March 16 is the deadline for submissions to the USITT Prague Quadrennial USA 2011. Now is the time to check out the website and submit designs.

Costume designers who have designed costumes from non-traditional materials with unusual silhouettes should make a note on the submission form to be considered for Extreme Costume, an additional exhibit that will be juried by the Czech organizers of the PQ.

In 2011, more than 50 countries will be represented. The National and Student exhibits will be housed in the galleries of the Veletržní Palace located up the street from the Industrial Palace, the beloved location of PQ’s past, recently damaged by a fire.

Everyone, whether they participate or not, should consider attending this extraordinary event in Prague June 16 to 26, 2011. Meet other designers and theatre people from around the globe, take part in Scenofest activities, and enjoy the beauty of Prague. Photos of PQ 2007 can be viewed at: www.rfdesigns.org/photostage/pq.htm or picasaweb.google.com/finkelrs.

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A special session will highlight a new project of the Costume Design & Technology Commission. The Commission, in conjuction with the 50th Anniversary of the Institute, is beginning the Costume Legacy Project. The goal of this project is to research and document the “genealogy” associated with academic costume programs in the United States after 1930. The focus will be on identifying professors and/or mentors of costume design and technology and their students, mentees, and protégées. The Costume Legacy Project will be unveiled on April 1 in a session honoring some of the first American costume educators: Lucy Barton, Frank Bevan, and Bernice Prisk.

Currently, Commission members are researching and conducting interviews of students and teachers of the first and second generation of costume teachers from the 1940s through the 1970s. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact a Commission member.

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Following a hugely successful first joint venture fundraiser this year between Behind the Scenes and Light Relief in the United Kingdom, the two charities will do it again in 2010! And once again they have the full backing of award-winning designers Paule Constable, Ken Billington, and Ken Posner, along with Light Relief’s co-founder Rick Fisher.

Established in 2007 as Light Relief Day and now renamed By Design Day, April 24 is the day each year that people in the professional design business give back to help others less fortunate than themselves. The first joint venture raised $11,500; $5,700 for Behind the Scenes and £3,450 for Light Relief. The money came through a variety of channels including royalties from Broadway and West End shows, touring productions of every sort, donations on Facebook, and even bucket collections from audience members.

To make the 2010 event even more successful, the organizers are giving designers on both sides of the Atlantic advance warning of By Design Day 2010 on April 24 in honor of the late Tony Gottelier, co-founder of Light Relief. Lighting, video, scenic, sound, and costume designers are asked to donate their royalties for the day, while others in non-royalty situations give what they are able.

Visit The ESTA Fondation or Light Relief for more information.

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Last July’s Protocols Plugfest was an enormous success for the ESTA Technical Standards program, attracting many first time attendees who brought several new control products to test and debug control protocol interoperability.

Members of the Control Protocols Working Group are also event attendees so the Plugfest has become the industry’s single leading resource in having protocol implementation questions authoritatively answered.

The ESTA Technical Standards Program held another “plugfest” as part of its January conference January 22 through 24 in Westlake, Texas. The event provides a working protocols lab for manufacturers' engineers to see if their products will co-exist and communicate with the products of other manufacturers and, if required, find out on the spot what is wrong, fix it, and try again.

The ESTA Controls Protocol Working Groups supported the following standards during this event: ANSI E1.11 – 2008, USITT DMX512-A, ANSI E1.17 – 2006, Architecture for Control Networks (ACN), ANSI E1.20 – 2006, RDM-Remote Device Management over USITT DMX512 Networks, and ANSI E1.31 – 2009, Lightweight streaming protocol for transport of DMX512 using ACN.

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