Digestible Linkage

In addition to spouting off a fair amount this past week, I’ve also been catching up on reading. Sadly not novel reading as my attention span has yet to recover from the Death Flu, but I’ve been reading many interesting and varied articles across the interwebs – enough of them that I feel compelled to share some of the highlights:

Fellow LA Theatre Slave, Gedaly, has a great piece on how theatre still markets itself like it’s 1936. While I believe intrinsic changes need to occur at the AEA level to even begin to move us forward (because even non-equity houses fear the wrath of the AEA), I do concur that internet marketing, specifically in video form needs to be made better use of in productions. The secondary hang-up is that in small theatre, which needs the marketing most, the desire to find inventive ways of incorporating video marketing is often there but the manpower to make it happen on less-than-no-budget is not. That speaks more to the inherent lack of non-actors and designers involved in theatrical ventures (that aren’t revivals or rip-offs of tried-and-true hits) than to anyone directly involved in a production, but it still is a root cause of this problem.

Author J.S. Chancellor has decided to go for pomp (and hopefully avoid broke) in advertising that his new (and unfortunately partially leaked) novel will be available for free download in March. As a starting novel in a series, this grand gesture could garner enough support from readership to gain buzz and profit for the succeeding novels.

Chamber Musician Today features a guest blog on how/why to join a vocal ensemble. While it lacks a bit in the directional ‘hows’ of joining (i.e. what to be prepared for in different ensemble types and what to expect in audition/interview processes, and how the rehearsal and performance schedules can differ between various groups), it does offer several varied options for vocal groups and what might appeal to potential members. As someone who’s constantly toying with the idea of finding a new vocal home, this gave me a little push to maybe give it a go.

This interview with Andrew Chambliss would have knocked me on my ass, if I hadn’t already been on it. There’s nothing new or astonishing in the article; it’s just a successful writer-geek talking about his work and those he’s worked with. However, as he’s a) a phenomenal, young writer and b) has worked on shows with writers I worship and adore, it’s pretty much a geekgasm-causing insight into the inner-world of writers I would love to know and would consider myself lucky to emulate.
TV writers also hold a bit of enigmatic awe for me as the concept of anyone’s mind working that fast, let alone a room full of people working at that pace, astonishes me.

All right, so I can’t help but be a bit self-indulgent as this final link (via CJDirector) is to a site which put me on their main page. I’m down in the ‘Health’ section, which is a little off for the entry, but I will certainly take publicity in any form I can get – especially for this entry on music snobbery. I will use pretty much any avenue I can to headbutt the ignorance out of people resistant to Hanson.