Costume designer Willa Kim, who was honored in 2005 with a USITT Distinguished Achievement Award in Costume Design, will receive a career achievement award from the Asian American Arts Alliance on October 16 in New York City.

She will be honored at AAAA's 25th Anniversary Gala along with film and television actor Kal Penn and Eric Wong, CMO of Bad Boy Entertainment and senior vice president of marketing of Atlantic Records. Journalist and frequent New York Times writer Gwin Chin will present the award to Ms. Kim.

The gala is being held at TriBeCa Rooftop and includes dinner, silent auction, and live entertainment. The items in the silent auction include an autographed copy of The Designs of Willa Kim, USITT's first monograph. It will be presented to the winner during a lunch-to-be-arranged with Ms. Kim and author Bobbi Owen in New York City later this fall.

More information is available at the AAAA web site

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Bill Sapsis, Greg Williams, and the riders and staff of the Long Reach Long Riders announced the completion of the Fourth Annual Charity Motorcycle ride. The total amount raised for the 2007 ride is over $65,000.

The ride began on July 29 and ended on August 6. It covered over 2,500 miles with stops in Syracuse, Ottawa, Vermont, Maine and Connecticut. There were 22 riders and two chase car drivers. Members of the ride hailed from as far away as Boone, North Carolina and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The bike manufacturers represented included Harley Davidson, Buell, Honda, BMW, Yamaha, and Kawasaki.

To view the trip diary from this and previous years' rides, to www.LRLR.org.

Planning has begun on the fifth annual ride which will start and end in Las Vegas, Nevada with stops in Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Moab, Silverton, Monument Valley, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Ride dates are May 12 through 18.

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A European Committee for Standardization (CEN) workshop, with help from members of OISTAT Technology Commission and Architecture Commission, recently completed a consensus paper to address theatre technology standards for lifting and load-bearing equipment in the entertainment industry. The Workshop Agreement (CWA) is intended to become a formal European standard.

CEN is seeking comments on standards for lifting and load-bearing equipment for stages and other production areas within the entertainment industry. The draft CWA is available for public comments until October 19. The draft can be reviewed at the European Committee for Standardization web site.

Stages are the only work places where people work under hanging and moving loads without adequate protection. Some countries have standards, but even these are limited. The result is a somewhat confused pattern of regulations not really suited to the specific equipment. Often equipment used by traveling shows is moved across borders. CEN was approached by a group of manufacturers and users who wish to draft a CEN Workshop Agreement in order to increase safety.

Comments can be sent to the WS Secretariat, Jutta Behrendt at jutta.behrendt@din.de and Gerd-Rainer Sagert, at gerd-rainer.sagert@din.de.

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The ESTA BizEd Committee will present Marketing Boot Camp on Thursday, November 15 at LDI 2007 in Orlando, Florida.

The session will be split into two parts focusing on various aspects of marketing. The morning session, In the Trenches: Small Business Strategies, is an all-inclusive workshop addressing branding, ROI, and marketing techniques. The session runs 8 a.m. to noon and features speaker Eric M. Morgenstern of Morningstar Communications.

The afternoon session is entitled Take Aim: Internet Marketing Basics and will focus on how the web could be the most cost effective solution to recruiting new customers and promoting to existing ones. Julie Clark of Insight Media Group will educate participants on this hot topic from 1 to 5 p.m. Participants can attend one or both training sessions. A registration form is available here.

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The Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP) Council announced certification exams to be held at LDI in Orlando, Florida in November as well as the addition of a representative from Cirque du Soleil-MGM/Mirage to the council.

All three ETCP examinations will be given at the November 2007 LDI show:

• Entertainment Electrical Exam: 2 p.m. Friday, November 16
• Arena Rigging: 9 a.m. Saturday, November 17
• Theatre Rigging: 2 p.m. Saturday, November 17

Interested applicants must submit their application, along with supporting materials and fee, postmarked by October 1. There is a discount on multiple exams. Information is available at the ETCP web site or from Meredith Moseley-Bennett, ETCP Certification Coordinator, at 212-244-1505.

Cirque du Soleil and its Las Vegas partner MGM / Mirage have accepted a seat on the Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP) Council. The Council is the governing body which manages the development and implementation of ETCP, the industry-wide certification program for entertainment technicians.

Martin Crawford, technical manager, technical and show support -- Cirque du Soleil Resident Show Division, and Tony Galuppi, head of rigging for KÀ, will sit on the Council. The MGM/Mirage currently employs over 1,500 technicians to support Cirque du Soleil operations.

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The BSR E1.6 project to develop an American National Standard for powered theatrical rigging systems has a new project and part to the standard: E1.6-4, Control of Serially Manufactured Electric Chain Hoists Used in the Entertainment Industry. The E1.6 document has been broken into parts to facilitate development and better match the expertise of the people writing it. This newest part is an offshoot of the BSR E1.6-3 project, Selection and Use of Serially Manufactured Electric Chain Hoists in the Entertainment Industry.

Chain hoist control system safety is a complex topic, so the Rigging Working Group, at its meeting on July 13, voted to give control systems an E1.6 part and development project.

A task group was formed to develop a first draft of BSR E1.6-4 and included Peter Herrmann and Vincent Cannavalle of Motion Laboratories, Noga Eilon-Bahar of Eilon Engineering Industrial Weighing Systems, Jon Lenard of Applied Electronics, Dana Bartholomew of Fisher Technical Services, and Eddie Kramer of IATSE Local 1.

The project is being announced so people affected can comment or become involved. Anyone who would be affected by the revision of this standard is invited to join the Rigging Working Group to work on developing the standard. Information about joining working groups and a link to the working group membership application form are available at www.esta.org/tsp/working_groups/index.html. All members of the affected public may comment on the standard when it is made available for public review. For more information, contact: Karl G. Ruling, Technical Standards Manager, ESTA, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1005, New York, NY 10001;1-212-244-1505; fax 1-212-244-1502; or standards@esta.org.

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An array of about 150 theatrical set and costume design models and sketches will be on display in StageStruck: The Magic of Theatre Design at Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation Gallery November 13 to December 22 in New York City.

The gallery is located at 26 Wooster St., between Grand and Canal streets, in SoHo.

StageStruck celebrates the creative genius of dozens of set and costume designers, both male and female -- all of whom happen to be gay -- working with authors, composers, and choreographers who are also gay. Original sketches, models, and props have been gathered from a variety of sources including numerous private collections, the New York Public Library's extensive theatre collection, and many designers themselves. There will be a public reception for the opening of the exhibit from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, November 13. There will be an invitation only celebrity preview Monday, November 12.

The guest curators, Peter Harvey and David Noh, have assembled items spanning 60 years in the world of theatre, opera, and ballet from the 1940s through the 2007 Broadway season, including designs for Grey Gardens, The Fantasticks, and Curtains. Historic productions include Fancy Free, Hello, Dolly!, Boys in the Band, Lips Together Teeth Apart, and A Delicate Balance.

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