Upcoming: The Carpetbaggers' Children by Horton Foote, Different Stages at Austin Playhouse Larry L. King Theatre, March 19 - April 10

Click for ALT review, March 25

UPDATE: Review by Robert Faires for the Austin Chronicle, March 25

Related: Robert Faires' 1750-word profile of Horton Foote for the Austin Chronicle, March 10 (mentioning this production in a footnote below the text)

Found on-line:






presents

The Carpetbagger's Children
by Horton Foote
directed by Norman Blumensaadt
March 19 - April 10
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
Austin Playhouse, Larry L. King Stage, Penn Field
3601 S. Congress Ave. (map)
Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30

"I believe very deeply in the human spirit,
and I have a sense of awe about it
because I don't know how people carry on.
I've known people that the world has thrown everything at
to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit.
And yet something about them retains a dignity.
They face life and they don't ask quarters."
Horton Foote, NY Times Magazine, 1986.

Different Stages continues its 2009 2010 season with The Carpetbagger’s Children by Horton Foote, Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winning author of plays and screenplays such as The Trip to Bountiful, Tender Mercies and To Kill A Mockingbird.

In funny, moving, engaging monologues, three sisters spin the tale of their family and an era. Their father, the eponymous carpetbagger, was a former Union soldier who used his post as county treasurer and tax collector to amass a Texas plantation of twenty thousand acres. Preserving that plantation through the vicissitudes of their lives becomes a central issue for his daughters. It’s all about family secrets, tribal memories, sibling rivalry, and how change stalks our lives.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (The Skin of Our Teeth), The Carpetbagger’s Children features Jennifer Underwood (Miss Witherspoon), Anne Hulsman (The Long Now) and Kathy Rose Center (Shakespeare’s Husbands and Wives).

For tickets and information call AusTix at 512 474-8497.

Upcoming: Jack & Jill by Jane Martin, Sustainable Theatre Project at the Hyde Park Theatre, March 18 - 27

Click for ALT review, March 20

Found on-line:






is proud to announce its first full-length production, a very honest story about the ups and downs of falling in love:

Jack & Jill
by Jane Martin

Austin’s newest theatre company, Sustainable Theatre Project, begins its inaugural season with Jane Martin’s Jack & Jill: A Romance, winner of the 1997 Theatre Critics’ Association award for best new play. The first of a planned five-show season,Jack and Jill is a story about falling in love and the all the joy and heartache that follows. Jane Martin’s understanding of the complexity of being in love, her fair portrayal of both sides of the partnership and her stunning, roll-off-the-tongue dialogue make this modern, all but fairy-tale romance undeniably entertaining. The play’s relevance lands wholly as an honest portrait of the couple in love, fighting to be together and for a sense of self.

B. Iden Payne nominee Derek Kolluri and FronteraFest 2010 Best of Fest actress Molly Fonseca fill the roles of Jack and Jill.

Jack & Jill: A Romance runs March 18 -27, Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m. at Hyde Park Theatre 511 W. 43rd, Austin, TX 78751. Tickets are $10 - $20. Sustainable Theatre Project is offering special rates for all “couples,” (parties of two). The first ticket is $10 - $20 and the second is free. Tickets can be reserved by contacting Sustainable Theatre Project at sustaianble.theatre.project@gmail.com, or by calling 512.479.PLAY, and will be available for “walk-up” purchase at 7 p.m. each performance night. For more information, visit sustainabletheatreproject.org.

Shakespeare's Husbands & Wives, adapted and directed by Jill K. Swanson, February 24 - March 5

In this diverse fast-food town you can even get tasty Bard bits in a quick drive-by. No carry-outs, other than the program for Shakespeare's Husbands & Wives, but you're assured of comfortable seating and a varied menu at a session only 40 minutes in length. This Wednesday through Friday only, at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road, for the modest contribution of $10.

Jill K. Swanson has appeared often on Austin stages over the past dozen years, and she is the guiding spirit at Austin Shakespeare's weekly Sunday afternoon Shakespeareklatches, more properly titled "Shakespeare Aloud." For two hours every Sunday, usually from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., the doors are open to anyone who wants to participate in reading and commenting upon whichever of the Bard's works is on the table. Right now they're reading Henry V.

Swanson assembled short scenes from seven of the plays and invited eleven actors to play them. She comments in program notes, "Shakespeare dives right in and explores these issues [of matrimonial relations], weaving all kinds of marriages into his plays, while the plays themselves are often on another subject entirely. . . . Each scene reflects a different dynamic, perhaps one you recognize from your own marriage."

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Pirates!, St. Edward's University Orchestra plays Sir Arthur Sullivan, March 6

Received directly:

St. Edward's University Orchestra
presents

PIRATES!

Saturday, March 6, 7:30 p.m.
Mabee Ballroom, Ragsdale Center, St. Edward's University
$8 general admission; $5 students, seniors, and SEU faculty/staff

This is a rare opportunity to hear Sullivan's music performed live by a full orchestra.

Ahoy, mateys! Come set sail with the SEU Orchestra and buccaneers from the Austin Gilbert & Sullivan Society as they regale you with tunes from Pirates of Penzance, a medley from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, and more adventuresome chanteys. Bring the whole family for this rollicking event.

Artistic Director of the Austin Gilbert & Sullivan Society Ralph MacPhail, Jr. will introduce G&S selections. G&S regulars Jay Chacon, David Fontenot, Russell Gregory, Janette Jones, Mark Long, Randall McIntyre, Paul Nixon, Kert Peterson, Alan Pochi, and Daniel Stone will perform, and Arthur DiBianca will be playing in the orchestra.

Education: David Mamet Small Seminars at UT, March 9-10

From the Ransom Center, relayed in a tweet on March 1:

UT Students: Apply to participate in seminar with playwright, writer, and director David Mamet

The Harry Ransom Center is pleased to provide current University of Texas at Austin graduate and undergraduate students with the opportunity to join playwright, writer, and director David Mamet on “A Journey Towards Meaning.”

The Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum, is home to David Mamet’s archive, which is open and available for use.

Mr. Mamet will meet with 10 students 1-4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 9 and 1-4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10. Students must be available on both days in order to participate. The Ransom Center encourages students to consult with their professors before missing class to participate in this seminar.

Currently enrolled University of Texas at Austin students should submit no more than TWO LINES explaining why they should be chosen to mametseminar@gmail.com. Entries longer than two lines will not be considered.

Entries must be received by March 2, 2010. Selected students will be notified by March 4, 2010.

The Ransom Center cannot offer further guidance about entries.

[photo of David Mamet by Brigitte Lacombe]

1940s Radio Hour, Wimberley Players, February 12 - March 7

Can there by anyone who doesn't appreciate the warm sepia glow of old time radio broadcasts? Of course, many favorite films from the 1930s and 1940s provide a similar feeling of nostalgia, but their images make a different experience. An old-time radio broadcast was magic because it came right into your home and into your head. Millions of Americans shared the experience of being, literally, "the radio audience" -- from audire, Latin, "to listen."

Those recordings and films remain enshrined in American memory, in part because of the portrayal of a simpler America -- one where folks were decent, did their duty, and agreed that America was headed for a brighter day, no matter how difficult the present circumstances. One proof of that mythic permanence in the American consciousness: this happy little warm kaleidoscope of a musical play evokes Christmastime in 1942 at a rundown radio studio in New York City. The play premiered in late 1979 -- 28 years ago.

Director Jennifer McKenna and the Wimberley Players do a fine job of creating the story, which starts slowly as the radio players arrive, chat, bicker and joke. This is a big cast -- 13 players and seven musicians -- and most of them are onstage throughout. That requires a lot of blocking and a lot of concentration, helped out by the superbly designed and finished set. The theatre audience becomes the studio audience, responding appropriately to the applause signs. They get involved in all those secondary stories and relationships unfolding behind the folks currently talking into the big old clunky microphones down front.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Arts Reporting: New Home for Leander's Way Off Broadway Community Players

Found on-line:

WOBCP HAS A NEW HOME IN LEANDER

The Way Off Broadway Community Players (WOBCP) have signed a ten-year lease for their new theater in the 2243 Business Park. We will complete our current season in June at the current location in the Crystal Falls Playhouse. Then, we will relocate during July and present the first production in our new home in August. The dream to find a long-term home has now been realized thanks to support from all the fans of the theater, from Mike Elmore of MPE Realty, and from the City of Leander. The new theater will feature a larger stage, stepped seating, a lobby designed to display local art, and spaces for use by other civic and performance groups.

It's almost 10,000 square feet, 50% bigger than the space at Crystal Falls, and the roof is 16 feet high, so it's 4 feet higher than we have now. We're going to make the stage 8 feet wider, so it will be 32 feet wide and 24 feet deep. We're making the wings 12 feet wide, so we'll have 4 more feet off stage right and finally have room off stage left.

There's a nice big room with a sink that we'll be able to use for the makeup/dressing/green room, and we'll have an attached cast bathroom. We're combining the box office and the back office into a much larger room, and making box office and concessions easier and faster to set up and close down. We're making the lobby and another room large enough to have rehearsals in, so it will be a lot easier to have several shows rehearsing at the same time.

We're making the auditorium large enough that we can accommodate future increases in our audience size. And there's going to be a lot more room backstage for the shop and storage of flats, furniture and props.