply of plant life, civilization like it is now may become completely unsustainable, according to a paper published recently by University of Georgia researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"You can think of the Earth like a battery that has been charged very slowly over billions of years," said the study's lead author, John Schramski, an associate professor in UGA's College of Engineering. "The sun's energy is stored in plants and fossil fuels, but humans are draining energy much faster than it can be replenished."
Earth was once a barren landscape devoid of life, he explained, and it was only after billions of years that simple organisms evolved the ability to transform the sun's light into energy. This eventually led to an explosion of plant and animal life that bathed the planet with lush forests and extraordinarily diverse ecosystems.
The study's calculations are grounded in the fundamental principles of thermodynamics, a branch of physics concerned with the relationship between heat and mechanical energy. Chemical energy is stored in plants, or biomass, which is used for food and fuel, but which is also destroyed to make room for agriculture and expanding cities.
Scientists estimate that the Earth contained approximately 1,000 billion tons of carbon in living biomass 2,000 years ago. Since that time, humans have reduced that amount by almost half. It is estimated that just over 10 percent of that biomass was destroyed in just the last century.
"If we don't reverse this trend, we'll eventually reach a point where the biomass battery discharges to a level at which Earth can no longer sustain us," Schramski said.
Working with James H. Brown from the University of New Mexico, Schramski and UGA's David Gattie, an associate professor in the College of Engineering, show that the vast majority of losses come from deforestation, hastened by the advent of large-scale mechanized farming and the need to feed a rapidly growing population. As more biomass is destroyed, the planet has less stored energy, which it needs to maintain Earth's complex food webs and biogeochemical balances.
"As the planet becomes less hospitable and more people depend on fewer available energy options, their standard of living and very survival will become increasingly vulnerable to fluctuations, such as droughts, disease epidemics and social unrest," Schramski said.
If human beings do not go extinct, and biomass drops below sustainable thresholds, the population will decline drastically, and people will be forced to return to life as hunter-gatherers or simple horticulturalists, according to the paper.
"I'm not an ardent environmentalist; my training and my scientific work are rooted in thermodynamics," Schramski said. "These laws are absolute and incontrovertible; we have a limited amount of biomass energy available on the planet, and once it's exhausted, there is absolutely nothing to replace it."
Schramski and his collaborators are hopeful that recognition of the importance of biomass, elimination of its destruction and increased reliance on renewable energy will slow the steady march toward an uncertain future, but the measures required to stop that progression may have to be drastic.
"I call myself a realistic optimist," Schramski said. "I've gone through these numbers countless times looking for some kind of mitigating factor that suggests we're wrong, but I haven't found it."
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Georgia. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
1 Schramski JR, Gattie DK, Brown JH. Human domination of the biosphere: rapid discharge of the earth-space battery foretells the future of humankind. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Labels: Destruction of plant life, Plant life, The Anthropocene
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