World Scenography 1975-1990 documents lighting, set and costume design

The book covers set, lighting and costume design for all forms of performance, from theatre and dance to opera and spectacle. Encompassing material from hundreds of contributors, it highlights some 430 significant works from more than five dozen countries.

Co-editors Peter McKinnon, professor of stage design and production in the Department of Theatre, Faculty of Fine Arts at 91��ɫ, and Eric Fielding, professor emeritus of scenic design at Brigham Young University, Utah, led an international team of researchers and associate editors for the project.

The editors point out that the publication is neither encyclopedic nor a collection of "greatest hits".  The intent, they say, is to showcase, contextualize and document for posterity “designs that mattered, that made a difference”: seminal designs that had a major impact on the development of the art form, its practice and reception.

Groundbreaking productions cited in World Scenography 1975-1990 include the political puppetry of the American Anti-Bicentennial Pageant at the University of California (1975); English director Peter Brook’s Mahabharata (1985), which was staged in quarries in France and Australia, as well as in theatres in the US and Spain; and the opening ceremony for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand.

Notable designers featured include Tony and Drama Desk Award-winner Maria Bjornson of France/UK (Phantom of the Opera, 1988); German designer Achim Freyer, winner of the Prague Quadrennial lifetime achievement award (Woyzeck, 1989; The Magic Flute, 1982); Sun-Hi Shin of Korea (A Bicycle, 1983; An Encounter, 1990); Canadian designer André Caron (Cirque Réinventé, 1987,  for Cirque du Soleil); veteran Broadway designer Robin Wagner (A Chorus Line, 1976; On The Twentieth Century, 1978; Dreamgirls, 1981); and 91��ɫ theatre  Professors Teresa Przybylski and Phillip Silver.

World Scenography 1975-1990 is the first publication in a projected three-part series. It builds on the foundation established by Stage Design Throughout the World, a four-volume series edited by René Hainaux that concluded in 1975. McKinnon and Fielding are already planning volumes two and three of World Scenography, to span 1990-2005 and 2005-2015, respectively. When complete, the World Scenography series will be the largest, most comprehensive scholarly work on theatrical design ever created.

McKinnon notes that the motivation and passion behind this epic endeavour is the transitory nature of design for live performance. “Theatre design work is as ephemeral as the work of the actor,” he says. “Once the show is over, it disappears. If we don’t photograph, catalogue and preserve our design work, we run the risk of losing it forever.”

The editors of World Scenography are themselves leading contributors to the field.

Peter McKinnon

McKinnon has served as lighting designer for some 450 shows, principally dance and opera, across Canada and internationally, and has produced shows off- and on-Broadway and in Edinburgh, Scotland. A past president of the Associated Designers of Canada, he was an organizer of the Canadian exhibit at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. His editorial credits include the international lexicon Theatre Words�����Ի� One Show, One Audience, One Single Space by Jean-Guy Lecat.

Fielding has designed scenery and/or lighting for more than 250 productions for stage, film, television and special events. He designed the gold medal-winning American exhibit at the 1991 Prague Quadrennial and created the World Stage Design exhibition, directing its premiere showing in Toronto in 2005. He is a 30-year member of United Scenic Artists 829, a Fellow and former vice-president of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, and former editor of the journal Theatre Design &Technology (TD&T).

World Scenography 1975-1990 is designed by Randal Boutilier (BFA '00), an alumnus of 91��ɫ’s Visual Arts Program. The series, to be published both in print and online, is an official project of the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians (OISTAT). Both McKinnon and Fielding are long-serving executive members of OISTAT, a UNESCO-recognized organization that draws together theatre production professionals from around the world. The long list of international supporters of the World Scenography project includes the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

McKinnon and Fielding will be in attendance at a reception marking the Canadian launch of the publication on Thursday, April 5, 7 to 10pm at TheatreBooks, 11 St. Thomas Street, Toronto.

For more information, visit the World Scenography series website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The competition is an initiative organized by the Council of Ontario Universities (COU), in partnership with the Government of Ontario. The province-wide competition is being overseen by the IDeA Working Group, comprised of representatives from engineering and design Faculties at several Ontario universities.

Students will vie for $3,000 in prizes, with entries that must address barriers to accessibility in five categories: attitudinal, physical/structural, information and communications, technological, and systemic.

“Ontario universities are strongly committed to the important goal of leading the country towards greater accessibility,” says Alastair Summerlee, chair of COU and president of the University of Guelph. “Tapping into the innovative capabilities of our students is an excellent way to build awareness and to advance ideas that lead to a more accessible world.”

91��ɫ students can find rules and registration information . The deadline for contest submissions is March 31. Students interested in submitting their idea or concept should review the rules and criteria, register and then submit the concept by e-mail to ideas@yorku.ca by the end of the business on March 31.

Submissions will first be evaluated by 91��ɫ and then successful candidates will move on to a second round of judging conducted by a panel of experts in the five categories. Evaluations will be based on innovation, cost-effectiveness and practicality. Judges will also place a premium on entries whose format itself demonstrates consideration to accessibility issues.

The winner will be announced at an event at the Ontario Centres of Excellence Discovery Conference in May 2012.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conferences began in 1984 in Silicon Valley as a way for tech employees to share their ideas and innovations. TEDx91��ɫU, which is organized independently of TED, will include talks by 11 members of the 91��ɫ community. They will speak about a wide array of topics, including the impact of emerging technology on education, student activism, mobile technology and seniors,�����Ի� how concussions affect athletes.

TEDx91��ɫU will be held in Theatre Glendon on the Glendon campus of 91��ɫ from 9:30am to 3pm. All of the talks will be streamed live at .

Featured speakers and topics include:

Mamdouh Shoukri, 91��ɫ president &  vice-chancellor – "Forty years later I traded a briefcase for a backpack... and I loved it". After 40 years, Shoukri revisited his time as a student thanks to 91��ɫ's inaugural President for a Day contest. The contest saw him swap roles with a student for a full day, in what may be a first for a Canadian university. In this address, he will talk about the contest, his experiences and what he learned from the day. (10:10 to 10:22am)

Patrick Monahan, 91��ɫ  University vice-president academic & provost – "The 21st-Century Revolution in Higher Education". Monahan will explain the transformation already underway in higher education worldwide, driven by technological advances that will enable – and also require – universities to respond to the learning needs of their students in new and different ways. The university in 2025 will be a very different place from what it is today. This transformation will mean more and better educational alternatives, better learning outcomes, and at a lower cost to students themselves. He will also explain how 91��ɫ aspires to be a university for and of the 21st century. (11:43 to 11:55am)

Mike Layton, Toronto city councillor (Trinity-Spadina) and a graduate of 91��ɫ’s master of environmental studies program – "Free Energy Retrofits". Layton proposes that to combat climate change, we must take action globally, nationally, locally and in our very homes. He focuses on the latter, outlining a number of things that people can do in their own homes to conserve energy and offset their effects on climate change, focusing on the support and use of municipal legislation. (2:26 to 2:38pm)

Barbara Crow, professor of communications & culture and associate dean, research, in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies – "Canadians at the Cross-Roads". Through her research on the impact of mobile technology on seniors, Crow explains the importance of bridging the gap between youth and seniors, as it relates to mobile technology usage. (10:49 to 11:01am)

The event will also include presentations by a number of other speakers. The time of each presentation will be updated on the website. These speakers include:

Lauren Sergio, 91��ɫ professor, School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Health – "Impact Matters. Literally". Using her research on the impact of concussions in athletes, Sergio explains that we need to rethink how we know when it’s safe for them to return to play.

Megan Bertasson, Whitebear Woman, 91��ɫ student – "Acimowin – to tell a story". Using Cree storytelling, Bertasson shows the power of stories as agents of resistance, cultural propagation and impact. She leaves the audience with the powerful story of Helen Betty Osborne, a Cree woman brutally assaulted and murdered in Manitoba, asking them to digest, interpret and apply the story in their own way.

Samantha Yamada, 91��ɫ student – "Measuring Impact". Using the example of Pine River, a centre for youth dealing with mental health issues and addiction, of which she is a co-founder, Yamada is arguing for the importance of program- and self-evaluation in being able to make an impact.  She highlights the courage required to acknowledge and overcome failure, and to learn and grow from it.  Evaluation may not be the flashiest form of research, but it is essential to making an impact and difference.

Alastair Woods, 91��ɫ Student – "In Praise of Troublemakers". Woods gives a call to action, praising troublemakers − those who stand up and make their voices heard, pushing governments to be more accountable, and finding ways to operate both within and outside of the existing (imperfect) political system.

Brian Crosby, 91��ɫ alumnus and comedy writer – "All Your Ideas Are Bad: A letter to myself". Presented as a letter to his younger self (and to all of the audience), Crosby is sharing the idea that impact is not something that happens, but a process.  Using examples of "bad ideas" he has come up with throughout his career as a comedy writer, he demonstrates that "failure" is not an end point, but a natural and necessary part of finding success with your passions and being able to make an impact.

Jeremy Laurin, president & CEO, ventureLAB – "Impact - My life as an entrepreneur". Using experiences from his own life, Laurin talks about the impact and influence of his family on his journey to becoming an entrepreneur.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The event, Queering Theatre in Toronto, will take place Thursday, Jan 5, 2012, from 2 to 4pm in Winters Senior Common Room, 021 Winters College, Keele campus.

Right: Marie Rickard

Newton, a recently appointed Winters College Fellow, is the founding artistic director of Ecce Homo Theatre. His newest musical, , is scheduled to run from Jan. 5 to 15, 2012, as part of the 2012 Next Stage Theatre Festival at the Factory Theatre in Toronto.

Written and directed by Newton, Loving the Stranger or How to Recognize an Invert, introduces the audience to Montreal’s Peter Flinsch, a theatre designer, visual artist and gay survivor of Nazi Germany, who was arrested in 1942 for kissing a friend at a Luftwaffe Christmas party. It takes in everything from the cabarets of 1920s Berlin and the battle over gay marriage to the office of the Prime Minister, and is billed as a provocative expressionist cabaret.

“The goal of my work is to balance politics and entertainment, to combine dance, music, text and design into a total theatrical experience in the hopes of challenging my audience intellectually and emotionally,” says Newton.

“I agree with Schiller's notion of the stage as a moral institution and I endeavor to create work on big themes for troubled times. My output as a playwright and director with Ecce Homo Theatre seeks to achieve intimacy through artifice using a queer aesthetic as a tool for destabilization, to draw attention to hypocrisy and deflate the un-ironic. As one of my former teachers, Charles Marowitz, once said, “Laughter can be a hammer-stroke in the hands of deft satirists.”

Newton is a contributor to the forthcoming collection, TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work (Intellect Ltd.), edited by 91��ɫ theatre Professor Judith Rudakoff.

His previous work includes three consecutive productions for the SummerWorks Theatre Festival in which he was playwright and director of The Pastor Phelps Project: a fundamentalist cabaret, The Ecstasy of Mother Teresa or Agnes Bojaxhiu Superstar and Loving the Stranger or How to Recognize an Invert. Newton’s work has also been performed at the Rhubarb Festival – Leni Riefenstahl vs the 20th Century – and the Victoria Fringe Festival – Woyzeck Songspiel.

In addition, Newton was a participant in the inaugural presentation of The Ark at The National Arts Centre English Theatre in 2006, and is a past member of the BASH! Emerging Artist Program at the Canadian Stage Company, the Ante Chamber Creator’s Unit with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and the Director’s Lab of the Lincoln Center Theater.

He has also served as apprentice director for the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera Company for its 2009-2010 season, where he directed a production of Pergolisi’s La Serva Padonra. Newton’s recent work includes a stint as director/dramaturge for Bella: The Color of Love with Teresa Tova and Mary Kerr at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. It was a commission for the 2011 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

The show is being supported by the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Next Stage Theatre Festival and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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