Sharon Grace Powers How Broadway Works Building and Running a Show from the People Who Make It Happen Globe Pequot, Applause, Dec 2023.
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.
I applaud the premise of this book, which is an engaging, informative account of all the people who make it possible for those who shine on the Broadway stage, as actors, musicians, or writers. They have their role, but so too, do those people who may fleetingly appear as they move scenery, but are otherwise unseen, except in the productions their work brings to the public gaze. Not only does Sharon Grace Powers give them their due, but she opens up the huge range of possibilities available to people who would like to work on a Broadway production.
This is a wonderfully detailed book, with chapters on all aspects of bringing a show to Broadway with chapters covering the role of: the General Manager/Producer; Production Management Company; Set Designer and Associate Set Designer; Props – Production Props Supervisor, Head of Props; Puppets and Special Effects; Costumes – Costume Designer, Costume Design Associate, Full-Service Shops and Costume Draper, Beading, Fabric painter, Milliner, and Body Padding; Wardrobe – Wardrobe Supervisor, Dresser and Sticher; Stage Management – Production Stage Manager and Assistant Stage Managers; Music – Misic Director, Associate Music Director, Dance Music Arranger, Vocal Arranger, Orchestrator, Music Copyist and Music Coordinator; Sound – Sound Designer, Sound Mixer and Assistant Sound Person; Lighting – Lighting Designer, Lighting Associate and Lighting Programmer and Technology; Hair/Wigs and Makeup Prosthetics – hair Supervisor and Makeup Designer. Reading this wide collection of the work that is undertaken to get a show to its audience would provide any teacher of theatre and drama courses with a wealth of knowledge with which to encourage students who are not those to be seen on stage. This is just one of the treasures that Sharon Grace powers provides. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Covid update for Canberra
On the 24th of November Canberra recorded 488 new cases, with 26 people in hospital, none in ICU or ventilated. One life was lost in this period.
Bob McMullan – Australian Politics
The Hasluck Test
I want to propose a new test that the Albanese government should apply to all its new policy proposals: the Hasluck test.
This test is based on the well-established, but often forgotten, concept that for reforms to have lasting impact the government needs to be sufficiently enduring to enable the reforms to become so embedded in the national psyche as to make them difficult to remove.
The test essentially says, what would the voters of Hasluck think about this proposal? Could we sell this proposal to those voters?
I have chosen the electorate of Hasluck in Western Australia because it has demography representative of the target group of voters I believe the government needs to give attention to. Also, its geographic location in the eastern suburbs of Perth would be a balancing focal point to the tendency for national policy to concentrate on the south-east corner and the inner-city suburbs.
The idea of the Hasluck test was generated following comments by the experienced and insightful member for MacArthur, Mike Freelander. Mike attributed the failure of the voice referendum at least in part to the failure to communicate the proposition to working people in electorates like his.
I was overseas for the last weeks of the referendum campaign and therefore can’t really comment on the merits of the campaign or Mike’s view about the referendum. However, his comments got me thinking about the implications of his statement for the next and subsequent elections.
We all find it too easy to live within a bubble of like-minded people. It is difficult but important to judge events and issues from a different mind-set. What decision makers need is a framework for considering the potential impact of policy proposals.
It is also true that all the major parties, Labor, Liberal, Nationals and the Greens, have a South East corner view of Australia, ignoring the different views in outer suburbs and in the West. The Liberals and Nationals have a sub-set of this with a peculiar dominance of Queensland in their parliamentary party and leadership. Historically, Labor has been Sydney focussed, with lesser focus on Melbourne and then the rest of NSW and Victoria and South Australia. The Greens are totally focussed on the inner -city seats and voters.
Despite PM Albanese’s consistent efforts to give attention to WA, this narrowing of focus to which all parties and governments are susceptible could become a point of political weakness over the next few years. In this term the uniquely unsuitable characteristics of Peter Dutton’s style of politics and expression will make a second term for the Prime Minister more likely. But it would be unwise to rely on this alone.
However, Anthony Albanese has always shown an admirable awareness of the need to plan beyond one term to achieve lasting change.
This is where the Hasluck test comes in.
Why do you need such a test? Good public policy stands on its own merits, which can be measured by cost-benefit analysis; social analysis; environmental consequences etc. But the political merits of public policy are important too if a government is to last a long time and achieve its long-term policy objectives,
Howard and Hawke both showed the benefit of an extended term of government. As a consequence, their reforms have become embedded and endured.
The demographic characteristics of Hasluck are very relevant to the type of voters Labor needs to focus on winning and retaining. Suburbs such as Midland are typical of the type of working-class areas which could become battleground regions at the next or subsequent elections.
Hasluck, on its current boundaries, has fewer professional workers than the national average and more trades workers. It has fewer managers than the national average and more sales workers. It is not a poor district; family income is close to the average. The proportion of households with a mortgage is more than 50% compared to the WA average of about 40 and the national average of about 35% so it is very vulnerable to the impact of monetary policy.
No electorate can represent every target group at any election but demography and geography make Hasluck a good approximation of the sort of policy test-bed that the government needs.
I am aware that there will be a redistribution of boundaries in WA before the next election which may lead to significant changes to the boundaries of Hasluck.
This may change the details of the choice the government should apply. But it will not change the essential message.
The working people of the eastern suburbs of Perth should be the prism through which the political acceptability of policy proposals is tested.
First published in The Western Australian.
Cindy Lou eats in Canberra again
Blackfire
London restaurants are often wonderful, fun and providers of excellent food. However, it is always great to return to Canberra favourites. Blackfire is one of these, a pleasant place for a Sunday lunch, and even better, a midweek dinner with friends. This time we had tapas and entrees to start and then a main course each. I forwent my prawns but will return to them next time. The crab stuffed peppers were particularly nice on this occasion. The lamb shank was succulent with the meat falling off the bone. The steak eater believes that Blackfire serves some of the best steaks, and the other meals were pronounced very good indeed. The sides were excellent. No room for dessert, alas. But a very pleasant Sauvignon Blanc accompanied the meal.
Most of the space is softly lit with chandeliers. However, the former tapas area is not so attractive with its brighter lighting. The seats are comfortable and the tables the right size for conversation. New, appropriate cutlery is provided for the mains. Table napkins are fabric.
86 Northside
It was so good to return to 86 Northside and see that the delicious eggplant dish has returned to the menu. We chose four dishes to share – one too many, so once again, no dessert. My favourites were the sweetcorn cobs with a delicious sauce and finely grated parmesan, the Szechuan eggplant with chili caramel sauce, and the pumpkin mascarpone tortellini with burnt butter sage sauce. We also had chicken parfait with peach jam and toast and cauliflower with what tasted like a garlic and lemon sauce served with toasted hazelnuts.
86 has a large staff, all of whom are alert to the diners so that there is never a wait for anything except for the appropriate timing between the delicious courses. The atmosphere is friendly, and tonight there was less noise than usual. Perhaps arriving at 6.30 on a Friday night is a good option as the larger parties arrive later. The seating is comfortable, the tables close, but not too close, and the venue nicely lit. People were seated outside but were safe from the rain which makes this a good option.
Fantastic – Courgette has just sent me a voucher for my long patronage of this wonderful restaurant. I was planning to eat there soon, and this makes the proposition even better. Thank you Courgette.
Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American November 20, 2023.
Yesterday, David Roberts of the energy and politics newsletter Volts noted that a Washington Post article illustrated how right-wing extremism is accomplishing its goal of destroying faith in democracy. Examining how “in a swing Wisconsin county, everyone is tired of politics,” the article revealed how right-wing extremism has sucked up so much media oxygen that people have tuned out, making them unaware that Biden and the Democrats are doing their best to deliver precisely what those in the article claim to want: compromise, access to abortion, affordable health care, and gun safety.
One person interviewed said, “I can’t really speak to anything [Biden] has done because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics.” Roberts points out that “both sides” are not extremists, but many Americans have no idea that the Democrats are actually trying to govern, including by reaching across the aisle. Roberts notes that the media focus on the right wing enables the right wing to define our politics. That, in turn, serves the radical right by destroying Americans’ faith in our democratic government.
Former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele echoed that observation this morning when he wrote, “We need to stop the false equivalency BS between Biden and Trump. Only one acts with the intention to do real harm.”
Indeed, as David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo puts it, “the gathering storm of Trump 2.0 is upon us,” and Trump and his people are telling us exactly what a second Trump term would look like. Yesterday, Trump echoed his “vermin” post of the other day, saying: “2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we will expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our Country, we will rout the Fake News Media, we will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will FINISH THE JOB ONCE AND FOR ALL!”
Trump’s open swing toward authoritarianism should be disqualifying even for Republicans—can you imagine Ronald Reagan talking this way?—but MAGA Republicans are lining up behind him. Last week the Texas legislature passed a bill to seize immigration authority from the federal government in what is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, and yesterday, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced that he was “proud to endorse” Trump for president because of his proposed border policies (which include the deportation of 10 million people).
House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has also endorsed Trump, and on Friday he announced he was ordering the release of more than 40,000 hours of tapes from the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, answering the demands of far-right congress members who insist the tapes will prove there was no such attack despite the conclusion of the House committee investigating the attack that Trump criminally conspired to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and refused to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.
Trump loyalist Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) promptly spread a debunked conspiracy theory that one of the attackers shown in the tapes, Kevin Lyons, was actually a law enforcement officer hiding a badge. Lyons—who was not, in fact, a police officer—was carrying a vape and a photo he stole from then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and is now serving a 51-month prison sentence. (Former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) tweeted: “Hey [Mike Lee]—heads up. A nutball conspiracy theorist appears to be posting from your account.”)
Both E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted yesterday that MAGA Republicans have no policies for addressing inflation or relations with China or gun safety; instead, they have coalesced only around the belief that officials in “the administrative state” thwarted Trump in his first term and that a second term will be about revenge on his enemies and smashing American liberalism.
MIke Davis, one of the men under consideration for attorney general, told a podcast host in September that he would “unleash hell on Washington, D.C.,” getting rid of career politicians, indicting President Joe Biden “and every other scumball, sleazeball Biden,” and helping pardon those found guilty of crimes associated with the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. “We’re gonna deport a lot of people, 10 million people and growing—anchor babies, their parents, their grandparents,” Davis said. “We’re gonna put kids in cages. It’s gonna be glorious. We’re gonna detain a lot of people in the D.C. gulag and Gitmo.”
In the Washington Post, Josh Dawsey talked to former Trump officials who do not believe Trump should be anywhere near the presidency, and yet they either fear for their safety if they oppose him or despair that nothing they say seems to matter. John F. Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, told Dawsey that it is beyond his comprehension that Trump has the support he does.
“I came out and told people the awful things he said about wounded soldiers, and it didn’t have half a day’s bounce. You had his attorney general Bill Barr come out, and not a half a day’s bounce. If anything, his numbers go up. It might even move the needle in the wrong direction. I think we’re in a dangerous zone in our country,” Kelly said.
Part of the attraction of right-wing figures is they offer easy solutions to the complicated issues of the modern world. Argentina has inflation over 140%, and 40% of its people live in poverty. Yesterday, voters elected as president far-right libertarian Javier Milei, who is known as “El Loco” (The Madman). Milei wants to legalize the sale of organs, denies climate change, and wielded a chainsaw on the campaign trail to show he would cut down the state and “exterminate” inflation. Both Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, two far-right former presidents who launched attacks against their own governments, congratulated him.
In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower took on the question of authoritarianism. Robert J. Biggs, a terminally ill World War II veteran, wrote to Eisenhower, asking him to cut through the confusion of the postwar years. “We wait for someone to speak for us and back him completely if the statement is made in truth,” Biggs wrote. Eisenhower responded at length. While unity was imperative in the military, he said, “in a democracy debate is the breath of life. This is to me what Lincoln meant by government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’”
Dictators, Eisenhower wrote, “make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems—freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions.”
Once again, liberal democracy is under attack, but it is notable—to me, anyway, as I watch to see how the public conversation is changing—that more and more people are stepping up to defend it. In the New York Times today, legal scholar Cass Sunstein warned that “[o]n the left, some people insist that liberalism is exhausted and dying, and unable to handle the problems posed by entrenched inequalities, corporate power and environmental degradation. On the right, some people think that liberalism is responsible for the collapse of traditional values, rampant criminality, disrespect for authority and widespread immorality.”
Sunstein went on to defend liberalism in a 34-point description, but his first point was the most important: “Liberals believe in six things,” he wrote: “freedom, human rights, pluralism, security, the rule of law and democracy,” including fact-based debate and accountability of elected officials to the people.
Finally, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who was a staunch advocate for the health and empowerment of marginalized people—and who embodied the principles Sunstein listed, though that’s not why I’m mentioning her—died yesterday at 96. “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” former President Jimmy Carter said in a statement.
More to the point, perhaps, considering the Carters’ profound humanity, is that when journalist Katie Couric once asked President Carter whether winning a Nobel Peace Prize or being elected president of the United States was the most exciting thing that ever happened to him, Carter answered: “When Rosalynn said she’d marry me—I think that’s the most exciting thing.”
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Notes:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/the-gathering-storm-of-trump-2-0-is-upon-us
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/mike-davis-trump-attorney-general-20231119.html#loaded
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/19/republican-party-trump-haley-desantis-ideas/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/11/20/trump-aides-cabinet-critics-election/
https://www.reuters.com/markets/emerging/argentina-2023-inflation-seen-185-cenbank-poll-2023-11-13/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/mike-johnson-announces-release-january-6-footage
Doctor Who at 60: what qualities make the best companion? A psychologist explains
Over the past 60 years, we have witnessed the Doctor’s adventures in time and space with a multitude of companions by his side. From his granddaughter Susan and her teachers, Ian and Barbara to Ryan, Graham and Yaz – the Doctor has had many travelling companions.
But what makes a person leave their everyday life and leap at the chance to join Team Tardis with a brilliant, yet at times unpredictable, Time Lord? What does it take to not only survive but to thrive as the Doctor’s companion? A degree of physical fitness is certainly needed for running up and down corridors, but the Doctor’s companions also need to be open to new experiences, keep going in the face of adversity and be resilient.
One thing that all successful companions share is a flexible, or growth, mindset. People with a flexible mindset are more likely to believe that they can deal with new situations and can gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed.
One example of a companion with a flexible mindset is the fourth Doctor’s (Tom Baker) travelling companion, Leela (Louise Jameson). Leela belonged to a tribe of regressed humans, known as the Sevateem, who were descended from a survey team which crash-landed on the planet Mordee where they founded a colony. A great warrior, Leela demanded that the Doctor took her with him in the Tardis. See Television and Film: Comments for full story.
Robin's Room 