Texas Public Radio feature: God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza at Boerne Community Theatre, January 10 - 18, 2014

Boerne Community Theatre Presents Tony Award-Winning Play

by Jack Morgan
click to go to TPR to listen to audio file (1:29)
 
The Boerne Community Theatre (BCT) is mounting a production of "God of Carnage," a Tony Award-winning play that’s quite a ways out of the Neil Simon romantic comedy mold.


"When I read the script I knew that I needed to direct this show," said BCT Executive/Artistic Director Patty Loftis.


I asked her about BCT's Theater on the Edge program: "You said that 'God of Carnage' was a part of your Theater on the Edge thing -- what does that mean?"


"It is billed as a 'savage comedy' and it is billed that way for a reason because the premise for the show is that two Brooklyn parents get together after a playground altercation between their 11-year-old sons," Loftis said. "And they decide to be very adult and very polite and very politically correct at the beginning. One little comment is said and then another and another. And turns totally into another direction by the end of the show."


Despite what you may think from that description, Loftis said there are a lot of funny moments, too.


Loftis said the play’s reputation as a great vehicle for acting made casting a breeze.


"It is one of those actor dream shows. I was able to select a stellar, stellar cast. I cannot stress enough that people really need to come see this because it will be quite an experience," Loftis said.


"So the construct of polite society goes away?" I asked.


"The people all turn into savages!" she laughed.


The 86-seat theater is known for its wide seat comfort and intimacy with the stage. "God of Carnage" runs most nights from January 10-18.

• For more information visit: www.boernetheatre.org

SA Current Feature: David Davalos Sends 'Hamlet' Back to School, October 30, 2013

Arts & Culture

David Davalos Sends 'Hamlet' Back to School

By Steven G. Kellman October 30, 2013 

David Davalos (via San Antonio Current)

David Davalos says that his goal in writing Wittenberg, which opens November 1 at the Cellar Theater, was “to ruin Hamlet for anyone who sees it after this.” Davalos’ witty and wise theatrical mash-up, subtitled A Tragical-Comical-Historical in Two Acts, imagines the Prince of Denmark in college before the tragic denouement in Elsinore—not only torn between to be or not to be, but unable to decide on a major. Two famous professors, pious Martin Luther and skeptical John Faustus, contend for his allegiance.


Wittenberg received its world premiere in Philadelphia in 2008 and has been staged in 19 other cities, including New York, London, Berlin, Vancouver and Melbourne. The playwright—who is pleased that, as he says, “There have been no dog productions yet”—is in San Antonio not to intimidate director Bill Gundry and his cast during two weeks of rehearsal, but to play the part of Doctor Faustus. It is also a homecoming for Davalos, who caught the acting bug at Eisenhower Middle School and Churchill High School. He received a BFA in theater from University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in theater from Ohio University. He’ll be joined onstage by high-school chum Andrew Thornton, playing Martin Luther, in the Playhouse’s production.

Born in Alabama, where his father, Rudy, was assistant coach of the Auburn University basketball team, Davalos moved to Texas when Rudy was hired to be assistant coach of an ABA team that had just moved from Dallas—the San Antonio Spurs. In a career that earned him a place in the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame, Rudy took over as UTSA’s first athletic director in 1976. Paternal legacy might have influenced a scene in Wittenberg in which Hamlet and Laertes face off in tennis.


Davalos had plenty of practice plundering literature and history for theatrical concoctions before crafting Wittenberg. He conflated Hamlet and Death of a Salesman for a piece titled New Yorick, New Yorick and had Leonardo da Vinci conversing with Lucrezia Borgia and Niccoló Machiavelli in Daedalus. Darkfall was written as a modern sequel to Paradise Lost. Over lunch at Green, he recalled playing Rosencrantz in a production of Hamlet and, during the long intervals offstage, pondering Shakespeare’s play in new ways. A couple of questions tantalized him: “What was Hamlet doing in school before Hamlet?” and “How did Hamlet get to the scene in which he spies on Claudius praying?” Davalos became convinced by Stephen Greenblatt’s contention, in his 2001 book Hamlet in Purgatory, that: “Hamlet is a Protestant play haunted by a Catholic ghost.”

Read more at the San Antonio Current on-line. . . .

Prakash Mohandas Prepares 'Om Shanti Om' for Dell Hall, Long Center - Austin Statesman, July 7, 2013

Uncredited feature published July 7 in the Statesman's 'Love My Job' feature

Click to go to the Statesman's video interview of Prakash Mohandas





 Love My Job: Prakhash Mohandas

(photo: Austin Statesman)

 Watching Prakash Mohandas direct cast members for his upcoming production, “Om Shanti — Once upon a Time in Bollywood,” it is hard to believe engineering was his mainstay up until a few months ago. [CLICK to view 'Upcoming' announcement page at AustinLiveTheatre.com]

The actor, dancer, musician and filmmaker is obviously in his realm on the stage, but Mohandas is also a successful entrepreneur. He is founder and CEO of Agni Entertainment, the burgeoning film and theater company which produces, promotes and distributes independent film and theater projects with a South Asian focus.

“Coming from India, I never thought that all of my artistic interests could be translated into a profession,” he said. “I think one of the things the U.S. has taught me is that anything can be a profession if you are really passionate about it, provided that you put in some thought about how you can make that passion of yours monetarily viable.”

Mohandas’ passion for the arts came at an early age. He began learning hip hop and jazz in India at age 6. When he was 11, he took up Indian classical music. He also participated in theater throughout school and continued to pursue dance, theater and music during his undergraduate studies.

“Most of my artistic abilities came from my early education in India,” he said. “But culturally, the community has a stigma against artistic careers; they aren’t considered lucrative enough to make a living. Culturally, I was raised to go toward a path of engineering, medicine, law or an MBA.”

Mohandas left India to attend graduate school in engineering at The University of Texas. Engineering was never something Mohandas questioned; instead, he said he followed suit with many of his peers and moved to the U.S. to pursue his graduate studies.

“Over there, all my artistic interests were considered hobbies — even through I was really passionate about them, I never thought of them as a career path,” he said.

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

Click to view article at Austin Statesman. . . .

Profile: Ken Webster and His House of Letters, Austin Statesman, July 6, 2013

Ken Webster and his house of letters

A story about theater, freedom, language … and the beauty of smallness

By Brad Buchholz, American-Statesman Staff

Ken Webster (photo: Jay Janner, Austin Statesman)

Ken Webster spends most of his days in a Hyde Park playhouse — theater space, daydream space, a creative hideaway, where he immerses himself in the beauty of language, the genius of playwright Harold Pinter, an ocean of baseball trivia, the art of a well-placed comma. It is a serious place. It is a silly place. And for Webster: It is a place of independence.


“This is my second home,” says Webster, the 55-year-old executive director of Austin’s literary-minded Hyde Park Theatre and one of the most well-known actors and directors in the city. “It’s not just a place I work; it’s a place where I hang out, where I see friends. I met my wife (the actress and author Katherine Catmull) here. It’s been a big part of my life for 30 years.”

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Click to go to this article at www.mystatesman.com