Filed by Lance at 10:22 pm under General, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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Today, the applicants for early admission at the Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship had our auditions and interviews.

In case you haven’t heard me preach about the IAE, it’s simultaneously the missing ingredient that artists of all disciplines have been searching for, a part of a larger discussion of the future of American work, and a promising path to a thriving creative economy. The thing I was always missing in school was any business or entrepreneurial sensibilities. I trained in both the hard sciences and theater arts, and no one ever told me it was possible to do anything but rely on someone else for a paycheck.
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Filed by Lance at 6:52 pm under General, Love, The Arts
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It’s amazing, what happens to you doing nothing.

2011 will forever be the year without a January: I fell ill… really ill… on January 4, and returned to life on January 31.

I feel great now, and am back on the job. Last night, I had a really wonderful evening attending the Chicago Independent Artists Network, and work on Launch Pad Casting Workshop is coming along.

So now that it’s Valentine’s Day (bah humbug), Happy New Year, everyone!

Filed by Bil at 7:07 pm under The Arts
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Just posting a bunch of videos is really lazy blogging. I am aware of this. And I sincerely apologize, but that’s exactly what you’re getting right now.

Somehow, I didn’t know about Xtranormal until just this weekend. I mean, I’d seen a few clever videos that made their way around the internet, but I didn’t realize that you could create an account and make your own. So I did.

I made a series called “SadBots” which is about (you guessed it) emo robots. So put on your thrift-store sweater, put your Morrissey LPs aside, and get ready to relate to emotionless (yet poetic) talking robots.

Filed by Trevor at 11:36 am under The Arts
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“Robert Frost disliked having poems set to music. Not because he objected to the music - he objected to what it did to the poems. Frost, himself, would have objected. He would have strenuously objected.” — Lesley Francis, Robert Frost’s granddaughter

Two versions of the same piece, one of them illegal. Imagine having to commission a text with the same meter, rhyme scheme, and key words as Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” while at the same time being a coherent, emotionally resonant text befitting the music. Or, I guess I should say, imagine having to write it, especially after the original version had already enjoyed numerous successful performances nationwide. This is what is necessary when one is sued for copyright infringement by the estate of a long-dead, universally respected poet.

The poem becomes public domain in 2038 and Eric Whitacre, the composer, has stated that he would not revert to the original in that instance. Which do you prefer? Why? Is it the subject matter or the actual constants and vowels of the text itself?

Filed by Bil at 4:23 pm under Pop Culture, The Arts, The Science
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Thanks to Laughing Squid for bearing the hard news that famed mathematician and all-around smart guy Benoit Mandelbrot has passed away, and double thanks for the pair of videos posted on that page, which I have re-embedded here, along with a bunch of other fractal videos (for the benefit of everyone out there who’s not on drugs).

The TED talk Mandelbrot gave earlier this year is a little over 17 minutes long, and worth every second of it, so if you’ve got the time, do yourself the favor.
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Filed by Bil at 6:38 pm under Fightin' Words, Love, The Arts
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I’ll say this for having a day job: it provides a lot of food for an actor. And I don’t just mean people food. I mean artistic food. As both an actor and a human being, I would like to be able to step into any job and kick ass at it. I know that’s not really possible with just any job as a human being – I would never trust myself with open heart surgery – but as an actor I should be able to pull it off. And with a day job, I actually get to execute this challenge.
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Filed by Bil at 8:12 am under Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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That’s right, world, Dream Theatre’s “Theatre of Women 5″ is this Saturday, and I will once again be writing. Lance will once again be directing. Excitement abounds.

This particular annual festival is unique in that it contains only female actors. The whole point is to offer roles to strong actresses who don’t get to perform the type of role they really, really want, because of things like unfortunate typecasting or a simple lack of juicy available roles for women in this town. And let’s face it, really good, really interesting roles for women are comparatively rare. It’s the sad state of the world.

So this festival attempts to correct that, getting some intense and quirky playwrights to come up with something specifically for these actresses. This year, we even asked them what kind of role they’d really like, and the playwrights will cater to that.

I can’t wait to get started. All the actresses that have been assigned to me have all asked for roles using the adjectives “crazy,” “sexy,” and “ugly.”

This is gonna be gnarly.

Even awesomer than usual: the director assigned to my play will be Right Brain Project Artistic Director Nathan Robbel, and the playwright to which Lance will be assigned is Dream Theatre member/perennial favorite John Enright. This is like pairing the finest wine with gourmet meals Coca-Cola with In-N-Out burgers.

Tickets please.

Filed by Bil at 5:49 pm under The Arts
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Sometimes I want to be a professional photographer. I think it would suit my rock & roll lifestyle…at least, it would suit the rock & roll lifestyle I would create around being a professional photographer. I wouldn’t mind the paperwork or the fact that I’d probably be doing mainly weddings and family portraits to make ends meet. The occasional rock show would be SO worth it.

Also, I think I know enough now about internet marketing (as well as actual social interaction) that I think I could move somewhere and take over the scene. But I wouldn’t want to try it in Chicago, because I’m already established as this guy with one little camera who’ll gladly photograph anything for anyone for free.

The photo above is from a show I had the honor and pleasure to shoot - the CD release party for Diana & the Dishes. This was back in August. I’m not sure how their CD sales are doing, but their CD is amazing, so if you haven’t bought it yet, please buy it now. Right now. The album is called “Take A Picture” and you can purchase it on iTunes or CDbaby or Amazon, or if you’re old school like me, you can get an actual physical CD from her website.

Filed by Bil at 4:15 pm under The Arts, The South
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Before we get to our monthly activities recording the unbridled hatred of our anonymous friends and strangers tomorrow, I’d like to just give a shout-out to what surely must be the best blog in the world. There’s a recording of a reading of one of his posts with some psychedelic, spaghetti-western guitar beneath it, and seriously…it’s amazing.

You can close your eyes and just listen.

Filed by Lance at 4:40 pm under General, Pop Culture, The Arts
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Through my work with the Bite Size Arts Ensemble, I came up with this idea to get kids actively involved in creating theater.

I came up with a simple “script,” really just a bullet point list of the flow of a scene. I usually based this off of some ideas they had, or fleshed out a story they told me. I then came up with a list of assignments, i.e., Director, Art Director, Cinematographer, Actors, and gave them specific assignments, then turned them loose, guiding them and making suggestions as the “Producer.”

Here’s the results, I’m really proud of these kids: