Scenic Designers' Roundtable: The Moment of Artistic Power

			Over the course of four weeks, scenic designer David Gallo will pose one question each week to a group of some of the top designers working in theatre and entertainment today. The hope is to scratch beneath the surface to glean some insights into these working artists’ artistic processes. SCENIC DESIGNERS’ ROUNDTABLE: THE MOMENT OF ARTISTIC POWER My favorite part of the process is when I am in my studio late at night after the first meeting with the director. The music is blasting and I am faced with a blank piece of paper, some Black Warrior #3 pencils, my Google-Fu, and a script (hopefully). This is when I feel the most powerful. At this point everything is possible to me. My question is: at what point in your particular process do you feel the most artistically powerful? And what, over time, might diminish that power? - David Gallo, Performing Arts / Design Contributing Editor

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PERFORMANCE: The Actors' Roundtable: Awards Meat Parade

For 12 weeks, Paden Fallis posed one question each week to a group of professional working actors from a variety of backgrounds in an effort to dig a bit deeper into their artistic working processes. In this second series, an expanded group of actors explores where their art fits into the larger cultural context. ACTOR’S ROUNDTABLE: THE AWARDS MEAT PARADE “Demeaning” and “a two-hour meat parade” was how George C. Scott described The Oscars upon being nominated for his role in the movie Patton. He won, but did not attend. He was also nominated for his work in The Hustler, but did not attend. George C. Scott was, without a doubt, tightly wound. And yet I don’t think any of us would deny that the myriad of awards shows that seem to crop up year after year, have nothing to do with the work of an actor. However, does this need to designate winners and losers do a disservice to our work? Do we all lose something by playing into the “two-hour meat parade?” - Paden Fallis, Performing Arts Contributing Editor

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Scenic Designers' Roundtable: Whom Do You Serve?

			Over the course of four weeks, scenic designer David Gallo will pose one question each week to a group of some of the top designers working in theatre and entertainment today. The hope is to scratch beneath the surface to glean some insights into these working artists’ artistic processes. SCENIC DESIGNERS’ ROUNDTABLE: WHOM DO YOU SERVE? While realizing the world of a play, whom do you feel that you ultimately serve? Is it the playwright, the director, or the producer? And do you serve a different master when you are working on a new play versus a revival or perhaps a tried and true classic? - David Gallo, Performing Arts / Design Contributing Editor

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PERFORMANCE: The Actors' Roundtable: Art for Art's Sake

For 12 weeks, Paden Fallis posed one question each week to a group of professional working actors from a variety of backgrounds in an effort to dig a bit deeper into their artistic working processes. In this second series, an expanded group of actors looks at where art fits into a larger cultural context. ACTOR’S ROUNDTABLE: ART FOR ART’S SAKE We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake […] and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force: —but the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem’s sake.  – Edgar Allen Poe Or as the French would say, “l’art pour l’art.” I’m a staunch “art for arts sake” guy. I don’t believe, as artists, we serve any other masters. However, with so much unrest, malaise and confusion in the world, is this too high-minded and narrow an idea? Should art not be more than for its own sake? Where do you stand? Do you see art and your work in theatre/film as intrinsically self-sufficient or do you see it as being its strongest when serving another aim? - Paden Fallis, Performing Arts Contributing Editor

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Scenic Designers' Roundtable: The Art of Design

			Over the course of four weeks, scenic designer David Gallo will pose one question each week to a group of some of the top designers working in theatre and entertainment today. The hope is to scratch beneath the surface to glean some insights into these working artists’ artistic processes. SCENIC DESIGNERS’ ROUNDTABLE: THE ART OF DESIGN When David Mitchell was asked whether or not he defined himself as an artist, he replied, “To earn a living in this business—in order to survive—you must do a great variety of things. I don’t feel I have the luxury of taking a philosophical stance. Although I take what I do very seriously. Basically, it’s an interpretive and derivative art rather than a truly original or seminal one.” Do you have a personal philosophy on the “art” of being a scenic designer? - David Gallo, Performing Arts / Design Contributing Editor

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