Video from Yadira De La Riva about 'One Journey,' sponsored by Teatro Vivo at the Mexican-American Cultural Center, October 4 and 5, 2013

A message from Yadira to her Austin audience through

(www.yadiradelariva.com)

for its presentation of her

One Journey - Stitching Stories Across the Mexican-'American' Border

Written and Performed by Yadira De La Riva

Multi-Media Design by Kenji Calderon-Miyamoto

Music Contributions by FUGA – www.myspace.com/fuguista

October 4-5, 2013, 8 p.m.

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center, 600 River Street - CLICK FOR MAP 

One Journey is a woman’s coming of age story on the United States/Mexico border cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. This documentary one-woman theater play weaves personal border interviews and creative imagination to convey the generational and cultural differences between a mother and her daughter who are raised on opposite sides of the border.

This story takes place at the El Paso Country Sheriff’s Office where Luz visits her daughter Griselda who is arrested for a drug related crime. Luz, born and raised in extreme poverty conditions in Juarez, is forced to confront the challenges that her daughter’s generation is facing in the United States. Through Luz’s narration of her own struggles she must find a way reconcile her experiences of poverty with her daughter’s cultural and spiritual loss of self that is engendered by internalized anti-immigrant sentiment, border enforcement policies and a saturation of drugs on the border.

This play is a multi-character theater piece that incorporates comedy, poetry, movement, dance, music, and multimedia projections to convey El Paso/Juarez border life and culture. Using minimal props, and video background as part of the setting, Yadira creates the border on which characters negotiate their identities from one nation to another. The play is approximately one hour long and includes ten characters, all which serve to represent different perspectives regarding border dynamics.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Weird Hollywood Tales - the Silver Sixties, Lashonda Lester at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, July 26

Weird! True Hollywood Tales

presents

(from Lashonda Lester via Facebook)

The Silver Sixties

Hosted by comedian Lashonda Lester

July 26 at 8 p.m.

Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd. (click for map)

Cost: $10.00 and each ticket comes with a show poster, download card for companion eBook and a beach ball

Tickets available via

FREE Pre-show mixer sponsored by Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum

A lot can be said about the 1960s; Hippies, civil rights, drugs, pop art, free love, music, Vietnam. You can also add disappearances, murder and mental illnesses to that list. In Episode IV, Weird! True Hollywood Tales covers the biographies of some of the most influential artists of the Silver Sixties era: pop art pioneer Andy Warhol and his group of troubled "Superstars" featuring It Girl Edie Sedgwick and America's favorite tragic band; The Beach Boys as well as their connection to one of the most shocking crimes of the decade.

Information also at https://www.facebook.com/events/252030878243570/

Dinner in Dubai by Bernadette Nason, City Theatre, July 5 - 15

by Michael Meigs

Bernadette Nason

Bernadette Nason is one of those unexpected treasures who makes Austin theatre such a pleasure to explore. I first saw her at the Austin Playhouse in Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward shortly after we arrived in Austin almost five years ago -- before, in fact, the notion of writing about Austin theatre even occurred to me.

 Bernadette played Madame Arcati, the loony medium who unleashes the spirit world upon the wealthy but hapless author Charles Condamine. She was funny, eccentric and quite undisturbed by the cantankerous ghosts; her performance brought her the 2007-2008 B. Iden Payne award as outstanding featured actress in a comedy.

Bernie's persona -- and her personae onstage -- bring to my mind a jaunty little ballad by Rodgers and Hart for the forgotten stage comedy I Married An Angel (1938). It's titled A Twinkle in Your Eye and the opening bars are, "You can do any little thing that you've a mind to/But you must do it with a twinkle in your eye." No, I never saw the show; I discovered this mischievous little ditty on Dawn Upshaw's compilation of R&H tunes:

(© 1996, Nonesuch Records )

So where did this very English charmer come from? She decided to give us some of her personal history, working with colleague Michael Stewart first on a one-woman performance entitled Tea in Tripoli describing her life as a tender young ex-pat in Libya and now with the sequel Dinner in Dubai. Nason is a gifted story teller and earns some of her daily bread from that art; this narrative of just over ninety minutes has the comfortable confiding intimacy of a good heart-to-heart over a couple of bottles of wine. Or perhaps over the bottle of gin that plays a key role in the wild dinner of the title.

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

Upcoming: Dinner in Dubai by Bernadette Nason, City Acts! Festival, July 4 - 14

Dinner in Dubai

Dubai Party girl (Bernadette Nason)

written and performed by Bernadette Nason
directed by Michael Stuart
Part of the City Theatre 2012 Summer Acts Festival
3823 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78722 (click for map)
Only 6 performances:
Thursday, July 5 at 7:00 pm
Sunday, July 8 at 8:00 pm
Tuesday, July 10 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, July 12 at 9:00 pm
Saturday, July 14 at 12:00 noon
Saturday, July 14 at 8:00 pm

Ticket price $15 - for reservations:

Call: 512.454.4925
Email: bnason@austin.rr.com

Hot on the heels of Tea in Tripoli, award-winning actress, writer and storyteller, Bernadette Nason presents Dinner in Dubai. Travel with our intrepid heroine from North Africa to the Persian Gulf (aka from the frying pan into the fire) as she shares life in Dubai c. 1990 in an unusual blend of storytelling and stand-up. From Middle East hotel to green golf courses in the sand; from demented shipping magnate to "Desert Storm."

Upcoming: Tea in Tripol by and with Bernadette Nason, Scottish Rite Theatre, June 9

ONE NIGHT ONLY!  (reinstated; scheduling conflict resolved)

Tea in Tripoli

 

by and with

Actress/Storyteller Bernadette Nason

The Scottish Rite Theatre, 18th and LaVaca (click for map)

June 9, 8 p.m.

Folks who missed it (and many who saw it) asked if I'd do another run. Since I'm writing and preparing to rehearse the sequel, DINNER IN DUBAI, this is a one-off performance to "catch you up."

Your last chance to see actress/storyteller Bernadette Nason's award-nominated one-woman show TEA IN TRIPOLI before she brings you the sequel!

Once upon a time, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert, in a land of sundrenched beaches, swaying palms and crumbling Italian villas, lived a naive Englishwoman...

In an unusual blend of storytelling and stand-up, actress/storyteller Bernadette Nason shares life in Libya c. 1984, from home-made hooch and crazy expatriates to confrontations with the Morality Police.

• "What a delightful evening! Bernadette Nason is one of Austin's best story tellers and this evening is witty, tender and so informative. Try not to miss this lovely event. You will be amazed at what her experiences in Libya reveal." (5 stars)  Road Warrior, Reviewer, NowPlayingAustin.com

• "In TEA IN TRIPOLI, Austinites get to see for themselves why Nason is heralded as one of the best storytellers in the city, as she gives us a story that is at turns gripping, shocking, and laugh-out-loud funny, but one that never feels unbalanced. It was hands-down the stand out production at this year's Summer Acts Festival, and with any luck, it will take stages again soon."  Ryan Johnson, Austin Examiner

CANCELLED: Drawing A Paycheck, by and with Annie La Ganga, Vortex Repertory, May 25 - June 2

The Vortex Repertory

presents

Drawing A Paycheck

by and with Annie La Ganga 
CANCELLED per Vortex announcement of May 16

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

Tickets $10 - $30 at the door

After her critically-lauded run at FronteraFest 2012, Annie La Ganga revisits her one-woman show of Drawing a Paycheck for four nights at The VORTEX Theatre. The production runs Friday and Saturday nights from May 25th through June 2nd.

The improvised show explores all the ways that writer, comedian and monologist La Ganga has tried to make money with arts and crafts.  The one-woman show is also about drawing, working - and not working - finding out what works and doesn't, making and not making work, and whatever else comes up when La Ganga starts talking and drawing portraits of volunteers selected from the audience.

According to the Austin Chronicle, "Drawing a Paycheck is La Ganga's ode to the creative, multi-talented Austinites who have hit middle age and still don't know how they're going to earn a living when they grow up…by fusing her idiosyncratic improvisational storytelling with visual art, La Ganga hopes to transform her turbulent relationship with making money."

La Ganga is the author of Stoners and Self-Appointed Saints, A Memoir (Red Hen Press 2009) and the creator of the one-woman shows Let's Make Love Tonight, A Self-Help Stand-Up Comedy Interactive Performance Art Monologue. He also recently starred in Surprise Annie!, a collaboration with Rubber Repertory.  La Ganga is a committed arts activist and has been teaching life drawing to inmates at Travis County Correctional Complex Del Valle since 2002.

Performances will be Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m.  Tickets are $25 to $30 for priority seating, $15 to $20 for general admission and $10 for starving artists.  The VORTEX Theatre is located at 2307 Manor Road.  For more information and reservations, call (512) 478-LAVA (5282) or visit www.VortexRep.org.

Upcoming: Mud Offerings by Nathalie Goodnow, Black Box Theatre, Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center, April 16

Received directly:

(click for map to the Mexican-American Cultural Center, 600 River Street)

Upcoming: Her Eyes Were Blue by Caralyn Snyder, Overtime Theatre, San Antonio, November 12 and 13

Received directly:

HER EYES WERE BLUE

The San Antonio Premiere of a One-Woman Show

About Cynthia Ann Parker

On November 12-13, 2010, the Overtime Theater will present the San Antonio premiere of a one-woman show about Cynthia Ann Parker, a remarkable woman who had an important impact on U.S history.

Written and performed by Caralyn Snyder, Her Eyes Were Blue presents Cynthia Ann Parker in her everyday life among the Comanche. Although she might be better known as the mother of Quanah Parker, Comanche chief of the Quahadi band in the late 19^th Century, Cynthia Ann had an amazing story in her own right.

Captured at the age of nine, she eventually married a soon-to-be Comanche chief, Peta Nacona. As a grown woman and mother, she was re-taken by Anglos, who killed all but one other person in her camp. Not allowed to return to “her people,” Cynthia was held by members of her former Anglo family in Texas and died – many say of a broken heart.

This touching story brings a remarkable woman to life. Caralyn Snyder has performed her one-woman show at a number of regional venues, including the Cowgirl Museum in Fort Worth, the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colorado, and the Pease River Playhouse in Quanah, Texas.

The month of November has been designated “Native American Heritage Month” by the U.S. government to honor the “significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the U.S.” (http://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/index.html) The Overtime Theater’s directors are happy to have the opportunity to participate in this recognition through Caralyn Snyder’s beautifully realized stage work.