PLAIN
DEALER ARTICLE ABOUT NEohioPAL
Daily
e-mails carry updates about the arts
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Rita Kueber
Special to The Plain Dealer
It's big. It reaches from Lorain to Youngstown, from Cleveland to Medina. It accommodates more than 3,000 people from teens to retirees, beginners to pros. It's important to a population vital to the region's strength and health, but it will be of service to almost anyone who needs to use it.
It's free.
It's NEohioPAL, the Northeast Ohio Performing Arts List. The what?
It was originally an electronic bulletin board for news about upcoming auditions. As with most things involving creative minds, however, the e-mail-based phenomenon morphed organically into a user-friendly electronic touchstone for Northeast Ohio's performing-arts community.
Its daily messages are in equal parts electronic hearth, swap shop, newsstand and billboard. Its users will tell you it's a kind of super glue that keeps actors, directors, musicians and artists informed and employed.
Theaters and venues save time and money finding talent and equipment. Supporters have a trusted source for play openings, concerts, news of an ailing colleague and the occasional homeless pet or good (that is, cheap) apartment.
The list has helped Cleveland's Irish Cultural Festival to do the following: find poets for a poetry Slam, find a set designer and hire a magician. "And for me, personally, to find a teacher for guitar lessons," said John O'Brien Jr., assistant director for operations of the festival.
"I've gotten several jobs due to the [NEohioPAL] list postings as well as heard of performances large and small," said Jennifer Woda of Cleveland. "I am an opera singer who has worked with Cleveland Opera and Lyric Opera Cleveland and read about their auditions in Classical Singer magazine, for which I pay $52 a year. It's amazing that Fred's list is free."
Fred is veteran director Fred Sternfeld, the one person whom NEohioPAL's approximately 3,400 daily users have to thank for it.
Sometime in the late 1990s, Sternfeld had collected 35 e-mail addresses of former cast members. He intended to use the list to alert the actors about his future productions.
Someone - Sternfeld can't recall who - asked if he would send an audition notice. "At the time, 35 addresses was huge," Sternfeld says. "I figured, 'Why not?' "
Word got out, and within a year, information sent via the list was reaching 200 people.
"I never set out to start a list," Sternfeld says. "It evolved on its own, but I'm happy to do it. It draws the arts community together."
Lester Thomas Shane, who directed "A Bright Room Called Day" this fall at Cleveland Public Theatre, said: "I live in New York City but work regularly in Cleveland. The list has been very helpful in keeping me abreast of what's happening here."
Adds Michael Stein, production manager at Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron, "This service has saved my company money. . . . It has been a valuable asset."
Recipients can get NEohioPAL listings one at a time or in a daily digest. To subscribe to the list, go to www.fredsternfeld.com and click on the NEohioPAL "How to Subscribe" link. Your request to subscribe is held for approval by Sternfeld, the list administrator. Confirmation of your subscription will be e-mailed to you.
Sternfeld spends about a half-hour each day handling the hosting and the headaches. He filters spam. As administrator, he is the final arbiter regarding content. His biggest challenge is to get people to understand how to post a message.
His rules are simple and few. Posts with information that's useful or valuable to the performing-arts community are welcome, but no graphics - they take up too much space. He tries not to censor. When a local theater produced a legitimate play with a title unprintable in this newspaper, information about the show (title and all) went out on the list.
Opinions are welcome, but they need to be pertinent. It's not a free-for-all. If someone is offended, Sternfeld suggests they hit their delete button. "I can't please everyone all the time," he says.
One person who is pleased is Julie Fogel, associate director of communications and marketing at the Cleveland Play House. That institution "has found the list extremely useful. We've used it to let the local arts community know about auditions as well as backstage jobs," Fogel says.
"Additionally, we find it to be a great way to fill seats for company previews, offer special ticket incentives and share news."
The service is free to the user. To maintain the list, Sternfeld pays a small fee from his own pocket.
"The question I get all the time is why don't I charge for this," he says. "But this is my gift. It's not time-consuming - it's a sideline to my main thing, which is directing. It's important to me, and it's a big thing for everyone out there.
"I think of it as the least I can do for the arts."
Kueber is a free-lance writer in Shaker Heights.
To contact Rita Kueber:
entertainment@plaind.com
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Rita Kueber
Special to The Plain Dealer
It's big. It reaches from Lorain to Youngstown, from Cleveland to Medina. It accommodates more than 3,000 people from teens to retirees, beginners to pros. It's important to a population vital to the region's strength and health, but it will be of service to almost anyone who needs to use it.
It's free.
It's NEohioPAL, the Northeast Ohio Performing Arts List. The what?
It was originally an electronic bulletin board for news about upcoming auditions. As with most things involving creative minds, however, the e-mail-based phenomenon morphed organically into a user-friendly electronic touchstone for Northeast Ohio's performing-arts community.
Its daily messages are in equal parts electronic hearth, swap shop, newsstand and billboard. Its users will tell you it's a kind of super glue that keeps actors, directors, musicians and artists informed and employed.
Theaters and venues save time and money finding talent and equipment. Supporters have a trusted source for play openings, concerts, news of an ailing colleague and the occasional homeless pet or good (that is, cheap) apartment.
The list has helped Cleveland's Irish Cultural Festival to do the following: find poets for a poetry Slam, find a set designer and hire a magician. "And for me, personally, to find a teacher for guitar lessons," said John O'Brien Jr., assistant director for operations of the festival.
"I've gotten several jobs due to the [NEohioPAL] list postings as well as heard of performances large and small," said Jennifer Woda of Cleveland. "I am an opera singer who has worked with Cleveland Opera and Lyric Opera Cleveland and read about their auditions in Classical Singer magazine, for which I pay $52 a year. It's amazing that Fred's list is free."
Fred is veteran director Fred Sternfeld, the one person whom NEohioPAL's approximately 3,400 daily users have to thank for it.
Sometime in the late 1990s, Sternfeld had collected 35 e-mail addresses of former cast members. He intended to use the list to alert the actors about his future productions.
Someone - Sternfeld can't recall who - asked if he would send an audition notice. "At the time, 35 addresses was huge," Sternfeld says. "I figured, 'Why not?' "
Word got out, and within a year, information sent via the list was reaching 200 people.
"I never set out to start a list," Sternfeld says. "It evolved on its own, but I'm happy to do it. It draws the arts community together."
Lester Thomas Shane, who directed "A Bright Room Called Day" this fall at Cleveland Public Theatre, said: "I live in New York City but work regularly in Cleveland. The list has been very helpful in keeping me abreast of what's happening here."
Adds Michael Stein, production manager at Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron, "This service has saved my company money. . . . It has been a valuable asset."
Recipients can get NEohioPAL listings one at a time or in a daily digest. To subscribe to the list, go to www.fredsternfeld.com and click on the NEohioPAL "How to Subscribe" link. Your request to subscribe is held for approval by Sternfeld, the list administrator. Confirmation of your subscription will be e-mailed to you.
Sternfeld spends about a half-hour each day handling the hosting and the headaches. He filters spam. As administrator, he is the final arbiter regarding content. His biggest challenge is to get people to understand how to post a message.
His rules are simple and few. Posts with information that's useful or valuable to the performing-arts community are welcome, but no graphics - they take up too much space. He tries not to censor. When a local theater produced a legitimate play with a title unprintable in this newspaper, information about the show (title and all) went out on the list.
Opinions are welcome, but they need to be pertinent. It's not a free-for-all. If someone is offended, Sternfeld suggests they hit their delete button. "I can't please everyone all the time," he says.
One person who is pleased is Julie Fogel, associate director of communications and marketing at the Cleveland Play House. That institution "has found the list extremely useful. We've used it to let the local arts community know about auditions as well as backstage jobs," Fogel says.
"Additionally, we find it to be a great way to fill seats for company previews, offer special ticket incentives and share news."
The service is free to the user. To maintain the list, Sternfeld pays a small fee from his own pocket.
"The question I get all the time is why don't I charge for this," he says. "But this is my gift. It's not time-consuming - it's a sideline to my main thing, which is directing. It's important to me, and it's a big thing for everyone out there.
"I think of it as the least I can do for the arts."
Kueber is a free-lance writer in Shaker Heights.
To contact Rita Kueber:
entertainment@plaind.com