Under a tight schedule, it takes eight weeks to replace one stage floor. Last summer, we had only five. And two enormous stages. Life is not fair. But, if you have a good sense of humor, it is funny. Running The Straz takes an enormous amount of effort on what we call the “back end,”... Continue Reading →
Put Out the Light – and Then – Put Out the Light
Okay, okay, so Morsani and Ferguson Halls “going dark” for August may not be as dramatic as Othello in Desdemona’s bedchamber (who got the blog title reference?), but us taking a short time-out is important for a number of reasons. Want to know what secret stuff we’re up to in the big Straz venues? We’re... Continue Reading →
The Theater Above the Theater
Fly systems, rigging systems, whatever you want to call them, just know there’s a very serious show happening in the 60-plus feet of air above the show on stage. One of the wondrous aspects of theatrical life, even from its beginnings, is the delightful mix of labor, craft and personalities required to pull off a... Continue Reading →
Cool Facts About Performing Arts: Entrainment
Have you ever heard that clocks ticking at different beats will eventually synch up to tick in time? Well, it’s true. Christiaan Huygens, the Dutch physicist who first identified this process using pendulum clocks, called this curiosity ‘the sympathy of the clocks,’ although what he actually identified was the phenomenon of entrainment, an exceptionally cool... Continue Reading →