Another Place goes to HERE

A happy announcement!

The Anthropologists' Another Place - which received a staged reading in the 2010 Planet Connections Theatre Festivity - is performing at HERE this week!

What if you could build your own universe and leave your troubles behind - would you do it?  Another Place examines the precarious role of the individual in the age of climate change and asks: does science liberate or destroy us?

Performances are:

Wednesday, April 27 @ 7PM

Thursday, April 28 @ 7PM

Friday, April 29 @ 7PM

Tickets are only $25

 

In the spirit of Planet Connections and eco-friendly theatre, the show was designed with reused and repurposed materials: discarded cardboard, wallpaper, Christmas lights, discarded nut canisters,soda and beers cans, and a sundry assortment of often disposed and underused plastic items, such as water bottles and plastic cutlery – all items that, ordinarily, would have been trashed even without having been used. 

We hope you'll check out a performance this week and see the next phase of Another Place!  Thanks, Planet Connections, for giving us our first place!  :)

This production is a part of the Artists Lodge through HEREstay, HERE’s curated rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical and administrative support.

After Earth Day

Although Earth Day officially passed on Friday, you still have time to celebrate and contribute to the salvation of the planet!  

You can plant roses in the Heritage Rose District before you do a little spring closet cleaning and recycle your clothes in the Garment District on April 30th.  Then go easy on your budget and the environment on May 5th, and treat yourself to a free movie screening at Mason Hall.  

The Heritage Rose District Spring Planting happens on April 30th at Marcus Garvey Park on 120th street and Mount Morris Park West Entrance.  It starts at 11am and goes till 1pm. Find out more information here: Heritage Rose Planting Event

You can recycle your used clothing later that day at La Marqueta, 1590 Park Avenue from noon to 5pm.  They want your clean but used shoes, coats, sheets, towels, pants, shirts, scarves, belts, handbags-all of it!  If you don’t use it and don’t want to throw it away, here is your answer: La Marqueta Textile Recycling Day

Finally, on May 5th you are invited to Gasland, a documentary directed by Josh Fox.  Get the invite and RSVP here: Gasland Invite!. 

It would be a wonderful contribution to our Earth to make Earth Day every day!  Do you have other suggestions for projects and events?  Tell us in the comment section!  

by Erika Bracy 
Assistant Green Initiatives/Charities Coordinator

Trash or Fashion?

Even America's Next Top Model sees the value in eco-friendly fashion. 

Check out the photo slideshow from a recent show that featured models going glam in a landfill.  (Thanks for the tip, Nicole!)

Source: www.buddytv.com

At times, the landscape is apocalyptic and mesmerizing but MAKE NO MISTAKE!  This is a landfill, only one of thousands in our country.  According to the EPA, the U.S. has 3,091 active landfills and over 10,000 old municipal landfills.  Let ANTM be an inspiration to all of us to keep valuable materials OUT of the landfills! 

So, to try and inspire our artists to be even more eco-conscious than they already are, we're launching the following special event this year: 

THE GREEN FASHION SHOW

Wednesday, June 22 @ 9PM
Location: Gene Frankel Theatre
Tickets: $5*
*50% of ticket sales goes to charity!

Project Runway meets Recycling!

Planet Connections productions and their costume designers are invited to enter PCTF’s first-ever Green Fashion Show!  From salvaged and found materials to repurposing and reinventing, we’re looking for costumes that exemplify going green and thinking both innovatively and sustainably.  Which costume will be deemed the most eco-chic?  Designs will take to the runway in front of the audience and a panel of Celebrity Judges.  The winning costume design will take home a cash prize for their show’s charity!  50% of all ticket sales for this event go to the winner’s charity and only you can make it a success!  So show your love for green design by attending this fantastic event!

Eligibility:

·         Only 1 per show (must be a costume being used in a PCTF production)

·         Must be submitted by show producer, director or costume designer along with photo & description

·         Show is responsible for providing and dressing their 'model'

Can't wait to see your submissions!

Resource Alert: FAB Load-Out Event April 9 @ noon - 5PM

Hi everyone - this is a reposting from Materials for the Arts, which is an awesome resource and a friend to many artists, including productions in this year's Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.

This weekend, Fourth Arts Block (FAB) will be hosting their Load-Out event in the East Village. This Saturday from noon to 5pm, head down to 19 East 3rd Street where FAB brings together gently used materials of all sorts from arts organizations throughout the East Village for a community reuse event. Discover treasure amongst what others can’t use or don’t need any more. Recipients of MFTA receive free admission, and general admission is $3 to cover administration costs. Everything you take away, however, is entirely free of charge.

If you are interested in donating, FAB will accept goods this Friday from noon to 7pm. Any donations not taken during the event that fall under our guidelines will be donated to MFTA, so there is sure to be lots of great materials! Please support this wonderful display of community reuse and spread the word!

If you have any questions, please contact Betsy Imershein, Sustainability Consultant of Fourth Arts Block, at 917-364-1110 or betsy@fabnyc.org. 

If you go, let us know what  you find!

Design Idea: All Natural Sequins

Many costumes are spangled with sequins to give performers an extra oomph on stage!  A memorable recent example would be the costumes from Taylor Mac's The Walk Across America To Save Mother Earth, gloriously crafted by Machine Dazzle. (Witness the Dazzle - warning, NSFW!) 

A new costume restoration at Smallhythe Place in Kent, England, used a much different kind of sparkle:

beetle wings

The dress dates to 1888 and was worn by Ellen Terry when she played Lady Macbeth.  Described as "emerald and sea green," the dress was made with 1,000 beetle wings and was restored at a cost of £50,000.  Where did they get all these wings?  The house manager, Paul Meredith, notes: "We had collected the beetle wings that had fallen off the dress over the years so that the conservator was able to re-attach many of the originals, plus others that had been donated to us - 1,000 in total."

Apparently, no beetles were harmed in the making.  The iridescent wings are naturally shed throughout the beetle's life cycle.

Too "bugged out" by the real thing? Try these!

Have you ever used an insect or animal by-product in your costume design? Tell us in the comments section.

Nicole Smith: Master Scheduler!

As a director and producer, I've long thought that the art of scheduling deserves its own Masters Program.  And if you think scheduling actors and a production team for one show is a challenge, it takes a special mind to schedule a Festivity with 50+ productions!  Managing Director Nicole Smith came up with an ingenious way to schedule the shows AND do it GREEN!  Read about Nicole's process...maybe you'll get some ideas!

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Scheduling a festivity is always going to be a large task especially one with multiple performance venues and a lounge. As I started thinking about the schedule a few months back I wanted to find the best way to see the entire picture of each venue in one glance as well as an easy way to compare the venues on a daily and hourly basis.  Now this being a green festivity, I knew that I had to find a way to do this without purchasing new materials.  This past February, while working at The Juilliard School, I came up with my solution. 

I was working on Henry V and one of the props was a large gold framed white board that the actors used to write on each performance and then be wiped clean for the next one. Well, we soon discovered that the materials was not as dry erase or even washable as it advertised.  

The solution? 

One-time use large pieces of white poster board
which were taped on to the already existing props. 

The challenge: this solution was not so eco-conscious.  BUT! I had other plans....

GREEN SOLUTION #1: re-use the boards to plan out the Festivity schedule!  Since this was a prop that I was in charge of I made sure to stash all those single side use poster boards for a subway ride to my apartment! In the end, I had a total of 4 boards; each Festivity venue was split into two weeks per board. Once I sharpied out all the lines to create a calendar running daily from 9am to midnight, I began to work on a way for each performance and each tech to be easily removable as well as representing the physical time they would be in the space. GREEN SOLUTION #2: Put to use all those single day calendar pieces from my cute-overload calendar my family gave me for Valentines Day!  Each show got it's own "card" representing the show title, running time and # of performances, plus any requests from the artist.

Creating the boards

Once all this prep work was complete I began to plug in all the shows and tech rehearsals by venue!  Et voila!  Because I thought through my needs ahead of time, this board allows me to easily move the shows around on the schedule when new changes and requests come in.  And all the while, I can rest easy, knowing that I'm doin' it all GREEN!

Have you been saving materials from one project to re-use for another?  Tell us about it in the comments section!

Chelsea's Festivity-Wide Eco-Challenge!

Here's a great and inspiring idea from Planet Connections Assistant Manager Chelsea (Green Initiatives/Charity Outreach) about a way that we, as a Festivity, can collectively make a positive impact on the environment!

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Going green can seem terribly overwhelming.  It's natural to wonder: how does anything I do possibly make a dent in any of these problems?  

However, one website made me feel a little less insignificant: www.onemillionactsofgreen.com.

This site not only sums up your impact on the environment, but creates a community of individuals and organizations who are trying to make a difference.  For the first time we can track and see the fruits of our labor.  We can create challenges for a group (for example... Planet Connections!).  We can choose a lifestyle change - even if it's only for a week - and see the collective progress we've made.  It illustrates how these small choices can cumulatively make a big difference.

Need some inspiration?  Here are current stats from the website:

U.S.
Total Acts of Green
186,265
Greenhouse Gases Saved

23,564,037 KG

This is equivalent to:

• taking 4,992 cars off the road for an entire year
• planting 23,564 trees
• replacing 871,868 light bulbs
  

Each costume and prop we recycle, each decision to use the Soda Stream instead of getting a soda can, each piece of scrap paper re-used - multiply that by the 40+ productions and reading in the Festivity....

Can you see where I'm going with this?

I'm sure we could top any group on the website (my competitive streak is showing).  Now increase that by the number of people working on each show, branch out to our charity partners, and now include our audience members...  We could definitely make a dent in those One Million Acts! 

ACTION ITEM: Now all we have to do is sign up! I've created a group named Planet Connections Festivity, which you can join after you log in. 

Suggest your eco-challenges to the Planet Connections Festivity Group in the comments section below!