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"I am writing to address three main points: One, to add my voice to the discourse around this event as an artist who was critical of the experience and decided to walk away, a voice which I feel has been absent thus far in the LA Times and New York Times coverage; two, to clarify my identity as the informant about the conditions being asked of artists and make clear why I chose, up till now, to be anonymous in regards to my email to Yvonne Rainer; and three, to prompt a shift of thinking of cultural workers to consider, when either accepting or rejecting work of any kind, the short- and long-term impact of our personal choices on the entire field. Each point is to support my overriding interest in organizing and forming a union that secures labor standards and fair wages for fine and performing artists in Los Angeles and beyond."

This lesson uses video segments from Great Performances: The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Ballet to help students explore the role of the author in relation to his/her work. In the Introductory Activity, students discuss the structure of the original The Little Mermaid tale as they remember it. Students then read the original story and compare their memories to the original text. In the Learning Activity, students examine John Neumeier's artistic interpretation of the classic fairy-tale by looking at two video segments that feature the main characters of the ballet. Finally, for the Culminating Activity, students craft their own contemporary interpretation of a classic fairy-tale (e.g., Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty).

"Artists frequently hide the steps that lead to their masterpieces. They want their work and their career to be shrouded in the mystery that it all came out at once. It's called hiding the brushstrokes, and those who do it are doing a disservice to people who admire their work and seek to emulate them. If you don't get to see the notes, the rewrites, and the steps, it's easy to look at a finished product and be under the illusion that it just came pouring out of someone's head like that. People who are young, or still struggling, can get easily discouraged, because they can't do it like they thought it was done. An artwork is a finished product, and it should be, but I always swore to myself that I would not hide my brushstrokes."

As a person who has had a long stage career as a performer AND a producer/director, I could spend time advising you on all of the things one should do to further their career in theatre. I'm not going to do that. While it may seem like I'm focusing on the negative, it is this humble writers opinion that it's more important to know what NOT to do. A vast majority of actors, singers, dancers, comedians, variety artists, technicians, and stage managers make one or many of these 6 mistakes far too often during their careers, and sometimes unknowingly hurt their chances at booking work. Employers talk to one another, and sometimes one bad reference is all it takes for you to lose the job. And you'll never know why you didn't book it. By avoiding these critical mistakes, you can set yourself apart from all of your contemporaries. While talent and craft is important, the most gifted performer can make themselves completely un-hirable by committing these career sins:

As a young theatre company, Up In Arms has already traversed the best new writing stages with two plays written by their co-Artistic Director, Barney Norris. When I spoke to him, and his directorial partner Alice Hamilton, I wanted to find out how this small touring company, thrust into the spotlight for rural work about everyday lives, was evolving. Their first two plays - Visitors and Eventide - were firmly set in experiences around Salisbury Plain and therefore the 'home' lives of the company's directors (though both now live elsewhere). How would they tackle their new piece but old work - Robert Holman's German Skerries?

While that might seem semantic, the feedback effect is significant. Rather than reject ideas in their entirety, Pixar creates an additive approach to sharing feedback. It actively encourages artists to come up with their next steps based on the leads they receive. The process borrows from the tenets of improv, in which partners keep the sketch alive by "accepting all offers" and mining for comedic wrinkles in each other's ideas. People who operate with "yes, and…" thinking use their words to amplify ideas, not silence them.