The weeks preceding finals are bleary-eyed and coffee-scented, punctuated by the restless clicking of keyboards and the shuffling of pages and episodes of forgetfulness. Lights gleam cold and florescent, the apathetic overseer of offices and classrooms, penetrating into libraries and dormitory rooms, a flat unforgiving glare that attempts to mimic the light of day but is never quite able to replicate it. They glaze windows into opaque sheets of blackened mirror until there is nothing outside; there exists only the image of you, notes and references lying in a sprawl before you, lit perhaps by a rectangular screen of blue-white light. Thoroughly unpleasant, indeed.

Warm, dim lighting is not necessarily conductive to productivity. A hazy oddslot glow might lull you into a sense of contentment, and the pool of light a single lamp spreads does little better than its cooler, flatter cousin. But sometimes- sometimes- in the hours past logic or reason- all one wants is some nice light, really, that doesn’t feel like a sledgehammer to the skull. Mixed lighting can be a good balance, of course, as long as the most unusual temperatures or colors are not the most dominant.

Diffuse light, though, tends to be a nice all-purpose. Bright or dim, warm or cool, day or night, the quality of the light is even without being cutting. String lights (Christmas lights, holiday lights), especially in neutral colors, I’ve found, work wonders in serving as versatile (and flexible) substitutes for single-bulb lamps. Alternatively, a lamp pointed at a white wall or ceiling lets the light bounce off those surfaces, creating a more even consistency that is often better for reading than a clearly defined pool of light sitting directly on one’s page, or a direct light that creates glares.

Thinking about lighting for spaces is in principle not unlike thinking about lighting for the camera, but it is certainly less complex and entirely more rewarding.

Like many people, I usually approach performance art with, at best, apathy. Similar to contemporary painting, which is often caricatured as simply canvases painting in a solid color or just a dot in the center, the art world has done a good job at distancing itself from anything tangible or easily relatable to a general audience. Three years of art history classes have somewhat numbed me to this argument; I rarely look at art anymore for the purpose of evoking in myself ‘feeling’ or ‘emotion.’ I typically approach any era or genre of art as a lens through which to contextualize or reflect the historical period surrounding it. To this extent, I can understand the backlash to minimalist and performance art considering so much of its importance is its reaction to image theory and art history. Similarly, my reaction to performance art has more often than not been “ok it’s interesting that people are exploring artistic barriers but none of this will stand the test of time.” However, recently I have come across a few pieces that have caught my attention and further pushed by conception of what “art” is. I think the two most exciting pieces I’ve heard of are by Chris Burden and Marina Abramovic and both explore the importance of audience participation and compliance, to the point where they blur the line between sociology experiment and artwork. Chris Burden’s piece “Samson” is part instillation, part performance. Burden, who made a name for himself in the 70s when he had a friend shoot him in the arm for a piece and in the 80s when he had himself crucified to a car, created “Samson” to further understand how far the audience is willing to participate when being directed. “Samson” is a set of beams constructed to fit between the walls of a gallery, connected to a turnstile. Each time a patron of the museum enters the gallery they pass through the turnstile, and every time it is turned the beams are rigged to push outward. Theoretically, if enough people passed through the turnstile, the walls would be pushed to collapse. Considering the museum did not, in fact, collapse, either there were not enough patrons or Burden’s audience made the conscience effort to prevent the demolition. I’m inclined to think that there just were not enough people visiting the museum (surprise surprise). Marina Abramovic did something similar with her performance “Rhythm 0,” in which she placed 72 items on a table, some harmless and others not, and allowed audience members to do whatever they wanted with those items to her while she remained motionless. She said afterward about it:

“I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.”

There’s a malady well-known in the undergraduate theatre community.  It begins in late August and symptoms reoccur periodically throughout the year.  Thankfully, there is a support network out there for those of us so afflicted by this terrible disease.  I have been suffering from a flare-up lately.  That’s right.  I’m not ashamed.  I have post-internship depression syndrome (PIDS).

Common symptoms of PIDS include:

• Desperately wanting to be in an office surrounded by scripts.
• A detached desperate feeling to be plugged back into the professional theatre scene.
• Missing working alongside salaried employees and bemoaning your unpaid status.
• A yearning to see the future of professional American theatre created before your very eyes.
• A slight watering at the eyes when Skyping, Facebooking, or texting former colleagues.
• Sinking of heart when reading about something awesome that is happening at your previous place of employment.  When you’re not there.
• Constantly reaching for your phone to share nerdy news that only your co-workers could fully appreciate.

The good news, if you’re afflicted with this condition, is that some of the most exciting theatre companies in America have now joined the 21st century.  Their websites are up to date and slick.  Their Twitters are tweeting.  Their Facebook fan pages have photo exclusives and ticket deals.

I do what I can to stay up to date on the conventional theatre news websites, like Playbill and Broadway.com, but for the younger, fresher, ideas, I often turn to Twitter.  The hashtag #newplay is my best friend.  I can follow dramaturgs who are doing the work I would love to; even LMDA (Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas) has an account.  The national organization for professional not for profit theatre, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), live tweets their conferences and panels.  This is an excellent way to stay up to date.  It’s like you’re in the room with the top theatrical minds sharing in their dialogue.  There are accounts set up exclusively to promote a new play discussion.  The greatest thing about Twitter, as obvious as it may be, is that anyone can add into the conversation if they feel so moved.  This often results in discussions between people who may not otherwise communicate– a writer in San Francisco and an upstart artistic director in New York, a storefront theatre in Chicago and a New York marketing director.  There are blogs that serve this purpose as well.  One of my favorites is Howl Round, maintained by Arena Stage.

Today, something major happened.  The Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, an excellent non-profit theatre with one of the most impressive new play festivals in the country, appointed a new artistic director today, Les Waters, director of many young playwrights and associate director of Berkeley Repertory Theater.  I read about this decision minutes after it was announced, thanks to Twitter.  It then exploded all over my Twitter and Facebook newsfeeds.  I was hearing about it from professional organizations, new play think tanks, and theatrical friends who either had worked for ATL in the past or are interested in their work.  It’s moments like this that I’m reminded how small the theatre community is, and what a community it is.  The excitement generated by this shift in personnel made me excited without having any personal connections to the theatre.  The community, my community, was buzzing. It’s days like this that my PIDS subsides.  I am still at one of the best universities in the world, learning what I need to learn to permanently join the community that I so yearn for, and remain a part of that community, at least technologically.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

It’s an adage pummeled into young elementary school students, a worn dictum whose extremity in triteness is likely to cause a self-conscious writer to hesitate using it even in irony. But in third grade, when the vast majority of us were unaware of the literary faux pas of clichés, I remember my class sitting and waiting to be turned loose among the shelves of children’s literature, or more accurately, wide expanses of Goosebumps, The Magic Treehouse and Animorphs genre of chapter books. In particular, I recall promising to myself I would never, in my life, ever, judge a book by its cover, lest I suffer a most unpleasant death by a swallowed watermelon seed (a recurring nightmare at the time, in which the seed germinated). I sat there legs folded, jaw clenched, and looking ambitious. If a shadow of desire to do the aforementioned crossed my consciousness, it was treated as a moral failure, and recompense, in the form of doubling all efforts to not judge, should follow promptly. I’d like to think that behind the hyperbolic sentiments towards inanimate objects was a somewhat misplaced effort of sympathy and an overshot desire for not letting preconceived notions get in the way of a good relationship. Or, it may have just been an early symptom of neurotic behavior. Regardless, in my eight-year-old mind, that’s what I believed. With that credo, I took it upon myself to deliberately find the ugliest, most ragged looking books I could dig from the shelves. I would read them, out of a mixture of pity and misguided moral rectitude. I did this for years, selecting amongst piles of books the ones that were most dog-earred, most sepia tinged (before nostalgia became an aesthetic), and truly most lamentable in terms of cover art. In the end, I can’t say for sure whether I have been better or worse for it. I realized much later that things shouldn’t be taken quite so literally, that books that were pretty did not disqualify them from being valuable, and that pretty is far too subjective.

Nowadays, if I’m browsing through an array of unfamiliar books, it is in fact the allure of its frame, its colors and shapes that initially draw me if its title or subject matter initially does not. The art of design has proliferated, and even old friends are getting renovated. Out of indulgence, I recently purchased a copy of Jane Eyre from Penguin’s hardcover classics collection, simply because I thought it was beautiful, crisp, and captured a lasting quality that would weather gracefully. The move to more abstract design, away from an artist’s depiction of a scene or character from the work, I believe, is a desirable change, as it does not put in place, before we can draw in our mind’s eye what is unfolding before us, a bias regardless how subtle. Interpretation, then, is left wholly to the reader. Salinger too, believed this to some degree, as he  insisted in the publisher’s contract that only the text of the title of the book and his name were to appear on any future editions of his work, with absolutely no images so as to not flaunt or broadcast itself unnecessarily for profit. This move towards a witty simplicity or minimalism resonates with me – geometric with a good-typeface can actually inspire me to pull it off the shelf and investigate further. Its gaping, unassuming initial impression leaves me to the duty of drawing out the complexities – it’s but a taste of what’s to come, an art that is incomplete until you delve into its counterpart.

Book cover design is often an overlooked art shadowed by the immensity of the text. Regardless, there’s a coterie of appreciators online; the following are a few interesting links to websites that treat them as the main attraction.

The Archive of Book Cover Design and Designers

The Pelican Project

Twenty Classic Novels’ First Covers

Lovely Book Covers

Here it is.  My Thanksgiving list, specific to theatre:

• Those who have come before me and paved the way.  Looking at you, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner, Sarah Ruhl, Laura Schellhardt.
• Seeing my first play produced in my hometown.  It was surreal and I am unbelievably lucky to have had that privilege.  Something many of us have to wait years for.
• My talented friends and professors who inspire me daily.
• New work.  It is invigorating and vital.  I am glad it exists, and I am glad that there are places in this country (the O’Neill, Humana Festival, The Lark) that are fostering it and ensuring that our theatre will have a future.
• Artistic dialogues.  I joined the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas listserv this year, and it is one of the best decisions I’ve made.  Every day, I get a nerdy little e-mail sent to me containing brilliant dialogues between dramaturgs who are sincerely enthusiastic about their work.
• The close-knit theatre community.  In theatre, they always say, “It’s all about who you know,” and I believe that is 100% true.  What’s more true is that whoever you know will know someone else.  Everyone knows everyone.  It’s like living in a small town. It may feel stifling at times, but in the end it’s very comforting to know that if you make great friendships with other artists, they’ll do their best to make sure you are taken care of.  Theatre is a scary profession, but there’s always something out there who’s got your back.
• The theatre department.  My classmates, my professors, other professors who I don’t have any more but who still sit down and talk with me about life.  I get to feel like my voice is valued and respected.  The support here is incredible, and because of that I am able to do the most important thing for a young theatre professional.  I can take risks.  Special shout out to my program, the BTAs!
• Basement Arts. I know it may seem shmaltzy, but if I hadn’t gotten on board a Basement Arts show my first year at this university, my experience would have been entirely different and not nearly as happy.  It’s how I made my first friends in the department, and I got to do it while defying what I thought possible of three weeks of rehearsal and a tiny theatre.  I am consistently amazed by the work done by Basement, and I am glad that my participation in it has stretched my three years here.
• Having the great advantage of knowing that this is what I wanted to do since I was seven years old.
• All of my theatrical homes, and there have been several.  Whenever I think of a place I feel safe and centered, I think of a theatre.  I know I am lucky to have that, and I am so thankful that I have always had a theatrical home.

Sorry if this seems a little self-centered or self-indulgent, but I hope it at least got you thinking about what you’re thankful for.  Artists have to constantly step back and think of what they’re thankful for so they have fuel to keep going.  Happy Thanksgiving!

It wasn’t just the energetic crowd- that was expected at the Blind Pig. It wasn’t the intimacy between said crowd and the performer- that’s easily attainable at any live DJ show. And it wasn’t even the dynamic transition between the opening act and the main artist- that was only recognizable long after the show had finished. No, what really set The Hood Internet’s concert last Saturday night apart from any other live mashup performance I’ve experienced was my steadfast faith, born early in the evening, that Steve Reidell knew precisely what he was doing.

Formed in Chicago, The Hood Internet is a combination of DJs Aaron Brink and Steve Reidell, although last Saturday proved that one member is enough to produce an amazing live show. The duo specializes in combining Hip-Hop and Rap acapellas with indie and alternative instrumentals. This untraditional type of mashup drew a different sort of crowd than those who usually flock to these shows. Always hesitant of paying money to hear music that is free online, most people stray away from them. One of their only appeals is the constant stream of popular music which is supplemented by a much more dance-provoking beat. The Hood Internet, faithful to their own style, barely fits that criteria, further excluding more concert-goers. Regardless, the Blind Pig was still well attended, and the audience was extremely entertained.

Although only half of his team was present, Steve Reidell manifested no signs of concern or unease while in the spotlight. He approached his two laptops and mixer (no turntables) with confidence, and exhibited such an authoritative composure that I, and I’m sure the rest of the crowd, had no skepticism as to his abilities. Towards the end of his piece he paused the music to ask the crowd, almost rhetorically, if he should continue or end his consistent and addicting stream of mashups. We answered, and the stream began to flow once more.

My expectations for the Hood Internet’s live setlist could not have been more wrong. I anticipated that they would enhance their show with their most popular singles, to cater to the general population’s desires. However, the majority of their setlist was comprised of the less played, harder to identify tracks that hide in the middle of their monstrous mixtapes (of which there are five and generally last over an hour) and serve as transitions. This worked in an interesting fashion for the show; because of the similar nature of most songs (indie or techno beat with ’80s or ’90s Hip-Hop verses), the mashups infused with present day tunes were very distinctive. For instance, I couldn’t tell you the songs prior to or after “Back that Sleepyhead Up,” but I specifically remember screaming along with Passion Pit’s classic. This should not be interpreted as a flaw in the performance, however. Despite being uncommon, the transitions remained undeniably enjoyable. Highlights of the setlist include when Reidell combined Sir Mix-A-Lot’s anthem “Baby Got Back” and Cee-Lo Green’s horridly addicting single “Fuck You,” as well as two renditions of one of their newest creations: Big Sean’s “Marvin and Chardonnay” and techno genius Wolfgang Gartner’s “The Way It Was.” Ann Arbor appreciated your shout out to the D, Reidell.

Overall, the show was invigorating because it quite literally did not stop. While Reidell took minor breathing pauses, the music and dancing continued. He maintained such an impressive flow of tracks that it was impossible to deny that he knew exactly how to present the perfect dance party. For those wary to pay for a ticket to a mashup show, know that you aren’t paying to hear the music; you are paying for the experience, and in my opinion, as of last weekend, the Hood Internet is the best in the game.