Monday, February 28, 2011

Upcoming: John Lahr Lectures on Tennessee Williams and the Out-crying Heart, Harry Ransom Center, UT, March 3

Found on-line:

Tennessee Williams (online image not attributed)

Tennessee Williams and the Out-Crying Heart

a lecture by New Yorker drama critic John Lahr

March 3, 7 p.m.

Homer Rainey Hall music building, University of Texas

21st St., east of Guadalupe and east of Ransom Center (click for map)

no charge for admission


Homer Rainey Hall, 21st St., University of TexasThe University Co-op presents the Harry Ransom Lectures event "Tennessee Williams and the Out-Crying Heart” with John Lahr, Senior Drama Critic of The New Yorker. The event takes place Thursday, March 3, at 7 p.m. in Jessen Auditorium in Homer Rainey Hall.

Lahr will discuss the origins of Tennessee Williams's dramatic voice and how it changed over the decades.


Members of the Harry Ransom Center receive complimentary parking and priority entry at this program. Doors open at 6:20 p.m. for members and at 6:30 p.m. for the general public. Members must present their membership cards for priority entrance; one seat per membership card. Members arriving after 6:30 p.m. will join the general queue. Complimentary parking for members is available at the University Co-op garage at 23rd and San Antonio streets.


The Harry Ransom Lectures honor former University of Texas Chancellor Harry Huntt Ransom and highlight the Ransom Center’s vital role in the University’s intellectual and cultural life. The program brings internationally renowned writers, artists, and scholars to Austin for public events and conversations with University students. The lectures are made possible by the generous support of the University Co-op.


Additional support was provided by the Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Upcoming: Sylvia by A.R. Guerney, Lakeway Players, March 24 - 26

Received directly:


Lakeway PlayersSylvia A.R. Gurney Lakeway Players

presents

Sylvia

by A.R. Gurney

directed by Sue Right

a comedy with serious lessons about love and marriage.

March 24, 25 and 26

Lakeway Activity Center 105 Cross Creek, Lakeway. (click for directions)(click for map)
Tickets are $15. Ph: 261-1010.Website: www. lakewayplayers.com

Sylvia, a dog who talks, delightfully fills an empty space in Greg's life, much to his wife's chagrin. Sylvia features an all-star cast composed of David Cummings, Lee Dilday, Theresa Lingren, Barbara Calderaro, Bill Walker and Terry Jones.

The Threepenny Opera by Brecht & Weill, University of Texas, February 18 - 27


The Threepenny Opera, University of Texas


UT's The Threepenny Opera is an astonishing production, of such quality and depth that it deserved to run for months. But the Oscar Brockett Theatre seats only about 200 and there were only seven performances.


I organized a group of 16 to attend the first Saturday performance, and they walked away bedazzled. You can pity that one prospective group member who decided not to take up the offer because, he said, he's "allergic to opera."

Rachel Haney Butler, Sarah Konkel (image:Brenda O'Brian)A parenthetical rant: You can't buy this kind of performance on the open market, because it would have to go into a far larger hall to have even the remotest possibility of contributing to the overhead.

Never mind that this cast of 22 and musical ensemble of 7 are almost all students, performing for free and working with UT grad students and faculty. Instead, admire the fact that they're paying tuition so they can get up there and amaze you.

Given the size of the university and the theatre department, you can explain some of the quality by simple Darwinian selection. Plus the fact that UT, in fashion similar to Texas State, has ploughed resources into a new musical theatre program.

The back page of the program lists 180 names -- 180! -- of secondary-level crew members, in 70 specialties.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: A Simple Murder by Barbara Vance, Friends of the Round Rock Public Library, March 25 - April 3

Info via Penfold Theatre:
Mystery Night Round Rock Public Library
Mystery Night at the Round Rock Library:

A Simple Murder

by Barbara Vance

dinner theatre at the library!


March 25 - April 3
Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m.
Round Rock Public Library
216 Main Street, Round Rock (click for map)
Cost: $18

The exciting mystery play A Simple Murder written by Barbara Vance will be presented during the last weekend in March and the first weekend in April at the Round Rock Public Library. The production is sponsored by the Friends of the Round Rock Public Library.

The play is about an old man and his dysfunctional family. The birthday party may have been mandatory but the murder was optional. Now you have the opportunity to play detective. A murder occurs and you will be asked to solve it. Come and join hands at the pre-performance séance!

Performances and ticket prices are as follows:

* Friday evenings, March 25, April 1 - $18 includes box dinner
* Saturday evenings, March 26, April 2 - $25 includes spaghetti dinner
* Sunday afternoons, March 27, April 3 - $15 includes desserts

Curtain times: 7 p.m. Fri. & Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun.

Chianti available to adults with their spaghetti meal.

Tickets will be available March 1 at the Round Rock Public Library.
For more information, please contact Chip Hadley, (512) 218-7000. Proceeds of this fundraiser will be used to support various programs at the library.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Reviews from Elsewhere: The Rude Mechs' Method Gun at Yale, February 25

Thanks to a Tweet from the Rude Mechs:

Excerpts:

New Haven Advocate logo

The Rude Mechs' The Method Gun - review

By Christopher Arnott
Friday, February 25, 2011 11:35pm


[. . . .] The Rude Mechs' touring production of The Method Gun has one final performance at the Yale Repertory Theatre, 8 p.m. Saturday Feb. 26. If you miss it here, you can still catch it next week in New York City.

It’s nice to finally see (thanks to Yale’s undergraduate Theater Studies department’s World Performance Project series and the graduate Yale School of Drama) a company from Texas that I’ve been hearing and reading about for years, and to find that they’re as good as the advance word suggested. The Rude Mechs come off as a genuine ensemble, a tightly-knit collective with a unified vision. The Method Gun is funny, bleak, satirical and serious in equal parts, so well-balanced and timed that you trust it implicitly and just follow along without questioning its intentions.

[. . . .] But The Method Gun’s brilliance is that, in questioning how far you can take artistic theory, it humanizes the process rather than turning it into a cartoon. Streetcar is a real play, but the situation Rude Mechs has invented concerns a mysterious directorial theorist whose own method, dubbed “The Approach,” out-methods any method heretofore known. It opens up an exploration of control, security and danger in how theater is created and performed. Creative staging effects and play-within-play-within-play mindfucks take those very elements a few stages further. Yet there’s enough of a plot structure, character development and comedy for the intermissionless evening to be thoroughly entertaining on top of all that metatheatrical mysticism.

[. . . .] Self-referential ensemble projects about the meaning of theater aren’t that uncommon, and I’d be hard pressed to call The Method Gun original. I’m not even sure it wants to be. Swinging lights, male nudity and animal costumes are part of the arsenal of any small regional theater company. What matters is that these effects are perfectly utilized, carefully chosen, craftily implemented to refresh, amuse or confound at just the right moments. While there is a groupthink at work here, it’s important to note that The Method Gun began with a script by company co-founder Kirk Lynn and benefits from exquisite technical design (particularly for a touring piece—fitting any outside work onto the oddly wide, curtainless Yale Rep stage is a trick in itself, yet this piece looks like it could have been created there.)

Click to view full review at the New Haven Advocate . . . .

Friday, February 25, 2011

Texas Arts Commission Budget Halved in Mark-up, Texas Tribune, February 24

Article received as a forwarded link, illustration as an ALT comment:

The burning of the theatre in Richmond




Texas Tribune



Lawmakers Spare Historical, Arts Agencies — For Now

by Christopher Smith Gonzalez - 2/24/2011

Two agencies that Gov. Rick Perry has suggested suspending funding for — the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Commission on the Arts — came before House Appropriations this morning. And lawmakers didn't seem particularly apt to shutter them.

The Historical Commission — and in particular its Courthouse Preservation, Main Street and Heritage Trails programs — got a great deal of attention from lawmakers who said their inboxes have been flooded by constituents.

[. . . .] In the House draft of the budget, both commissions receive some funding. But the cuts are deep and would cause both agencies to scale back the programs they offer. The Historical Commission, for example, would be cut by $14.8 million in general revenue funds — and about $80 million in all funds. General revenue funding for the Texas Commission on the Arts would be reduced by 50 percent.

[. . . .] The committee wasn't ready to rule on the Historical Commission — but did approve the recommendations to halve the Commission on the Arts' funding. Gary Gibbs, the commission's executive director, thanked House lawmakers for leaving his agency in the budget rather than shutting it altogether.

Gibbs said the cuts would mean cutting his staff by a third. The commission would also be forced to shrink the grants it provides for a variety of events and programs, like the Austin Shakespeare Festival and the Amarillo Opera. But he took House lawmakers' inclusion of funds for his agency as evidence that they recognize the importance of the arts in Texas. “They contribute to our economy, they enhance the education of our children to prepare them for the 21st century workforce, and they contribute to the quality of life that attracts businesses and a skilled workforce to our state,” he said.

Click to read the full article, focused mostly on the Historical Commission, at the Texas Tribune

Upcoming: The Jungle, based on Upton Sinclair's novel, Trouble Puppet Theatre Company at the Salvage Vanguard, March 16 - April 3

Received directly:


Trouble Puppet Theatre Company

brings back

The Jungle

based on Upton Sinclair's novel about 1906 Chicago

March 16 - April 3

Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 6 p.m.

Tickets on-line: $16.52 general admission, $11.34 students & seniors, tickets + donation at $32.04 & $47.57





[APPLE users: no video? Click to go to YouTube!]

The Trouble Puppet Theater Company returns with a fully realized production of its award-winning adaptation The Jungle. Funded by a Jim Henson Foundation Project Grant, this season’s production promises to outshine the earlier version that received such accolades as these:

  • B. Iden Payne Awards for Award for Outstanding Director of a Drama, Outstanding Original Script, Outstanding Sound Design, and Special Certificate for Puppetry.
  • Places on three “Best of 2009” lists in the Austin Chronicle.
  • Reviewer Robert Faires said “[Artistic Director] Connor Hopkins distilled Upton Sinclair's novel of immigrants ground up by the meatpacking industry into a sepia-tinted tone poem, made hauntingly human by puppets of paper and string.”

The Trouble Puppet Theater Company’s production of The Jungle is an adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 muckraking novel about immigrant laborers in Chicago. The novel’s portrayal of the unsanitary and inhumane practices of the meat-packing industry, as well as the brutality of working conditions in turn-of-the-century America, shocked the nation.

Click for reviews by ALT and others of the September 2009 premiere production of The Jungle

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Upcoming: Chicago, KidsActing, Center Stage, February 25 - March 6

Found on-line:

Kids Acting Austin Texas

presents at its Center Stage Texas Theatre:



Chicago


...and all that jazz


February 18th-March 6th

Center Stage Texas, 2826 Real Street (click for map)
Friday, February 25th @ 7:30pm - Benefit performance-Click here to order tickets now
Saturday, February 26th @ 7:30pm
Sunday, February 27th @ 3:00pm

Friday, March 4th @ 7:30pm
Saturday, March 5th @ 7:30pm
Sunday, March 6th @ 3:00pm


Ticket prices are as follows:
Ticket prices at the door to the performances will be the same as online prices.
Shows do sell out, so making a reservation online is the best way to ensure you will be able to attend the performance you would like.
Adults (18+) $15.00 -- Students (17-) $12.00 -- Current kidsActing students (spring 2011) $10.00

Click to purchase tickets on-line
You will not be receiving physical tickets, however all reservations will be listed on the reservation list at the door to the shows. Please let the box office know that you have reservations under the name given when placing your order. Seating is first come, first served, so please arrive approximately 30 minutes prior to showtime.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Upcoming: Echoes of Ireland by Nicholas and Bonnie Collier, Bastrop Opera House, March 11 - 27

Found on-line:


Echoes of Ireland
Written and Directed by Nicholas and Bonnie Collier Echoes of Ireland Collier Bastrop Opera HouseFridays and Saturdays March 11 through 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday matinee March 27 at 2:30 p.m.

This new work, written and directed by two local authors, Nicholas and Bonnie Collier, presents an array of characters who will take you from the depths of sorrow to the heights of uproarious laughter. The play is filled with the warmth of community rivalry, humor, romance, and poignant reminders of Ireland's struggle for freedom. Set in 1939 in a rural Irish pub.

General Admission Tickets: $12 Adults; $10 Seniors 60+; $8 Students (High School and College) Active Military and Veterans; $5 all children 14 and under.
VIP Reserved seating (all ages) $15 each. These are reserved seating tickets which means that the seats are assigned based on best seats available at time of purchase. Therefore if you wish to sit with a friend or group, make sure you purchase all the seats in the same transaction.
Purchase tickets on line here.
Tickets

Upcoming: Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams, Different Stages at the City Theatre, March 18 - April 9

Found on-line:

Different Stages





presents Night of the Iguana, Different Stages, Austin

Tennessee Williams'

Night of the Iguana

March 18 – April 9
City Theater, 3823 Airport Suite D ( map)
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
Pick your Price Tickets: $15, $20, $25, $30
Reservations: 474–8497


Different Stages continues its 2010 – 2011 season with The Night of the Iguana. This Tony-Award-winning play by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Tennessee Williams is a provocative exploration of human struggle and passion — full of intense drama, biting wit, and sexual tension. Defrocked priest T. Lawrence Shannon now scrapes out a living as a tour guide in Mexico. On the verge of a collapse, he abducts his tour group to a crumbling seaside hotel on the edge of the jungle. As a fierce tropical storm rolls in, Shannon must wrestle with the passions of the women around him – the wrath of a Texas school teacher, the advances of a lustful teenager and the jealousies of the widowed hotel owner – as he seeks solace with a new arrival, a gentle spinster traveling with her grandfather – the world's oldest living poet.


Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (The Carpetbagger's Children), The Night of the Iguana features Tom Chamberlain (The Goat or Who is Sylvia?) as the Rev. Shannon, Content Love Knowles (Murder Mystery Ballad) as the hotel proprietor Maxine and Rebecca Robinson (Circle, Mirror, Transformation) as the artist Hannah Jelkes. Also In the cast are Donald Bayne (The Duck Variations) as the poet Jonathan Coffin, Karen Jambon (Mary Stuart) as the Music Teacher Judith Fellowes and Chloe Edmundson (The Skin of Our Teeth) as her music student Charlotte Goodall. Rounding out the cast are Brian Brown, Ben McLemore, Scott Friedman, Phoebe Greene, Carrie Stephens, Justin Smith, Tony Salinas, Carlos Saenz and Ashley McNerney.

On Saturday March 26 join the cast for a Tennessee Williams Birthday Party, in honor of the Williams centennial.

Upcoming: Hagase la Mujer! (And God Created Woman!), Proyecto Teatro, Mexican-American Cultural Center, February 24 - March 5

Found on-line:


Proyecto Teatro Spanish-language theatre in Austin

presentsHagase la Mujer Proyecto Teatro Austin

¡Hágase la Mujer!

(And God Created Woman!)

by Carlos Campos Sagaseta de Ilúrdoz (Koldo)

February 24 - March 5

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center

600 River Street (click for map)

Tickets $12 general admission, $10 for seniors and students, Sundays pay what you can

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .


Upcoming: A Marvelous Party, featuring Noel Coward's music, Penfold Theatre at Kindred Oaks, March 24

Found on-line:

A Marvelous Party Penfold Theatre








A Marvelous Party!

an elegant evening of scenes and songs by Noel Coward
Adapted from the works of Noel Coward
Compiled and directed by Michael McKelvey
Also featuring Andrew Cannata, Sarah Gay, Annika Johansson, and Jill Leberknight

Thursday, March 24, 2011
7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Dress is Cocktail Attire.

The doors open at 6:30 pm and dinner begins at 7:00. The evening concludes at 9:45.
Tickets are $65 per person or $700 for a table of ten. Buy tickets


Get away for a magical evening of music, fine-dining and the sparkling comic imagination of Noel Coward. The grounds at Kindred Oaks provide a beautiful, central Texas backdrop against which guests will enjoy an elegant meal while actors and singers from Austin's vibrant theatre community delight with selections from the Noel Coward canon.

Famous for comedies like Private Lives, Hay Fever and Blithe Spirit, as well as for musical theatre classics like “I Went to a Marvelous Party”, Sir Noel Coward and his work have been enchanting audiences around the globe for nearly 100 years.


Menu
Entrees: Chicken Marbella and Pork Chop with Duxelles Sauce
Sides: Herb Butter Fettuccini, Roasted Vegetable Medley
Salad: Arugula Salad with Roasted Red Grapes & Shaved Pecorino with Roasted Shallot Vinaigrette
Bread: Cracked Pepper & Rosemary Focaccia
Drinks: Sweet Orange Iced Tea/Unsweet Iced Tea/Coffee*
Desserts: Chocolate Amaretto & Walnut Brownie, Stuffed Strawberries, and Cheesecake Bites
* The bar will offer complimentary beer and wine. Donations accepted.



The night will also include live and silent auctions. Proceeds support Penfold Theatre Company's 2011-12 season and its ongoing efforts to open a new performance venue in Round Rock.

For more information, or to reserve a table of ten, please contact us at (512) 850-4849 or email info@penfoldtheatre.org.


Kindred Oaks

Kindred Oaks (Map it)
2100 C.R. 176
Georgetown, TX 78628

Free parking is available on site. All areas are wheelchair accessible.

Visit the Kindred Oaks website.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Upcoming: Paradise Key by Dean Poyner, A Chick and A Dude Productions at Hyde Park Theatre, March 31 - April 16

Received directly:

Tom Green, Shanon Weaver (image: A Chick and A Dude Productins)

A Chick and A Dude Productions

announces the southwestern premiere of

Paradise Key

by Dean Poyner

directed by Melissa Livingston

Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St. at Guadalupe (click for map)

Thursdays - Saturdays, March 31 - April 16, 8 p.m.

Tickets for the show are “sliding scale,” $10-$20 on Thursdays and $15-$20 on Fridays and Saturdays and are available online at www.achickandadude.com. To reserve seats, call (512) 921-4264 or email achickandadude@gmail.com.

Playwright Poynor Visits Austin to Host an after-show Q & A Session on Friday, April 8

Paradise Key takes place in the summer of 1951. A hidden U.S. Army safe house in the Florida Keys provides the backdrop for this intense physical and metaphysical drama in which Counter-Intelligence Agent David Dunn (Shanon Weaver) has just one night to extract a possible vaccine for Polio from the mind of former Nazi physician Werhner Halb (Tom Green). By using early CIA interrogation techniques—both psychological and physical—David attempts to discover the truth about Halb’s formula. As the Faustian bargain unfolds, we learn that Halb conducted experiments on human subjects in Nazi concentration camps. Halb will only offer information about the formula if David can first prove that he is a man, complicit in the consequences, able to accept that in order to become the hero, one must first embrace the monster.

Click to view additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: The Pillowman, University Theatre Group, University of Texas, March 4 - 6



Received directly:

University Theatre Guild
presents

THE PILLOWMAN
by Martin McDonagh

directed by Sierra Lawrence
assistant Director: Orla O'Callaghan

Black Box Theater, room 2.304

in the new UT Student Activities Center (click for map)
March 4 & 5 @ 7pm, March 6 @ 2pm

TICKETS $7 at the door, $5 with a UT student ID

RSVP on Facebook - Follow @TexasUTG on Twitter

With echoes of Stoppard, Kafka, and the Brothers Grimm, The Pillowman centers on a writer in an unnamed totalitarian state who is being interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a series of child murders. The result is an urgent work of theatrical bravura and an unflinching examination of the very nature and purpose of art.


Click to view cast list at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Performance Images by Andy Berkovsky: Top Dog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, City Theatre, February 17 - March 13

Performance images by Andy Berkovsky, received directly from the City Theatre:

The City Theatre presentsRichard Romeo, McArthur Moore in Top Dog/Underdog, City Theatre

TOPDOG/ UNDERDOG

by Suzan-Lori Parks

directed by Lisa Jordan, featuring Richard Romeo and McArthur Moore

February 17 – March 13, Thursdays – Saturdays 8:00 p.m., Sundays 5:30 p.m.

produced in honor of Black History Month.

The City Theatre. 3823 Airport Blvd. 78757 – east corner of Airport Blvd. and 38 ½ Street, behind the Shell station. (click for map)

Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org

McArthur Moore, Richard Romeo, Top Dog/Underdog, City Theatre



The City Theatre is proud to open its 2011 season with one of the hottest new plays in American drama, Topdog/Underdog, written by Suzan–Lori Parks and winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. Produced in honor of Black History Month, performances begin February 17 and run through March 13 at The City Theatre.


“There’s more to me than some cheap hustle.”

Click to view additional images from Top Dog/Underdog at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Upcoming: On The Verge by Eric Overmeyer, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, March 3 - 13



Found on-line:


Mary Moody Northen Theatre

presents


On The Verge (Or, The Geography of Yearning)

by Eric Overmyer

directed by David M. Long

March 3 - 13, Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 2 p.m.

Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, 3001 S. Congress (click for map)

Advance tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students and seniors. All tickets are $18 at the door. As special Student Night production on Mar. 10 at 7:30 p.m., offers half price tickets to those with a student ID.

Information and reservations at the box office, (512) 448-8484


St. Edward’s University Theatre Program goes on an expedition with playwright Eric Overmyer’s wild theatrical ride, On The Verge (Or The Geography of Yearning). Equipped with optimism, humor and a pound of pluck, three Victorian women set off on an expedition to Terra Incognita, uncharted territory. Armed with their umbrellas, backpacks, and terribly large vocabularies, the trio encounters a Beat-poetry spouting troll, Mr. Coffee, a Yeti, Cool Whip and a 1950s presidential campaign.

Playwright Overmyer is best known as a writer and producer for such acclaimed television series as “Treme,” “The Wire,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “New Amsterdam,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Law & Order,” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” His plays include Native Speech, In a Pig’s Valise, In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe, Mi Familia Tropicano, Mi Vida Loca, Dark Rapture and The Heliotrope Bouquet, among others. He is the recipient of the Le Comte de Nouy Award for playwriting, a McKnight Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

Directed by David M. Long, the St. Edward’s production features Michelle Brandt, Avery Ferguson, Lindsley Howard and Jon Wayne Martin. George Marsolek provides the scenic design, with lighting design by Kris Carpenter, costume design by Alyssa Johnson, and sound design by Phillip Owen.

Images by Kimberley Mead: The Elementals - Air, Vortex Repertory, February 18 - March 20


Images by Kimberley Mead, received directly from the Vortex Repertory:


Vortex Repertry

presents the world premiere of

The Elementals: Air, Vortex Repertory (image: Kimberley Mead)
The Elementals: AIR

Feb.18 - Mar.20, 2011; Thursdays-Sundays @ 8 p.m.

Vortex Repertory, 2307 Manor Rd. (click for map)

Tickets: $30-$25 Priority Seating, $20-$15 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists
Thursdays and Sundays 2-for-1 admission with donation of 2 non-perishable food items for SafePlace Pantry.

Limited seating. Advanced purchase recommended.

The Elementals: Air, Vortex Repertory (image: Kimberley Mead)
















Click to view additional images by Kimberley Mead at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Monday, February 21, 2011

Upcoming: The Hot Comb by Robert King, Jr., Gemini Playhouse, March 11 - 26

Found on-line:

The Hot Comb by Robert King Jr.

Coming to

Gemini Playhouse






The Hot Comb

an original play by Robert King, Jr.

Directed By Anita A. Ahiadormey & Robert King Jr.

Original Music by Leonard E. Lee

Gemini Playhouse

5423 Burleson Rd, suite 209 (click for map)

March 11 - 26, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.

Sundays at 6 p.m.

Tickets $13.99 general admission, seniors $10.83, Groups $8.66

Click to purchase on-line


When all doors seemed to close in Michelle Mitchell’s personal life, she finds solace in the Hot Comb Salon. You will too. Come on it into the Hot Comb where the gossip is always hot and you can get your life and hair straightened in one place.

Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, Austin Shakespeare at Rollins Theatre, Long Center, February 17 - March 6


Man and Superman Austin ShakespeareAlt review


Austin Shakespeare's staging of Shaw's Man and Superman at the Rollins Theatre has the pleasures of a long agreeable evening with toffee and cigars. No game of whist or bridge, for the contest here is between Man and Woman, or, to wax a bit more Shavian, between Man the Romantic and Intellectual on one hand and Woman the Life Force on the other.

Man doesn't stand a chance, of course.

You may well ponder -- where's the Superman? Shaw's play took the stage in 1903, less than ten years after the first translation into English of Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra. That book presented the notion of the Ãœbermensch, the human being who transcends conventional morality and the deceptive controls imposed by tradition and society. Treating the concept in this play, GBS disdained the awkward term "Beyond-Man" used in the first translation and coined the term "Superman." With his characteristic cheerful, waspish verbosity Shaw thoroughly explored this relatively new notion and used it as a club to wallop the conventions of English bourgeois society.


Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Arts Reporting: Wimberley Players' Heiress Links to 1947 New York Production

Received directly via Wimberley Players' "Curtain Call" newsletter:

Heiress Wimberley Players

Wimberley Players

Curtain Call Wimberley Players



Perhaps the name Finklehoffe rings a bell?


Carolyn’s husband Fred F. Finklehoffe wrote, directed, and produced many plays, television shows, and films during his lifetime. One of the plays he produced was The Heiress at The Biltmore Theater on Broadway. Carolyn said that when Fred was producing The Heiress, he and director Jed Harris went to London to talk to Wendy Hiller about performing the leading role. Fred had told Carolyn that they would not have done the show if they could not have Wendy.


Carolyn FinkelhoffeCarolyn Finklehoffe resides with her daughter Casey and son-in-law Don Marinucci on their Texas Hill Country ranch. Don has shown and won in Western Pleasure for years, often competing in Texas, which is what spurred the big move for him and Casey. Four years ago, Carolyn said farewell to her home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and joined Casey & Don on the ranch.

Carolyn and Fred met at a private screening party given by Mickey Rooney in New York City. Rooney and Fred were good friends and frequently worked together on films. Carolyn worked as a fashion model, so an invitation from Rooney was run of the mill for the young woman who spent evenings out with the likes of Frank Sinatra. Carolyn said that when she arrived at the party, she saw Fred. At first sight, she knew that Fred would be the man she would marry.


Carolyn and Fred’s wedding was held at the home of Judy Garland. Her daughter, Liza Minnelli, was Carolyn’s flower girl. Judy Garland later became Casey’s godmother. Many of the shows Fred wrote were specifically for Miss Garland, and she was a dear friend of the Finklehoffe’s. Carolyn and Fred’s wedding was covered by Louella Parsons of the Associated Press, thus their wedding picture and write up appeared in papers nationwide.


Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .


Upcoming: Pillowman, Southwestern University, Georgetown, March 30 - April 3

Found on-line:


Southwestern University Theatre

presents in the Black Box seriesPillowman, Southwestern University


PILLOWMAN

by Martin McDonagh
directed by Tyler King ‘11

March 30 - April 3, 2011
7pm | Wednesday
8pm | Thursday & Friday
3pm | Saturday & Sunday

Heather Hall

Tickets $5.00

A black comedy, Pillowman is the story of a fiction writer, living in an unnamed police state, who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his writing and its similarities to a number of bizarre child murders occurring in his town. Reminiscent of both Stoppard and Kafka, McDonagh’s complex, volatile, and thought-provoking drama questions violence, accountability and healing.
(Adult subject matter for mature audiences only)

Upcoming: The Lion in Winter by James Goldman, Classic Theatre, San Antonio, March 10 - 27

Received directly:



Classic Theatre San Antonio

presents

The Lion in Winter

by James Goldman

March 10-27, 2011

Performances are Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:00 PM and Sundays at 3:00 PM

All performances are at the Sterling Houston Theatre at Jump-Start, 108 Blue Star in the Blue Star Arts Complex, 1400 S. Alamo. The theatre is handicap accessible…please call 210-589-8450 for special arrangements.

$20 for General Admission; $15 for Seniors (+65), SATCO, ATAC, MIL w/ID; $10 for Full time students with ID. For group rates please call 210-589-8450.

For tickets call 1-800-838-3006 (there is no charge for using our ticket service!!) or go to www.classictheatre.org and click on “Buy Tickets.”

What do you get when you mix a dysfunctional family, with crown envy and a hearty sex drive? A reality TV show, perhaps? No, actually, it’s The Lion in Winter by James Goldman. King Henry II of England has three sons by Eleanor of Aquitaine: Richard, Geoffrey, and John. He wants the kingdom to stay united after his death, but all three sons want to rule and it is likely to be torn apart by revolution. Henry favors the youngest John, while Eleanor favors the eldest, Richard. Middle son Geoffrey hopes to play both ends against each other and come out on top. Henry would like to have another heir by his mistress Alais, but that would only add to the confusion. Uneasy is the head on which the crown lies, and uneasy the truce between a matchless king and queen. Often revived, this play was the basis of the Oscar-winning film which starred Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn.


"A work of intelligence, astringent wit, and much theatrical skill."-The New York Times

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Upcoming: ReDucks & Peter and the Wolf, Dys Theatre at the Off Center, March 3 - 12

Found on-line:


ReDucks Peter and the Wolf Dys Theatre Austin

Dys Theatre presents


ReDucks

based on David Mamet

and

Biophiliac Productions'

Peter and the Wolf


March 3 - 12, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m.\

Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street (behind Joe's Bakery on 7th St.) (click for map)

Click to donate to DysTheatre or to buy ReDucks tickets ($15)


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Click for Dys Theatre on facebook

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Upcoming: Chanteuse by Louise Richardson, Silver Spur Theatre, Salado, February 25 - March 5

Received directly:


New Musical Comedy Chanteuse, Louise Richardson Silver Spur Salado

Chanteuse

by Louise Richardson

Spans ‘60s, ‘70s, Beyond;
Premieres Feb. 25, 26; March 4, 5

Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Saturday matinees at 2 p.m.

at Silver Spur Theater, 108 Royal Street, Salado (click for map)

Admissions are $15 with $12 discount tickets for seniors, military and students. Sunday matinee tickets are $10 and $8. Children’s tickets are $8 both shows. Group rates are available for either event. For reservations, call the box office at 254-947-3456. Due to subject matter, parental discretion is advised.

Wine, beer, cider and expanded food choices will be available at the evening shows through The Spuradical Social Club in the lobby. http://www.spuradicalsocialclub.net/


For the female leads in the new musical Chanteuse, the story begins in 1959 in college with a dream of becoming professional folksingers in New York City. For the author Louise Richardson and the producer Richard Paul Thomas (RpT), the quest to tell that story began in 2007 in an International House of Pancakes in Austin.


This musical journey through the decades begins with best friends Johanna Clark and Darcy Bailey – Rose Mitchell and Chloe Vance -- struggling in “Gotham.” They are hired by Sid Feldman (Robert L. Schneider), owner of the Greenwich Village Colloquy Coffeehouse. The former stand-up comic was “blacklisted” from show business in the ‘50s during the nation’s “commie scare.” The storyline follows the ups, downs and eventual separations of the three character’s relationships through the civil right era, the Vietnam War and beyond.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images by Kimberley Mead for Austin Shakespeare's Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw


Images by Kimberley Mead for


Austin Shakespeare logo




George Bernard Shaw's

Man and Superman

Shelby Davenport as the befuddled Jack Tanner (image: Kimberley Mead)


February 17 - March 6, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. & Sundays at 3 p.m.
The Rollins Theatre at The Long Center, Riverside Drive at South First Street

(click for map)

Tickets are on sale now at http://thelongcenter.frontgatesolutions.com or call 512-474-5664.


Austin Shakespeare presents a delightful comedy of topsy-turvy romantic pursuit, George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, a timely look at the perennial clash between the past and the future, the reactionary and the progressive, and questions of what the proper roles of men and women really are.

Man and Superman Austin Shakespeare Michael Dalmon (image: Kimberley Mead)





Man and Superman stars Kimbery Adams, Jill Blackwood*, Janelle Buchanan*, Michael Dalmon, Shelby Davenport*, Jenny Gravenstein, Philip Kreyche, Ev Lunning Jr.*, Barry Pineo, and Mark Stewart (* Member of Actor's Equity Association).


As a special addition, there will be a staged reading of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell with Babs George* and Harvey Guion at the Rollins at 7:30PM, Sunday February 27.


Click 'to view additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .