Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1975 - 42

BOOK REVIEWS
THE NATIONAL DIRECTORY FOR THE
PERFORMING ARTS AND CIVIC CENTERS
(ed.) Janet Spencer & Nolanda Turner
Dallas: Handel & Co., Inc., 1973
604 pp., index (type of activity, facility
and organization)
$24.00 hardcover (order from publisher:
2800 Routh, Suite 231, Dallas, Texas 75201)

This is the sort of publication one eagerly awaits, and
then spends considerable time after receipt of same trying
to figure out why it does not live up to its promise. Make
no mistake about it; this is the type of compendium on
performance facilities which has been sorely needed for
the past decade. As more and more of the older halls are
torn down or left to decay in the creeping slums of once
thriving inner cities, it is crucial that we are aware of those
which are still available. And so we are all indebted to
Beatrice Handel for giving birth to The National Direc·
tory. "It is our intent, starting with the 1974 edition ... to
chronicle the magnitude and diversity of the performing
arts organizations ...and information about performance
facilities ... " This reviewer, for one, is lighting a candle in
the hope that this becomes (with appropriate expansion
and corrections) an annual or at least frequent publication
and thus evolve into a standard and up·to-date reference.
However, to achieve such status, some major questions as
to organization and content will have to be dealt with in
some fash ion.
The editors have chosen to assemble their information
through the Dallas Public Library and through questionnaires sent to Arts Councils and Chambers of Commerce.
One hardly needs to point out that Arts Councils do not
exist everywhere, and where they do exist as in Detroit,
for example, they are woefully understaffed. And if all
Chambers of Commerce in America are as disinterested in
the place of the Arts in the daily lives of their citizenry as
the one in Detroit, then an inquiry would elicit little if
any meaningful response. All of this nit-picking, by the
way, is offered as introduction to the total inadequacy of
the Detroit, Michigan listings.
We have been forewarned that college and university
organizations will not be listed except where they have
the major performing house for a surrounding area. The
editors are inconsistent as two of the Detroit dance
companies perform almost exclusively in educational
facilities. And it does seem to me that the organization
would have been greatly simplified if only facilities had
been listed, and then under each facility both its
availability and major tenants outlined. But this kind of
re-organization can be easily accomplished in any subsequent edition. What particularly concerns me is the
exclusion of a number of popular, even outstanding,
performance facilities in this immediate area. Is it possible
that someone could think of the Arts in Detroit without
mentioning the Fisher Theatre, one of the major
Broadway tour stops? Or for that matter the gigantic
Masonic Auditorium, home of world renowned orchestras, ballet companies and soloists (not to mention the
Metropolitan Opera on tour) for decades. And still
ignoring (although I would strongly question this omission
in any future edition) education institutions, there is the
delightful auditorium in the Detroit Institute of Arts, the
Music Hall for the Performing Arts and the quaint Henry

TONY COURTADE
Ford Museum Theatre. Such facilities cannot afford to be
overlooked in any revised edition of The National
Directory, and I would strongly suspect that if the
coverage of Detroit is so shallow, other locales must suffer
a similar fate.
Several final comments. The editors have asked for
name, address, phone, management, size of permanent
staff, statement of purpose, board of directors, application and/or type, season, income, lease or rent, and all of
this is useful information. However, anyone involved in
the administration or creative aspects of an arts ·group
needs a wealth of technical information such as the type
of the stage and its dimensions, specifics on lighting and
fly system, orchestra pit dimensions, storage, rehearsal
and dressing room facilities and even union crew and
house obligations. I do like the work and I think it is
necessary and useful, but it will have to be revised and
expanded to evolve into the standard reference it has a
right to become. After all, with the Bicentennial fast
approaching isn't it about time we had a reliable inventory
of performing arts facilities in the United States?
Marc Sundelof
LIGHTING THE STAGE: ART AND PRACTICE, 2nd ed.
by Willard F. Bellman
New York: Changler Publishing Company, 1974
ISBN
0-8102-0040-6
pp 480 iIIus. $14.50
In reviewing the first edition (1967) of Lighting The
Stage: Art And Practice (T.D.&T. #15, December 19681.
Alan Billings noted that Willard Bellman's text "fills in the
gaps in the lighting textbook field which have needed
filling for some time, while at the same time it leaves gaps,
which previously have been well covered by other texts."
In the second edition of this text (19741. Professor
Bellman not only fills those gaps admirably with
interesting and intelligent writing well documented with
up-to-date photogrpahs, drawings, and charts, but he goes
well beyond the usual academic re-write with new
material on those aspects of stage lighting that have
developed with such lightning rapidity in the past seven
years. Of particular interest are his new and expanded
sections dealing with memory control systems and
projected scenery. This reviewer knows of no other source
where the serious student of stage lighting can find as
thorough and comprehensive a summation of contemporary eqiupment and methodology as this book contains. In
short, Professor Bellman has made a good product even
better.
As in the original edition, the book is divided into two
primary sections, the first dealing with the technology of
stage lighting, and the second devoted to the aesthetics
and methodology of stage lighting design.
Although an inordinate amount of space is employed
in a discussion of non-incandescent light sources, the basic
technical aspects of stage lighting are laid out in a well
organized, coherent, and logical sequence which should
provide students with varying backgrounds in physics with
the necessary tools to work .in this complex field with
relative security. Professor Bellman wisely correlates the
optics of reflection and refraction with the specific use of
these properties in the design of stage lighting instru·
ments.

USITT

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

FALL,1975

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1975