Serenbe Playhouse founder Brian Clowdus was chosen as a 2014 "15 under 40" Honoree by Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles. His accomplishment? "Serenbe Playhouse under Clowdus’ guardianship is a fierce force in Atlanta theater -- doubling audiences each season, selling out shows and winning awards like “Best Musical” by BroadwayWorld and ArtsATL for last season’s Hair.""Serenbe Playhouse has grown so much in five years, and I count my lucky stars that we are able to grow like this in a...

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In this New York Times article, Siobhan Burke profiles New Yorkers Mathew Pokoik and his wife, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, who bought 114 acres in Mount Tremper (pop. 1,100) -- 10 miles west of Woodstock -- and decided to build a center for experimental performance in what Pokoik calls “the middle of nowhere.” What started as a "desire to support independent artists like themselves, mainly from New York City" has grown into "a magnet for adventurous urban artists and a devoted local...

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In the olden days, if you wanted a ticket to a hot concert, the best way to secure one was to camp out overnight, usually outside a record store*, so as to be in line when the tickets went on sale. Sure, you got a pretty lousy ticket, but at least you got one. I never had to do this myself, but I certainly Tom Sawyer-ed a couple of my friends in high school into doing it for me.Today,...

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With the recession and floods that forced them out of their concert hall, Orchestra Iowa hasn't had an easy time the past few years. But instead of closing their doors or cutting back on performances, the company is thriving and managed to balance their $3.1 million budget. How did they do it? Diana Nolan of The Gazette spoke with Orchestra Iowa's CEO Robert Massey and Music Director Timothy Hankewich. You can read the full article here, and we gathered...

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In July, the legendary comedy troupe will provide another hint to the live entertainment industry about what the future could look like by broadcasting The Last Night of Monty Python from the O2 Arena in London to theaters all around the world.If you are still wondering whether the business model-broadening powers of live broadcast aren’t real, here’s the key piece of the article I just linked: “Originally, members John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Jones had...

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We love a good success story, even better when it started with a bit of a risk. Jazz at Lincoln Center began in 1987 and after many successful years it's poised to become a world-wide phenomenon. The Economist looked at the history of the production and where it plans to go in the future. You can read the full article here.

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Do you read business books? I go through phases, but every time I read a few, I’m eventually reminded of why I stopped: most of them are useless. And dull.What happens to me is that I stumble across a good one, and I tell myself there must be “more like this out there.” My quest begins, and if I’m lucky with one or two more, I keep going. Eventually, my luck runs out. The law of averages kicks in,...

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Patterns can be powerful. When you see a pattern that occurs again and again, you could look at that as a window into the design of nature itself.One of those patterns is something called the S-Curve, which looks like this:The idea is this: Something starts out, and if it's successful, it grows. This growth is rapid at first, and for a good, long while it gets bigger, or better or larger or makes more money or whatever. At some...

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Perry Farrell (of Jane's Addiction fame) is developing an immersive, EDM-based musical in Vegas. In addition to being a magnet for more hashtags than a NASCAR has ads (I count Vegas, musical, EDM and immersive), it's also pretty intriguing. I'd go.Keep an eye on this! The evolution and maturity of EDM (electronic dance music) as a cultural force is going to have a big impact on the world of the near future. Just as rock 'n' roll and later...

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London seems to be leading the way in shows that very actively engage all five senses. First, there was the fireworks show, and now there are the BitterSuite symphonies.It's a classical concert that makes you smell, touch and taste things as part of the program. Lindsey Winship of The Guardian (UK) describes it like this: "The audience were blindfolded and fed different sensory experiences in parallel with the music: fizzy pop and cola bottles for the effervescent second movement...

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