TCI articles from March 1997

TCI archives from March 1997

Riverdance.(Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY)
March 1, 1997... No sooner have the echoes of Riverdance faded than Lord of the Dance comes in hot on its heels. Both productions celebrate Irish step dancing and spirited Irish music, and both spring from the heart of choreographer Michael Flatley, a UK-based...

Truth or Darien.(lighting designer Donald Holder's 'Juan Darien')(Interview)
March 1, 1997... Even 10 years after it was originally staged, Juan Darien remains a unique event in the American theatre. Based on a tale by Horacio Quiroga, the play, set in South America and subtitled "A Carnival Mass," tells the story of a jaguar who, when...

Hardy's Lincoln Center encore.(architect Hugh Hardy)(Interview)
March 1, 1997... For architect Hugh Hardy, the current renovation of the Lincoln Center theatres in New York City represents his return engagement. As a young architect starting out in the early 1960s, he was hired by legendary set designer Jo Mielziner to work...

Pretty Fire.(Manhattan Theatre Club Stage II, New York, NY)
March 1, 1997... The difference between Charlayne Woodard's Pleat and most other one-person shows is like the difference between watching a movie in faded black and white or the most vivid color. Pleat, a sequel to an earlier solo piece, Pretty Fire, details...

The Harlem Nutcracker.(New York, NY)
March 1, 1997... The Nutcracker is a Christmas habit that is hard to break. For many dance companies, it is the bread-and-butter that funds the rest of their season. But how many times can a dance enthusiast sit through the same old story? The Mark Morris Dance...

Frank Gehry, are you experienced?(Frank O. Gehry & Associates to design new Seattle, WA, museum/exhibition hall)
March 1, 1997... Seattle's reputation as the epicenter of alternative music is being affirmed with its own cultural shrine. Formerly known as the Jimi Hendrix Museum, the Experience Music Project[TM] has selected architect Frank O. Gehry & Associates to design...

Fit for a queen.(costumer Jane Greenwood's new 'Once Upon A Mattress')
March 1, 1997... Ask Jane Greenwood about the experience of designing the costumes for the Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress, and she sounds just like Sally Field accepting the Oscar: She liked it, she really, really liked it. In fact, Greenwood almost...

Dan Moses Schreier.(Designer Profile)(Interview)
March 1, 1997... When Dan Moses Schreier accepted his Drama Desk Award for outstanding sound design last May, he earned laughter from the audience by thanking the Drama Desk for having an award for sound design. The joke, however, is no joke. It's an ongoing...

George & Goldberg.(set designers)(Business Report)(Company Profile)
March 1, 1997... As 11-month-old Indigo Abigail sleeps or plays in George & Goldberg's back office within the company's newly renovated facilities in Paramount, CA, she is blissfully unaware that her busy parents, David George and Hyra Goldberg, are working on...

TCI Lighting Products of the Year.(theatrical equipment)
March 1, 1997... Regardless of whether it comes in like a lion or a lamb, the month of March always comes with the TCI Lighting Products of the Year; 1997 is no exception. This year we've brought together three experts to make our product picks: lighting...

Shoe business: New York's NikeTown redefines the retail experience.(Themed Retail - design)
March 1, 1997... Part shoe store, part entertainment venue, and part whimsy, NikeTown New York City has gone for the gold in its high-tech mix of themed design and multimedia. This mega-emporium on 57th Street in Manhattan opened in November 1996 to...

Raising 'Rosewood.'(Film/Production Design)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1997... John Singleton's film Rosewood is named for a Florida town that was obliterated from the face of the earth in 1923. The residents of the largely black community were driven into the woods by a white mob from a neighboring town, and their...

Four for Tina & the queen of rock's 'Wildest Dreams' tour.(concert design)
March 1, 1997... While most of her contemporaries are pondering how to spend the next 20 years in Palm Beach, Tine Turner is traversing the globe for 16 months playing to sell-out audiences on all five major continents. It is a tribute to her vivacity, and to...

Special report: widgets we love ... and a few we really like as friends.(stage equipment)
March 1, 1997... Okay, so maybe love is too strong a word. But the fact is that the dozen products described below (and the additional 11 we picked as runners-up--see "And a Few We Really Like as Friends") are widgets we think are pretty terrific additions...

Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical.
March 1, 1997... By Barbara Isenberg. New York: Limelight Editions, 1996. 214pp. Illustrated with black and white photos. Hardcover: $25.00. ISBN: 0-879190088-5 Big was widely assumed to be the can't-miss hit of the 1996-95 New York theatre season. Based...

Create Your Own Stage Costumes.(Brief Article)
March 1, 1997... London: A&C Black, and Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996. 160pp. Paper, $24.95. ISBN# 0-435-08675-8. This is a "how-to" book, written with an enormous amount of good will, useful to those beleaguered mothers who have volunteered to costume...

MIDI show control - five years later.(musical instrument digital interface)
March 1, 1997... "Imagine you could plug the output of a computer into the input of a light board, using a cable available at almost any music store in the country, and have the two systems communicate--when you send a Go message from the computer, the light...

AC motors encroach on DC territory. (stage settings and scenery; alternating current versus direct current)
March 1, 1997... In 1887, a battle raged between the proponents of DC and AC power. Officials of the Edison Electric Light Company staged shocking demonstrations with stray dogs and cats to show the hazards of the Westinghouse AC generators. Despite the grisly...

Blue Suede Shoes.(costume/set designer Bob Mackie)(Designer Sketchbook)(Interview)
March 1, 1997... As dance audiences and government funding for the arts dwindle. ballet companies must find innovative ways to fill seats. Last spring, the Cleveland San Jose Ballet combined classical dance with classic rock to produce Blue Suede Shoes, a...