FronteraFest Best of the Week: Women in Search of Love, January 30

Last Saturday's FronteraFest "Best of Week 3" brought us a lot of yin and very little yang. Of the five pieces brought forward, four were solos by actresses.

Yang did hold its own. The six "Confidence Guys" who did improvised Mamet gave us that playwright's expletives, elisions, incomplete understoods and macho pushiness to the life. After a quick poll of the audience they played it as salesmen in a failing car dealership. Maybe it was a set-up, but they had the edgy macho attitudes down pat. It could have been City Theatre's 2008 Glengarry Glen Ross if they'd substituted real estate for the automobiles.

Ah, though, the women! They captured my heart.

Melanie Dean was there as Lo, the seamstress from small town Texas, as I had predicted in an ALT review earlier in the week. It was a pleasure to hear the story of Kenneth Wayne Bradley's Seamstress a second time and to appreciate Dean's interpretation of that woman of simple heart and serene confidence.

Seattle performance artist Keira McDonald ended the evening with a wild, wild piece sending up the female astronaut who went nuts back in 2007 and drove across the country to pepper spray a love rival. I did a February 1 review of McDonald's Astronaughty for Austinist.com, part of ALT's outreach for new readers.

The two other solo monologues were meditations on the search for love. Brash Krissi Reeves and thoughtful Joy Loveall were single women looking at that subject at different ages, from different life stations and with different expectations. Women at different points along the Tao.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Macbeth by Austin Drama Club, February 4 - 20

UPDATE: Click for ALT review, February 17

Received directly:

AUSTIN DRAMA CLUB
presents from its repertory

Wm Shakespeare's

Macbeth

February 4 - 20
Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m.
at the usual coven and castle off E. 7th Street (contactjaphyfernandes@live.com)
Donations accepted

This is our fourth time to rep the show. Japhy Fernandes directs and plays Macbeth. Ellen Fernandes returns as Lady Macduff. Russell Shugart returns as Macduff. Christopher Harris returns as the Thane of Ross and the Porter, Casey Allen returns as Lennox and voice of demons. Teddy Fernandes joins the cast as Malcom. Java is our new Banquo. Sarah England is our new Witch/Doctor. India Rainey is our new Lady Macbeth. Thatcher Fernandes joins the cast as Fleance/Hecate/Macduff's Son. We trade in our swords for golf clubs and hand guns. Scottish colors and patterns abound.

Here's the promo by Steven H. Shirey for our 2007 staging:

macbeth promo

Steven H Shirey | MySpace Video

Upcoming: The Bawdy Five, Baron's Men at the Curtain Theatre, February 12 - 27

UPDATE: Click to access GACA blog with Podcast interview with director Casey Weed and several printed excerpts from it, February 12

Found on-line:





have hit a new low. Please join us wallowing in the gutter with our new show





February 12 - 27, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. at the Curtain Theatre
Tickets $15 general admission, $12 GACA members, $10 students and seniors
available at www.nowplayingaustin.com/austix

Special Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday performance downtown at Headhunters Club, at Red River and 8th Street, 8 p.m.

The Bawdy Five is medieval smut at its best. . . err . . worst! Well, you know what we mean. Experience the naughtiest tales from Chaucer, the Decameron and more with cuckolding, pregnant nuns, wicked stepmothers, horny monoks, dirty limericks and the works. You'll laugh your you-know-what off.

[photo and design by Jennifer Davis]

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

The Baron's Men is a proud member of the Greater Austin Creative Alliance. Funded in party by the CIty of Austin through the Cultural Arts DIvision and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Upcoming: Curse of the House of Usher, Weird City Theatre Company at the Dougherty Arts Center, February 18 - 28

Click for ALT review, February 25




Received directly:



Weird City Theatre Company
announces the world premiere of


Curse of the House of Usher

directed by Amelia Turner and inspired by the life and stories of Edgar Allan Poe
February 18 - February 28, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m.
Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Road

When the last heir of a great family calls upon a childhood friend to bring comfort to him, a web of family secrets and conspiracy unravels during the final days of the House of Usher! The cast includes WCT Artistic Director John F. Carroll, Helen Allen, Senait Fessahaye and Kevin Gouldthorpe.

Tickets are $15.00 for adults and $12.00 for children, seniors and students with ID, Group rates are available. Tickets can be purchased at the WCT website or by calling (512) 745-2636.

Weird City Theatre's mission is to encourage the growth of the artist and represent the uniqueness and vitality of Austin through re-envisioned classics and original works. Keeping a child-like sense of play, we focus on the process of the actor and we are playing our part to keep Austin weird!

[photo: Patti Neff-Tivin]

Weird City Theatre is a sponsored project of Austin Circle of Theatres, a nonprofit performing arts service organization.

Upcoming: Shards of Love by Paulette MacDougal, Paradox Players at Unitarian Universalist Church, February 12 - 28

Found on-line:

present a world premiere!


Shards of Love
by Paulette Macdougal
Feb 12th - 28th, 2010

Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.

Eight stories, eightcouples, Eight less-than-perfect relationships. From a couple in their twenties to a couple in their nineties, these short comedies explore love, marriage and commitment in farcical, funky, wistful, sweet, and murderous variations.

This play was created especially for the Valentine season of Paradox Player's 10th anniversary year. Paulette MacDougal is also the author of Waiting for MacArthur, which was seen on this stage in 2003.

Shards of Love is directed by Lisa Foster, Charles R. Hill, Joni McCLain, Ann Edwards

Howson Hall Theater, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin
4700 Grover Avenue
Tickets: $20 Opening Night Gala (Friday, February 12, 8 p.m.)
$20 Valentine's Day Gala (Sunday, February 14, 3 p.m.)
$15 all other performances ($10 for seniors and members of groups of 10 or more)
Reservations by web or by phone at 512-744-1495. Purchase via Paypal.

FREE CHILDCARE for matinee performance on February 14 if reserved by February 7. For childcare reservations please email childcare@austinUU.org or phone 512-452-6168, ext 12.

Arts Reporting: Andrew Cannata Profiled by Michael Barnes

The Statesman's Michael Barnes profiles Andrew Cannata, who opens this week in John and Jen by Penfold Theatre, in Barnes' "Out and About" social blog:

That Voice: the Arrival of Andrew Cannata
by Michael Barnes, January 31, 2010

Within the relatively cozy world of Austin musical theater, a male voice like Andrew Cannata’s comes along once in a generation or so. Joe York’s warm, booming baritone made its first mark in the 1980s. Stephen Michael Miller’s delicate tenor glided onto the scene in the 1990s.

Cannata, 23, a recent graduate of St. Edward’s University, impressed Zilker Summer Musical audiences as a junior TV writer in “My Favorite Year,” amused Zach crowds playing a Boy Scout perfectionist in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” He also scored major roles in “Parade,” “Little Shop of Horrors” and “On the Town.”

Yet it was his performance last season as the romantic lead in the classic musical, “The Pajama Game,” that elicited unprecedented raves and an Austin Critics Table nomination for Outstanding Singer. Under the tutelage of music and stage director Michael McKelvey, Cannata has smoothed out the breaks in his blooming tenor and has relaxed into a natural acting style.”

announcement: John and Jen by Penfold Theatre at the Hideout Theatre, February 4 - 21

Read full text at Barnes' "Out and About" blog for the Statesman . . . .

Memo to Creatives: You Didn't Miss Much at the January 25 Meeting

The City's Cultural Arts Divisions billed the evening meeting at the Mexican-American Cultural Center as a chance to "be a part of Imagine Austin, Austin's comprehensive plan providing broad-level guidance for the city's future growth and development."

That was fair and truthful billing. About 30 persons turned up for the event, which in structure and appearance resembled pretty closely the image you see here.

Some clarifications, however:

- - Imagine Austin (the long-term plan) is not Create Austin (the study and phased action plan aimed at the many creative sectors of this town). Coordinator Janice Siebert, working for the Cultural Arts Divison, was straightforward about that. "The city planning officials say that they intend to take Create Austin into account at some future date."

- - Imagine Austin will replace the City's previous master plan, written twenty years ago.

- - Austin theatre wasn't particularly well represented. The City had about 25 pre-registrations with names printed out on sticky labels. I found my own name. I recognized the names of two of Austin's workingyoung theatre artists and did not see either of them at the meeting.

- - The tasks assigned were of such scope and vagueness as to have little direct relation with the creative sector. This was a "meeting-in-a-box" consultative process.

After the obligatory explanations and exhortations, attendees gathered around the tables, each with a facilitator from the planning process. The procedure was straightforward:

(1) Austin's strong points/advantages: discuss. Encourage each person to participate (10-15 minutes total).

(2) Austin's challenges (code word for "weak points"): discuss. Encourage each person to participate (10-15 minutes total).

(3) Brainstorm (on schedule and within time-limits announced and monitored by Siebert). Each attendee gets three Post-It Notes and a pen. On each Note, attendee writes a brief description of an initiative vital to Austin's next 30 years, out to the year 2039.

(4) Discuss. Facilitator puts down a large blank piece of poster paper, then goes around the table, soliciting one idea/Post-It Note and a brief explanation from each participant. Facilitator takes the Post-It Notes and affixes them to the poster in related groups, continuing the polling and delivery until all the Notes have been delivered. Participants discuss the facilitator's classifications. At our table we agreed that the principal clumps were "transportation infrastructure," and "central city density." My blue sticky about "greater support for the arts" sat unaccompanied in a blank paper wilderness.

(5) Facilitator thanks participants, folds up poster with stickies, says "We're done, now." She engages in conversation with the young man sitting next to her, rep from an arts NGO.

No, it wasn't a total bust. We were 30 persons, providing views to be assimilated with the 1700 others polled in this way in order to build a semblance of the opinion of the 750,000 or so citizens currently inhabiting the greater Austin area.

You might say that each of those polled was speaking for about 430 fellow Austinites.

Or you might say that we spent an hour and a half in a secular prayer meeting, providing data points so that the planners and consultants can justify the recommendations that they're already well on their way to formulating.

A comment from a contact in the Planning Department at University of California, Berkeley: "Yeah. Planners just love that process. They take coursework in obtaining citizen participation and buy-in, and they really believe in it. It's neat and it's clean. It's obvious big-picture stuff with little to do with the messy political process."

So, Austin creatives: you've been consulted. That box has been checked off, and TV-8 was there to video and report the process. (Click to watch. Grit your teeth through the 10-sec advertising intro for Louis Shanks furniture. Or just click here for a partial transcript. )

And eventually the planners will get around to seeing if they can find space to consider Create Austin.