Gutman

Chasing Ice Chases Oscar

February 14, 2013Ashden DirectoryAcademy Award Nomination, Associate Editor, Chases, Documentary Award, Effects Of Climate Change, Features Interviews, Film Festivals, Gutman, Interviews News, Melting Glaciers, Metaphors, National Geographic Photographer, Oscar Nomination, Photographer James, Robert Butler, Scarlett Johansson, Six Ways, Time Lapse, Twitter, Violinist Joshua Bell

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:Â Chasing Ice a film about National GeographicÂ photographer James Blalog’s quest to document the melting glaciers, has received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Â The film, directed by Jeff Orlowski, chronicles Blalog’s three-year project setting up time-lapse cameras to chronicle the effects of climate change on the great glaciers of the world. Â Although the film is in limited release, the Oscar nomination should bring more attention to it. Â Screenings in the UK, Canada and the US are listed here.

Chasing IceÂ has won twenty-three awards at film festivals, including the Environmental Media Association’s Best Documentary Award. Â The nominated song, “Before My Time,” was written by J. Ralph. It is performed by Scarlett Johansson and violinist Joshua Bell.

From six seasons to two

January 16, 2013Ashden DirectoryArtistic Director, Associate Editor, Central India, Climate Change, Excessive Heat, Features Interviews, Gutman, Hardware Store, Interviews News, Monsoons, Nature Watch, Puppeteers, Puppetry, Puppets, Reck, Robert Butler, Short Transition, State Of Orissa, Summer Winter, Twitter

Bronze-winged jacana. Â Photo: India nature watch

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:

The state of Orissa, located in east-central India, was once known for having six seasons. Â Not only were there six, Grishmar (summer), Barsha (rainy), Sarata (autumn), Hemanta (dew), Sisira (winter), and Basanta (spring), each two months long, but the people in the area could forecast the onset of each one by the behaviour of certain birds. Â For instance, the bronze-winged jacana would lay its eggs during the monsoons, so its mating calls signaled the arrival of the rains.

But climate change has brought excessive heat to Orissa, and now people say there are only two seasons: rains and summer. Winter is just a short transition between them.

The Glass Half Full Theatre in Austin, Texas, which crafts “Environmental Puppetry” is putting on Once There Were Six Seasons, opening February 13, 2013. Â Environmental Puppetry uses very small puppets on large landscapes with visible puppeteers. Â The puppetry focuses on the changing landscapes more than on the actual puppets. Â Their earlier work, Bob’s Hardware, about a small family-owned hardware store being pushed out by a big-box store can be seen here:

Once There Were Six Seasons is based on the story of Orissa’s seasons, as told to the artistic director, Caroline Reck, on her visit to India.

See: WhatÂ happened to the seasons

Peace on earth

December 31, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Astronauts, Climate Change, Continuum, December 7th, Earth From Space, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Metaphors, Peace On Earth, Philosophers, Prelude, Robert Butler, Sense Of The World, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, Word Overview

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes: OVERVIEW is a short documentary with near-constant views of the earthÂ from space interspersed with comments form astronauts, philosophersÂ and writers. The word “overview” is used to refer to the astronauts’Â views of the earth. It was released December 7th, 2012 and is aÂ prelude to a film in the making, CONTINUUM. Â OVERVIEW gives a strongÂ sense of the world being one environment, and a very fragile one, thatÂ needs to be protected.

Turkey limerick: melting glaciers

December 6, 2012Ashden DirectoryAmerican Citizens, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Coastline, Duke University, Eastern Standard Time, Epidemic, Features Interviews, Global Temperature, Gutman, Himalayas, Interviews News, Limerick, Melting Glaciers, Metaphors, Nicholas School, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Storms, Twitter

Melting Glaciers in the Himalayas (Credit: top-10-list.org)

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:Â Unable to pass up the opportunity to submit an “Environmental Turkey of 2012” in the form of a limerick, to the Nicholas School of Environment contest at Duke University, I have chosen the epidemic of melting glaciers worldwide as my subject. Â The contest, open to American citizens, ends at midnight Eastern Standard Time tonight.

My offering:

As the global temperature warms

Our planet reacts with fierce storms.

The impact is felt

When our glaciers melt

And the coastline around us re-forms.

See: There once was a turkey

dramas missing in action

November 5, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Boston Globe, British Lad, British Playwrights, Climate Change, Dearth, Don Aucoin, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Metaphors, Missing In Action, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Steed, Theatre Critic, Tony Award, Tonys, War Horse, World War I

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:

With War Horse coming to the end of its run in Boston, the theatre critic for the Boston Globe, Don Aucoin remarks on the dearth of war dramas on stage. Â He writes:During a decade when the United States was mired in two wrenching, costly, and divisive wars, the only combat drama to win a Tony Award as best play was a heartwarming, puppet-driven tale about a British lad and his beloved steed in World War I: War Horse… In fact, if you scan the list of plays, musicals, and performances nominated for Tonys in the past ten years, you’d barely know we were at war at all.

Until recently, much the same could be said about plays on climate change.

See british playwrights have “blithely ignored” climate change

miniature horse meets war horse

October 24, 2012Ashden DirectoryAnimal Cruelty, Animal Rescue League, Basil Jones, Boston Globe, Broadway Production, Climate Change, Cruelty Case, Dedham Massachusetts, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Miniature Horse, Play Date, Puppet Company, Puppeteer, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Twitter, War Horse, Windsor Castle

Celeste and Joey, courtesy the Boston Globe

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:

War HorseÂ opened in Boston on October 10 for a two-week run. Â The traveling Broadway production, which originated at the National Theatre a few years ago, is getting all sorts of press. Â The day before the opening the main characters – the horse Joey, his owner and his puppeteer – went to the Animal Rescue League in Dedham, Massachusetts to have a play date with Celeste, a miniature horse who had been involved in an animal cruelty case earlier in the year. Â Joey is a well-traveled steed. Â He has also been to Windsor Castle where he apparently won over the heart of the Queen. Â The Handspring Puppet Company cofounders Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, who designed the War HorseÂ puppets, were featured in a long article about their puppets in the Boston Globe.

the family and the world heat up in Nick Payne’s play

October 12, 2012Ashden DirectoryArtistic Director, Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, Domestic Drama, Dr Faustus, Father Daughter, George Monbiot, Global Issue, Gutman, Interviews News, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joan Marcus, Mother Father, New York Times, Nick Payne, Polemicist, Robert Butler, Roundabout Theatre, Roundheads And Cavaliers, Twitter, Vanishing Act

Photo: Joan Marcus

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:

If There Is I Haven’t Found it Yet, with Brian O’Byrne and Jake Gyllenhaal, opened in New York’s Roundabout Theatre in September and runs through 25 November. Â It was written by Nick Payne, and inspired by his reading of HeatÂ by George Monbiot, about decreasing one’s carbon footprint. Â Payne saw that many authors of environmentally-themed books had dedicated them to their children, and it gave him the idea of a father trying to save the planet in order to make the world a better place for his children, and beyond. Â But the father is so wrapped up in his work that he fails to notice the problems within his own family. Â The New York TimesÂ review is here.

Artistic director Todd Haimes writes:

On one level, we are watching a domestic drama play about a mother, father, daughter, and uncle. Â But the play also takes on a much bigger global issue. Â We all want to do the right thing for both the world at large and for the world of our own family, but maybe that’s impossible.

More George Monbiot on ashdenizen:
roundheads and cavaliers
the negotiator and the polemicist
vanishing act
George Monbiot finds Dr. FaustusÂ the classic text for climate change

Carbon 13: Ballroom Marfa and Cape Farewell team up

October 9, 2012Ashden DirectoryAckroyd, Ambitious Mission, Antony Gormley, Artdaily, Artistic Innovation, Ballroom Marfa, Blumenfeld, Cape Farewell, Cynthia Hopkins, Effects Of Climate Change, Environment Issues, Exhibition Space, Gutman, High Desert, Intellectual Environment, Island Communities, Marfa Texas, Robert Butler, Robert Rauschenberg, Twitter

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

In Marfa, Texas

Kellie Gutman writes:Â Marfa is a small town of 2,121 people in western Texas. Â In 2003, Virginia Lebermann and Fairfax Dorn converted a former 1927 ballroom into a performance and exhibition space called Ballroom Marfa. Â In this intellectual environment, issues and perspectives are explored through film, music, art and performance.

Ballroom Marfa contacted Cape Farewell’s David Buckland to curate Carbon 13: From the High Arctic to the High Desert, which runs from 31 August until 20 January 2013. Â Eight artists who have traveled with Cape Farewell to the Andes, the Arctic and Scotland’s island communities are presenting newly-commissioned works to highlight the effects of climate change. Â The exhibit is supported in part by an Artistic Innovation and Collaboration (AIC) Grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

The artists represented are Ackroyd & Harvey, Amy Balkin, Erika Blumenfeld, David Buckland, Adriane Colburn, Antony Gormley, Cynthia Hopkins and Sunand Prasad.

In the online art newspaper, artdaily.org, the reviewer of Carbon 13Â wrote:

Ballroom Marfa continues its ambitious mission of presenting art as a transforming media capable of addressing the most pressing issues of our time.

stagereads features Caridad Svich

September 11, 2012Ashden Directory15 September, 3 April, Artistic Associate, Associate Editor, Bp Oil Spill, Catastrophes, Cities In The United States, Climate Change, Features Interviews, Fishing In The Gulf Of Mexico, Goodman Theatre In Chicago, Gulf Of Mexico, Gutman, Henry Godinez, Interviews News, Lifetime Achievement, Obie Award, Playwrights, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Twitter

photo: stagereads, Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:

A new website, stagereads, is publishing plays by emerging playwrights, which are e-readable on mobile devices. They are available by subscription, with a 155 discount for those subscribing before 15 September. Â The first featured playwright is Caridad Svich and her recent play The Way of Water.

Svich received the 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Â The Way of WaterÂ has been traveling since 3 April, 2012, and has had readings in fifty cities in the United States as well as in the UK and beyond. Â The play, written after the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill, tells the story of two fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, who have to deal with the after effects of the spill. The introduction to the play is written by Henry Godinez, Resident Artistic Associate at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

He writes in his final paragraph:

Many a great play has been written about corporate negligence and devastating catastrophes, but what makes The Way of Water so compelling is the way it exposes the after effects of such sensational evens in the most real of human terms.

Greening Shakespeare

August 1, 2012Ashden Directory6 October, Artistic Staff, Ashland Oregon, Climate Change, Costumes, Fountains, Gomez, Gutman, Insulation, Merry Wives Of Windsor, Multitude, Operating Budget, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Osf, Plastic Bottles, Plastics, Recycling Paper, Robert Butler, Twitter, Windsor Iowa

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa. Jun 6 – October 13 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Kellie Gutman writes:

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival Â was founded in 1935 and is one of the oldest and largest non-profit theatres in the United States. Â They operate over an eight-and-a-half-month schedule, with eleven plays, three theaters and 780 performances. Â Approximately 400,000 persons are in attendance at their facility in Ashland, Oregon. Â The OSF has an operating budget of $26 million.

Katie Gomez, Physical Plant Assistant, is the Green Task Force Coordinator. When asked how the OSF promotes ‘greening’ their operations, she writes:

OSF has a long list of things we do to be more sustainably aware and green. Â Besides recycling paper, one of the easiest things to do here, we are now recycling batteries, some plastics, and a multitude of items used in building sets. Â Many costumes are reworked from many made before, from our vast warehouse of costumes. Â We do not sell plastic bottles of water anymore – a container given or purchased is filled from fountains. Â The Scene Shop uses denim insulation. Â We use CFL whenever possible. Â As soon as LED’s are more affordable, we will switch to those. Â In some instances we do use them now. Â This is just the tip of what we do here. Â We are constantly trying to do more.

Katie added that although they have not done a production that is specifically “green”, the Green Task Force is working on promoting this idea to the Artistic Staff.