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[workshopping and performing at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Rd. -- click for map]
presents an original play: 
The Cruel Circus
written and directed by Connor Hopkins
May 9 - 25, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 6 p.m.
A mysterious tinkerer brings to life an entire world of strange circus performers some polished and complete, some clumsy and misshapen then disappears, leaving them to make sense of who they are and what they are made for.
A new work of dark whimsy from the company who brought Austin award-winning productions of The Jungle, Frankenstein, Riddley Walker, and most recently, Toil & Trouble.
Featuring performances by Zac Crofford, Travis Bedard, Seth White, Rob Jacques, Jose Villarreal, Gricelda Silva, Ellie McBride, Caroline Reck, and Brock England
Preshow music by Cami Alys; Music by Justin Sherburn; Sound Design by K. Eliot Haynes and Bernard Klinke; Lighting Design by Stephen Pruitt; Costume Design by Monica Gibson (with Lucie Cunningham)
ASL interpretation available for selected performances by Parker Dority and Shelby Mitchusson.
Made for adults. But children 10 and up, accompanied by adults, are welcome.
Tickets: Sliding scale, $10 - $50, available now through
(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)
Is it ethical for a theatre journalist to accept a cookie from an actress in mid-performance?How about if everyone in the audience has a chance at the home baked goods, because Melanie Dean has handed front-row spectators two big plastic bowls filled with cookies?There were lots left when the bowl came along the third row. I dipped in without compunction, happy to trust in Melanie's persona as the garrulous small-town Texas widow who has been making wedding gowns since she was a young teenager.Ken Bradley with his direct stare and imposing assurance is one of Austin's most distinctive actors. This piece, "Seamstress," shows again that he's a deft hand at writing character sketches. Last year Travis Dean rode Bradley's short script "Windchimes and Varicose Veins" in Capital T's I ♥ Walmart to a B. Iden Payne award as Austin's most outstanding featured actor in a comedy for the 2008-2009 season.
That script was a rant; this one's a ramble. Melanie Dean's in her workshop, addressing a new client, probably an awestruck young woman overwhelmed with our culture's bridal rituals. The seamstress is charming and reassuring, as she's fretting with notions both visible and invisible. As she fusses about the shop she chats to the spectators, stand-ins the apparently silent client. We hear how she wound up in this business because she was an assistant to her grandmother; how she fell in love with her slow-talking, courteous and methodically drinking husband; how her remarkable designs came to the attention of some big city designers, just at the wrong time.
Hers is a steady flow of reminiscence and counsel, a dreamy movement like a tubing trip down the Guadalupe of her memories. She's an artisan with a good heart, sharing good moments and regrets, putting her unseen client at ease. Melanie Dean makes this woman lively, friendly and entirely credible.
Bradley's Seamstress under Ellie McBride's direction is a neatly done cameo, a professional piece of work turned out with an eye to the cut, to the presentation, the detail and the tradition. Just like those imaginary bridal gowns that have sustained our seamstress over the years.
Judging from the length of the applause for Dean and for Bradley's script, I'm expecting to see this piece again tomorrow night at FronteraFest's Best of the Week, and probably again at the Best of Fest in February.
I'll be accepting a cookie then, too.
[illustration tweaked from Felicia Bond's cover for "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" by Laura Joffe Numeroff, © 1985, a Laura Geringer book published by HarperCollins]
