Articles by Beeb Salzer

Theatre Design and Human Nature

Documents and multimedia are available in the San Diego State University Clarence "Beeb" Salzer Collection.

Year	Title	Description
20144	The Beast with Two Backs *	Sex scenes in the theatre are difficult for some writers and directors and easy for others.
20143	Where Have We Gone When We're Gone? *	Designing plays that portray the afterlife is complicated by a multitude of concepts of heaven and hell.
20142	Technorrhoea *	The tools we have for creating tremendous physical effects should be used wisely, supporting substance rather than flash.
20141	Jealousy and a Little Bit of Envy *	Some experts say that, unlike jealousy, there is sometimes a positive side to envy. If envy entails wanting to do better, to be like the envied, it may be a goad to self-improvement. But without this desire, envy remains a toxic emotion.
20134	The Wonders Continue (Part 2) *	The new science of mind adds to existing psychology and other brain science the question, How universal is the appreciation of art over time and in all societies?
20132	Genius *	An appreciation of two geniuses, Bill Irwin and Edward Albee.
20133	Thinking About Thinking *	How our brains process information and how individuals differ in what they perceive.
20131	The Wonders Continue (Part I) *	The exploration of the brain through advanced imaging and new understandings of what happens when we register a scene through our eyes helps us understand what artists have done largely instinctively for centuries.
2012	Gay *	The theatre has always been accepting of homosexuals and far ahead of society in general.
2012	Genealogies *	Scientists at Bell Labs developed the transistors used today in electronic devices we depend on in the theatre.
2012	In Praise of Techies *	Technicians help designers find ways to achieve their visions.
2012	Protest *	Audiences now give standing ovations to every show regardless of how terrible it is.
2011	Compromise, Empathy, and Collaboration *	Human qualities essential in theatre to make things work, are missing in government.
2011	Fate or Chance *	Theatrical designers try to anticipate problems and leave little to chance.
2011	My Values *	The issue is whether to use new technology because it's available, even when a production doesn't need it and may be actually hurt by it.
2011	Generational Disconnect	Teachers find that students do not always understand examples used by older professors.
2010	A Risky Business *	Students who are afraid to take risks are often the ones who don't realize how risky a career in theatre is.
2010	Fifty Years *	Memories of the founding of USITT fifty years ago.
2010	Mentors *	The author pays tribute to his mentors, and encourages others to honor theirs by becoming a mentor to younger artists.
2010	Review of "Late and Great" *	Review of the book Late and Great American Designers 1960-2010 edited by Bobbi Owen
2010	Shhhh *	Silence can be powerful.
2009	Envy *	There are two kinds of envy. One goads one to do better, the other is an acknowledgement of inferiority.
2009	I Don't Know But I Hope *	Not knowing how a theatrical production will fare, theatre people hope for the best. The best means never repeating what went before.
2009	More or Less *	A dichotomy in theatre exists between the simplicity of an elegant solution and the complexity of spectacle.
2009	Top Down or Bottom Up *	Universities seem to regard students as customers and faculty as salespeople who must please the customers.
2008	Awesome *	How we create, using past experiences, is awesome.
2008	Classics Revisited *	Making fun of how classics are now updated to be relevant to a modern audience.
2008	Head Shot *	Jealousy, envy, hate and love - emotions being studied by science - have always been the stuff of theatre.
2008	We Were There First *	Often artists discover things intuitively that scientists discover later.
2007	Big *	Seeing faces on stage is necessary to hearing and understanding, so mega-concerts need Jumbotrons to let their huge audiences really see what is on stage.
2007	Oops *	So many technical things can go wrong when designing one-of-a-kind technical equipment for the theatre.
2007	Prague *	Remembering the Prague Quadrennial of 1979 and looking at changes since the Russians have left Prague.
2007	Termites *	Termites in my studio necessitated moving paintings long forgotten, each reminding me of the circumstances when it was done.
2006	Book Review - Designs of Ming Cho Lee *	Book Review - Designs of Ming Cho Lee by Delbert Unruh
2006	Feynman's Doubt *	A troubling exercise in playing it safe is the production of plays and musicals that are knock-offs of successful movies or successful plays. When shows substitute formulae for invention, they are trying to increase the odds of success but usually end up with critical and box office failures.
2006	Gifted *	Charities send small and not so small gifts in the mail, hoping to elicit donations in response. Theatres and schools might offer other incentives.
2006	Is Everybody Happy? *	Do artists become unhappy because of the frustrations they face as artists, or do unhappy people become artists?
2006	Sure *	While some people with strongly held beliefs try to avoid doubt, ambiguity and risk, theatre people live embrace uncertainties.
2005	Class *	Formerly a classless society where everyone went to the theatre, Americans now select TV/film or theatre, often along class lines.
2005	Designer Genes *	How much does nature or nurture have to do with what profession we enter?
2005	Hate *	A list of hateful and annoying things.
2005	To Vladivostok With Love *	After designing five plays at the Gorky Theatre in Russia over several years, I saw evidence of improved finances in the materials the theatre could afford.
2004	Hand, Mind, and Eye *	How many theatre design courses take advantage of the canon of theatrical literature and make connections between the history, philosophy, and arts of a play's era?
2004	Liberal Arts *	The relationship between liberal politics and artists.
2004	Polonius Redux *	Throughout the country, some college administrators and state legislators censor college productions.
2004	Trust Me *	The importance of working with colleagues and scripts that we trust.
2003	By Chance *	Luck plays a large part in theatrical success.
2003	Fear for the Future *	Some theatre people fear that science will find out too much about how the brain works.
2003	Intimate Time, Time to Intimate *	Theatre is best when it intimates rather than directly reveals.
2003	Not Really? *	The brain produces a sensation of reality from art that is exaggerated.
2002	Designer Genes *	A celebration of three great theatrical designers: Robert Edmund Jones, Jo Mielziner, and Donald Oenslager.
2002	On the Money *	A discussion of the inequities in salaries in the theatre. Low design fees have driven many designers to make a living by teaching in universities.
2002	Say What? *	The differences in how the generations communicate.
2002	The Body Electric *	Fanciful ways to use body mikes in theatre.
2001	Get a Job *	How designers get work is a hit or miss thing. Educational grade point averages don't apply.
2001	Having Reached a Certain Age *	A lament about the growing complexity of passwords and new electronic devices.
2001	The Bottom Line *	The economic policies universities are adopting to save money, such as having larger classes, won't work with art classes.
2001	Vanity *	The vanity of actors is physical. The vanity of designers and technicians is in the work they do.
2000	Denver 2000 *	A jaundiced look at the USITT convention in 2000.
2000	Seeing the Light *	Our understanding of the nature and meaning of light keeps changing.
2000	The Ice Fields *	Going back to nature for inspiration.
1999	Teaching Design in a World Without Design Part II †*	A follow up to an article published ten years ago when today's ubiquitous computer programs were not available.
1998	Dipping a Toe in the Ocean of Creativity †*	A discussion about creativity with responses from Patricia Zipprodt, Robert Israel, Peter Maradudin, John Conklin, Ming Cho Lee, James Moody, Ralph Funicello, George Tsypin, Douglas Schmidt and Tony Walton.
1997	Friends *	Thoughts on friendship occasioned by the death of Chilean designer Bernardo Trumper.
1996	Thoughts on Thinking *	Theater artists should pay attention to what contemporary science is saying about creativity.
1995	Artistic Darwinism	What does it mean to be human in an increasingly technological society?
1994	There is No Blue in Vladivostok †*	A report on how Russian theatre in the Far East copes with shortages of materials.
1992	Regarding Chaos and the Theatre †*	How fractals in nature are related to human aesthetics.
1990	Art, nude children and pornography	In art, naked babies represent innocence and purity.
1989	Teaching Design in a World Without Design (Part I) *	The importance of designers looking beyond their own cultures for fresh design ideas.
1985	Dissertation	A fictitious discussion between a designer and a student who wants to write a dissertation on the designer's career.
1984	Incest And Creativity	A pun-filled look at designers stealing designs from other designers.
1984	What the Critics Say	A spoof on theatre critics short-changing designers. Many historical puns.
1984	OISTT - Portrait of the Artist as a Lap Dog	An angry critique of the declaration voted on in Prague at the OISTT meeting.
1984	I Worry	A list of things to worry about, from the trivial to the profound.
1984	Help Wanted	A spoof on ads seeking designers to work on specialized assignments.
1984	All Wrong	Theatrical designers are just as good as fine art painters.
1983	Ralph and the USITT	Defending the USITT to a playwright friend.
1983	Working For The Boss	A story about arranging a halo of light behind the President of the U.S. at news conferences.
1983	Fraud In The Classroom	Teaching the humanities in theatre education has been pushed aside by teaching practical techniques.
1983	Ben and the Art of Teaching Design	The problems teachers face in preparing students for success in designing for the theatre.
1983	Oxymoron, R.I.P.	Mourning the ability of students to understand metaphor and other figures of speech.
1983	Murder He Wrote	A lighting designer murders a critic who gave him good reviews but slept through the shows.
1983	Power, Greed, Self, and Humiliation 1	The first of a three-part series about theatre ethics and morality
1983	Power, Greed, Self, and Humiliation 2	The second of a three-part series about theatre ethics and morality
1983	Power, Greed, Self, and Humiliation 3	The third of a three-part series about theatre ethics and morality
1983	Letters	Tongue-in-cheek advice to letters from fictitious readers with lighting problems.
1983	A Letter to a Young Designer	The presures of being a lighting designer in the last few days of rehearsal.
1983	Award Time	Poking fun with made up awards for lighting mishaps and incompetent work by designers and directors.
1982	More European Observations: Part 2	The second of two articles about international meetings in Warsaw and Prague.
1982	More European Observations: Part 1	The first of two articles about international meetings in Warsaw and Prague.
1982	Three Concepts	Interviews with three imagined directors: a flake, a high tech proponent, and an egoist.
1982	Thoughts on Success and Failure While Moving	Thoughts on what professional files should be kept when moving from New York to California
1982	The Last Interview	A fictitious character, 97-year-old Pericles MacCohen, recalls his career in theatre and film.
1982	The Center	With theatre companies springing up all over the country, they often send original plays to New York, in contrast to the old system where New York plays toured the country.
1982	Take A Meeting	An imagined production meeting pokes fun at artists working on a play with a terrible concept.
1982	Immodest things should have modest names	Euphemisms to mask mishaps in theatrical productions.
1981	Spring of Designer Dante	Looking at the materials and textures designers have to work with.
1981	A Matter of Class	The differences between practicing architecture and theatre design.
1981	The Best is Yet to Come	The correlation between success and age in various arts.
1981	Men, Money, Material	A comparison between working on a large budget film and a small budget play.
1981	Terry Linco was sitting there…	A humorous approach to the reality that more and more theatre designers are teaching at universities in order to make a living.
1981	Identity - Don't Leave Home Without One	Theatre designers do not get the benefits of being famous, like the stars.
1980	In the Closet	A fictitious account of a heterosexual teacher claiming to be gay in order to get a job.
1980	Lighting the Future	How lighting designers can find work in unusual situations when ordinary work dries up.
1980	Post Modern Words Or Is There Art After Death?	There are now many different theatre words to describe the same thing: draftings vs. drawings, load in vs. drag in, new theatre vs. post modern theatre.
1980	To Whom It May…	Letters of recommendation, leaning heavily on doubles entendres, written at the request of fictitious students with dreadful resumes.
1980	Robert Wilson Killed My Child	My young daughter acted with Robert Wilson in a piece of his that electrified their college audience.
1980	Damn New York Designers!	Local designers complain about regional theatres only hiring New York designers.
1979	The Paradox of Multi-Dimensional Scenographic Presentations or Why Models Are No Damn Good and German translation	Which is better at representing what a set will look like, a designer's model or a flat rendering? (Additional German translation.)
1979	BOO	It's time to boo bad performances and stop giving standing ovations to ordinary ones.
1979	Prague 1979	A report on the Prague Quadrennial, which turns out to be a Russian political advertisement.
1979	Vienna, More Than a Tourist	Beautiful Vienna is home to several state run theatres that share a huge common shop.
1979	Warsaw Diary	At a meeting of the Scenography Commission of OISTT, where representatives from many countries tried to find common ground.
1979	A Meeting in Salzburg	At an OISTT conference in Salzburg, representatives from different countries voiced very different concerns.
1979	All the World's a Screen	The generation of designers growing up with television has been influenced by the little screen.
1979	Hath There Been Such A Time	A dream in which Polonius, in Shakespearean verse, touts the importance of light.
1979	E.G.O	A humorous point system for ranking designers, including how well known they are to stars, and how many times their names are mentioned in reviews.
1978	(no official title) Spectacle vs. Substance	Is the theatre moving toward spectacle at the expense of substance?
1978	Mystery and Truth In the Barber Shop	Thoughts on the new trend of letting the audience see all the lighting instruments.
1978	Engineers & Artists	Engineers who design lighting equipment don't always know what lighting designers want.
1978	The Word is Light	A complaint about neologisms, such as "signage."
1978	Contrast - Luminography, The New Academy, and Chauvinism	A discussion of the training of lighting designers.
1978	Education At Last	A humorous, fictitious college catalog listing graduate courses in lighting.
1977	Scenographer as Artist III	All contemporary artists face the problem of communicating to a public.
1977	Scenographer as Artist II	Theatre designers, unlike fine artists, are constrained to work with a written text.
1977	Scenographer as Artist I	The alienation of theatre designers from the community of visual artists.
1974	Confessions of a Blind Designer	Thoughts on vision following the diagnosis of cataracts at a young age.
1958	Drama in Chile	Drama in Chile in 1958.

* also available at Theater Design & Technology

† Herbert D. Greggs Award Winner

Some articles appear in Beeb Salzer's book The Skeptical Scenographer: Essays on Theatrical Design and Human Nature.