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By Judith Rubin (left).   It's the 50th anniversary of the founding of USITT, an association of design, production and technology professionals in the performing arts and entertainment industry, which is holding its annual Conference & Stage Expo this week in Kansas City, Missouri USA. This is the larger of the two Kansas Cities: the second one is just across the state line in Kansas. There is a lot of jazz history here and the conference hotel, the downtown Marriott, has named all of its conference rooms after prominent figures of the Swing Era such as Count Basie, Lester Young and Mary Lou Williams.

Sharing the trade show floor with suppliers of technical services and equipment for lighting, sound, rigging, lifts and special effects are numerous college theater departments. Educators abound. It is multi-generational: there seem to be as many students as there are gray-haireds here. While keeping company in the bar Tuesday night with Jackie Tien and David Barbour, respectively the publisher and editor of Lighting&Sound America magazine (lightingandsoundamerica.com), Matthew Griffiths, CEO of PLASA which publishes LSA, and Jack Gallagher, regional manager north of Strong lighting, I was thrilled to meet and shake hands with renowned theatrical lighting designer Ken Billington,(below left) who I've had the honor to interview but had never met, and with Sonny Sonnenfeld, still going strong after five decades in the lighting industry. A fair number of industry superstars regularly attend USITT.

The sessions program is very rich, ranging from technical and design subjects (Rigging Fundamentals, Audio Networking, Painting on Fabrics, Projection Design, Costume Design, Show Systems Integration, Everything about Top Hats, Working with Hair, Wireless DMX and Dimming) to professional guidance (What Not to Wear, Making Your Way to Broadway, Managing a Safe Shop) to big-think topics (The Future of Theatre Minds in Immersive Design, Successful Teams and Buildings), product showcases, venue showcases and tours, book signings and a variety of organizations, unions and committees putting their heads together.

There are also awards: 50th Gala Awards for lifetime achievement were cited for actress Sally Struthers, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton and Francois Leroux, VP, Walt Disney World Entertainment. Named for USITT Architecture Awards, honoring excellence in the design of theatre projects, were The Royal Conservatory of Music at the TELUS Centre in Toronto (Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects), Vukovich Center for Communication Arts in Meadville, Pennsylvania (Polshek Partnership Architects), Henry Miller's Theatre, New York (Cook and Fox Architects), Winspear Opera House, Dallas (Foster + Partners), Theatre De Quat'sous, Montreal (Les Architectes Fab G), the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater in Costa Mesa, Calif. (Pelli Clarke Pelli) and Iwaki Performing Arts Center in Fukushima, Japan (Naomi Sato Architects & Shmizu Corp.) USITT president is Carl H. Lefko.


 “As designers sort through the clutter of new technologies it is important to remember that those technologies are tools. Imagination is what matters.”

Chatting Wednesday morning with Gene Jeffers,(left) executive director of the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) while waiting for the floor to open, I heard that the Thea Awards Gala last month had gone well, with many memorable onstage moments, good music and happy awardees. We had just come from the meeting of ESTA, The Entertainment Services & Technology Association, which serves the industry in North America and is embarking on a merger with PLASA, the Professional Lighting & Sound Association, which serves the industry in Europe. This meeting was to outline details of the proposed merger, to encourage members to vote later this year and to demonstrate that the leadership of both organizations support the merger. If approved, it will be finalized at the end of the year. Lori Rubinstein, ESTA executive director, Bill Groener, ESTA president and Matthew Griffiths, PLASA CEO all addressed the group.

Taking a break from the show floor, I attended “The Future of Theatre Minds in Immersive Design” mainly because Don Marinelli, (right, 2nd from top) co-founder of the awesomely creative and inspiring and irreverent ETC entertainment technology program at Carnegie Mellon, was on the panel and I'm his biggest fan since first hearing him present at TEA's SATE conference two years ago in Orlando. Marinelli did not disappoint, and neither did his distinguished colleagues: Michael Devine (right, bottom)of Devine Design Group, theater designer David Taylor (right 2nd from bottom)who leads the Performing Arts Group for Arup and production designer Tom Walsh, (middle right) president of the Art Directors Guild. Scenic designer Pan Leung (right, top)was moderator. The gist of the conversation was that theatre students as well as educators and professionals need to bring their storytelling skillsets everywhere on campus and off to enrich all disciplines and produce better guest experiences that are relevant to today’s and tomorrow’s audiences. They were touting the concept of immersive or experiential design which they have labeled “5D.” Here are a few of the best sound bites:

“Technology equals the democratization of acting. Anyone can do what used to be the domain of actors – live a parallel life, a virtual existence.” (Marinelli)

“I moved on [from teaching traditional theatre] because as we were auditioning students, we asked what they would typically do on a free Friday night: go to the theatre, go to the cinema or stay home and play video games. Guess which choice dominated? I could either grow old as a traditionalist, disdaining what the young are doing, or get with the program.” (Marinelli)

“5D is about understanding how what people want in buildings is served by the interactivity they have with those buildings. How do I join myself together with the building? Our ideas are often under-served by the technology that delivers them.” (Taylor)

 “As designers sort through the clutter of new technologies it is important to remember that those technologies are tools. Imagination is what matters.” (Walsh)

“I didn’t want to do Tartuffe 40 times in my life.” (Walsh)

“The word is convergence. Everyone is working with the same tools. We’re making narrative material and the producers will decide how to release it to the global community. We need to be training the next generation to be narrative professionals.” (Walsh)

“This is the university of Earth. Find out your major before you graduate.” (Marinelli)

“Break the walls!” (Leung)

“Kids walk around with nothing less than 30 gigs of data on them. I asked my son what it consisted of and he said, ‘it’s stuff!’” (Taylor)

“Tenure and promotion committees are malignancies making sure younger people do what older people want. Do whatever pisses the people you hate the most off. It has always worked for me.” (Marinelli)

“Regard your school as a big buffet and gorge on the things most important to you.” (Walsh)

“Theatre folk are great at triumphing over adversity but we love to recreate that adversity so we can triumph over it again.” (Taylor)

Images: kind courtesy USITT. Top - from www.5dconference.com , bottom USITT image by Pan Leung. head shots as indicated in text.