TrendErtainment

I Have The Cure!

BECAUSE IT IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT

I am proud to announce that I have joined as part of the producing/management team for the NYMF production of  THE CURE - A ROCK AND ROLL FABLE

What made me want to be part of this tribe?:

1)    The music is fantastic
2)    The book has great themes
3)    Vampires are super Hot right now
4)    The composer/writer Mark Weiser has a Passion for this! Get out of his way !
5)    One of the other producers was from my CTI class who I trust impeccably.
6)    This is intended to be a non-traditional theater experience.
7)    This is going to be hot!

Listen to some samples of the music right now!:

New Religion (Demo: Gregg Goodbrod, Jeremy Kushnier)

Rage On (Demo: Jeremy Kushnier)

Who I Am (Demo: Tim Carosi, Andrew Grant)

Walk in the Sun (Demo: Donna Sonkin, Tom Schultheis)

*Songs are mix of excerpts recorded live at Le Bar Bat reading* and studio demo recordings**. Excerpts from the reading contain some spoken dialog and narration.

THE FUNDRAISER & SOCIAL CURE

Please join me and my fellow creative producers at the Fundraising Social tomorrow (Thursday , July 9th, 2009).

 Details below

DETAILS OF FUNDRAISER

RSVP HERE

Host:	Mark Weiser, Erica Ruff, Samantha Saltzman, and the rest of THE CURE!!!
Type:	Party - Benefit

Date:	Thursday, July 9, 2009
Time:	8:00pm - 11:00pm
Location:	Brand New SWEET CAROLINES
Street:	322 West 45th Street (between 8th and 9th)
City/Town:	New York, NY

Come party at the BRAND NEW Sweet Caroline's, and help support our new rock musical - THE CURE, premiering this October in NYC!

Good drinks, good people and great tunes (provided by Mark Weiser, of SWEET CAROLINES)

SWEET CAROLINES KITCHEN WILL ALSO HAVE APPETIZERS AVAILABLE FOR ORDER.

Some of our rock n roll raffle items include:

TWO tickets to the Broadway smash hit ROCK OF AGES
6 month membership to EQUINOX FITNESS CLUB
passes to singles events with MEET MARKET ADVENTURES
and MORE...!!!

Tickets to the evening are $20, and come with a free raffle ticket, and a FREE DRINK! Every guest will receive a $5 gift certificate from Meet Market Adventures, for ANY of their upcoming singles events!! AND, the first 50 people in the door get a complimentary pass to Equinox Fitness Club!

For donations of $50 or more, you ALSO receive a ticket to the production of THE CURE this October, as well as 3 additional raffle tickets.

For donations of $100 or more, you ALSO receive (in addition to everything listed above) a second ticket for THE CURE (both for OPENING NIGHT!), another SIX raffle tickets (for a total of TEN!), and a special mention in the festival program!

YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN A RAFFLE ITEM...

ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE iF YOU PAY BY CHECK. If you cannot make the event but still want to contribute please e-mail Mark Weiser for more details: asongulove@aol.com

Visit www.thecuremusical.com to read about the show, which will be directed by Elizabeth Lucas and musically directed by Mark Hartman.

Become a fan of the show at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/THE-CURE-a-rock-and-roll-fable/117957314883

Follow us on twitter at:
http://www.twitter.com/THECUREfable

National Endowment for the Arts = Hope

My good friend Charlie sent me an article that sent happy-chills down my spine.

See it here

Rocco Landesman recently spoke at the Commercial Theater Institutes 14 Week Producer Intensive that I took part in. After hearing him speak for the hour, I am convinced he will be perfect for  this role in the US.

Congradulations Mr. Landesman on your position as Chairman in the NEA.

Perhaps there is hope after all.

Smash Shack - Always a new way to Entertain!

The wikipedia definition of entertainment is: "... an activity designed to give people pleasure or relaxation. An audience may participate in the entertainment passively as in watching opera or a movie, or actively as in games."

As someone who is into the development of entertainment I always keep my radar tuned into innovative and new ideas. Some of my colleagues are interested in producing only plays, others only musicals. Me? I like anything that brings a burst of inspiration into someones day. Especially if it is through the medium of entertainment.

When I was in San Diego last week (Now one of my favorite US cities), I was eating at a diner that had one of those card racks in the lobby. You know, the type that has details on all the local attractions like zoos, shows, go carts, etc. Buried in the heaps of "to do" I found a neat little place that I wanted to share with readers of TrendErtainment. Here it is:

Sarah's Smash Shack

They even have a mobile unit. Imagine a Bar-Mitzvah with a bunch of 13 year old girls breaking glass. I tried to go myself but they were closed by the time I had some play time.

Any other interested forms of "Entertainment" you have come across lately?

Be the Weather

My friend Marisa Escolar once asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I answered, “I want to be the weather.”

The weather is an experience that people share. It is what people talk about with each other everyday. It affects people’s lives and the way they feel.

I want the entertainment I create to be like the weather (hopefully good weather). I want my project to alter a person’s experience in life.  I want a group of people to share a common bond together. Then I want people to go talk about it because they want to share that common bond.

As you develop and market your next property ask yourself, “How can I be the weather?”.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

*Stay tuned for the top 10 list of how to be the weather.

Hire Slowly - Fire Quickly!

 

Learning Styles and Training Part II

Michael Krug is one of my favorite TrendErtainment Subscribers. He often leaves comments that take the blog one step further.  In the last post about learning styles and training, Michael commented on the importance of evaluating the current level of skill prior to training a company member. I fully agree with his point of view.

I evaluate the candidate on three criteria outside of their resume itself when hiring for general positions: attitude, aptitude, and skill. I need to know that they have a specific level of “expertise” in order to join a company. Here is what I look for in advance when inviting someone to join my team:

The Criteria

1) Attitude
Is this someone who has a good attitude? If they don’t have a good attitude in the interview process when people are (hopefully) trying to be on their best behavior, they won’t have a good attitude in the work place. During the interview process, how does the candidate represent himself or herself? Will they be a pleasant person to work with or someone you and your team will want to avoid? Is this someone who is taking the job only because they need the money, or is this position going to help them grow? I often ask the individual to tell me about previous employers. I can guarantee you that if they trash the last person they work for, they will bash me too. I like to work with people who have an infectiously positive attitude towards the position they are applying for. It is amazing what a group of properly hired people with high enthusiasm can do for a company.

2) Aptitude
Do they have the ability to learn the specifics of the job assigned to them? Are they willing to learn something new or are they closed off and think they know everything already? Are they open to criticism or are they defensive? Will they learn quickly or will this be a long painstaking and expensive process?

3) Skill
Where is their current level of skill? I need the candidate to have a strong working knowledge of the technical or managerial elements of the role they are applying for. If I am hiring a sound engineer, I need to know they have the skills needed to operate and set up sound equipment.

Variations

Everything is contingent on attitude, regardless of your current skill. - I don’t always care what your level of skill is or your aptitude. In entertainment, we all work like a family. If you have a bad attitude, I don’t care what your current level of skill is or your ability to learn, you are not right for my team.

Just because you have the skill doesn’t mean you can do the job. – Live entertainment has many challenges. Every gig is different. Due to the demands of the theatre, you may have to be flexible with the way you are used to doing things. If you are not willing to learn the job the way it needs to be done for this company, then you are not right for us.

If you are a great person ready to learn but have no practical experience, I can’t use you, yet. – I can’t hire you to be a tour manager if you have absolutely no background in management. The road is tough. I don’t want you making beginner mistakes while in the line of fire. I will remember you though. Come back to me when you have some assistant training (or perhaps when I have an assistant position available).

Hire slowly – Fire Quickly!

It’s that simple, and that hard.

Several times I have made the mistake of not adhering to this golden rule. Every time it bit my team and me in the butt. If you are a road company, I fully acknowledge how difficult it can be to replace someone while in the trenches. Not releasing a bad company member is like staying in a bad relationship- don’t stay with the person if they are not right for you! (Another mistake I made too many times before meeting my wife.)

 

Tell, Show, Do and Review

Asking for Feedback at Training

This has been an intensive week of training for the StarQuest 2009 road staff.

The dance competition world is unlike anything else I have ever experienced in entertainment. It is a mix of reality TV, a pageant, and a pop concert. I can promise you that a new set of rules apply to just about everything when working in a youth oriented dance competition.

This year we have a very strong group of auditors (Judges Managers), and awards managers. After a long week of training, they picked up on the complexities that come along with their positions.  The other day we asked them, “…with all this training, and running through the motions of your role, is there anything else we could have done to enhance your learning experience?”. 

The young women, already very energized (from what I consider a successful training period) started to rattle off ideas on what could have enhanced the experience for them. The ideas varied and each one involved a different learning style.

Their feedback reinforced my need to revisit learning styles and the importance of incorporating them when training my staff.

The Three Learning Styles:

1) Auditory Learners

2) Visual Learner

3) Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners

Often as managers in entertainment, we don’t take the time to work with these concepts; however, we run into conflicts when we don’t acknowledge that what is a common learning approach for one person, is not the best for another. A visual manager, who uses images to demonstrate to their staff how to do something, gets frustrated with a company member (a kinesthetic learner) when he doesn’t get it. A kinestheic manager gets frustrated when a well-educated auditory learner doesn’t get it after having them do it for the first time.

I don’t have the time to figure out what the best learning style is to teach each and every company member (and I doubt you have the time either).  We often have to train entire groups how to accomplish a task – and everyone learns differently!

It is always a safe bet to incorporate the “Tell, Show, Do, and Review” method. It is really simple, and I have experienced and seen it work first hand.

Tell, Show, Do, and Review:

Tell – Tell the company members what the task is, and why it is being done. (This covers the Auditory Learners.)

Show – Do the task yourself, or have a skilled technician do the job. (This covers the Visual Learners.)

Do – Have the company members do the task themselves. (This gets your Kinesthetic learners in on the action.)

Review – Go over with the company what you have done by asking questions and getting feedback. (Reinforces the task overall.)

Everyone utilize all the learning styles in one way or another, so this method embeds the task further for everyone.

So…Before you get frustrated with a very competent employee, ask yourself, “Am I showing them how to do this the way I learn, or the way they need to learn?”.

-- Welcome to the team: Lyssa, Jennifer, Patricia, Stacey, and Leah (The new StarQuest International Auditors and Awards Managers)

What type of learning style works best for YOU?

Quote of the Moment - Thank you Oscar!

In preparation for the 14 week workshop, I started reading the C.T.I. book on producing.

The first page of the book has this quote:

----

“I think only people in the theater know what a producer is.
The public does not know.
It knows a writer writes, and an actor acts,
and a director tells them what to do.
A producer raises money.
Well, he does, and in some cases thats all he does.
 But the workers in the theater know that this is not the real thing.
A producer is a rare, paradoxical genius –
hard-headed, soft-hearted, cautious, reckless,
a hopeful innocent in fair weather,
a stern pilot in stormy weather,
a mathematician who prefers to ignore the laws of mathematics and trust intuition,
an idealist, a realist, a practical dreamer,
a sophisticated gambler, a stage-struck child.
That’s a producer.”

– Oscar Hammerstein II

----

Never before have I seen my life summarized so perfectly. For those of you entering the producing realm or continuing to produce, I’m sure you feel the same !

--

Have a favorite Quote? Post it in the comments section below....

Saturday Night Live Clip - Save Broadway

In times of trouble, we sometimes have to laugh at ourselves - See video:

Secretary of the Arts - What's Your Mission ?

We all have daily missions to accomplish:

-   to write a blog a day,
-   to be a great husband or wife,
-   to get a new job,
     or
-    It could be to get President Elect Obama to add a Secretary of the Arts to his cabinet.

Quincy Jones has set out to help drive the arts to new heights.

Are you interested in joining Quincy in his mission? Then sign his petition.

F-U !

**CALLING PAST, PRESENT, AND TOURING PERSONNEL****

When people ask me to describe life on a bus and truck tour, I tell them “It is the best Reality TV you will ever live!”.

For those of you who have lived or do live life on the road you know what I am talking about. Plop a camera on one of those tours and you have a network TV hit ! Why know one has done this yet is beyond me. (Anyone with a TV background want to pair up with me on this idea let me know.)

I am now gathering anecdotes from actors, crew, and management about the magical time of a tour that is right around February. What is referred to often as the “F-U Febuaries. I want to know how you and your team prevented the gloom from happening or how the gloom manifested to a gooey chaos. Email me your stories at Michael@michaelcedar.com or comment below. I will protect the innocent.

If you don’t know what this “mythical” F.U.F. is don’t worry you soon will!

Stay tuned at the beginning of February for the collection of stories and thoughts regarding this topic. Hopefully with all the experience of our readers we can develop “The Psychology on how to prevent the F.U.Fs.”.