Hotel Morocco by Aaron Black, Echo Productions at the Blue Theatre, January 22, 24, 26, 30

Aaron Black's Hotel Morocco has lots of ambience and some tough, snarling dialogue. Talk about atmosphere -- he has taken the 50s noir setting of a New York fleabag hotel, populated it with dumbasses, women looking for bad sex, gangsters, a demented ancient resident and one would-be writer on his way down. The writer, carrying the Everyman label of Adam, lost his previous job in a better hotel and is in deep, limp depression over his father's death. To cap it all, he has writer's block.

Black ladles it out. These people are are all corporality, crassness, crime and copulation. The actors, several of whom were with Black in City's Hamlet, have a good time with this nasty dialogue and they deliver it well.

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

Invitation to Audition: Maternal Instincts Project, February 27 - 28 for May performances at Vortex Repertory

Received directly:

Maternal Instincts Project 2010 ,

a unique performance about women, mothers, and motherhood is seeking two performers (women ages 18-65). Auditions will be scheduled between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday, February 27 and Sunday, February 28. Auditions will be informal, with a reading of an existing piece and a prepared piece of your choice (pieces written by you or based on your own experience are highly encouraged).

Performances are scheduled at the Vortex Repertory on May 13 - 15, the Thursday, Friday and Saturday after Mother's Day.

Call (512)259-8071 for details or visit http://maternalinstinctsproject.wordpress.com/
for more information and to see clips from the pilot last year.

A Man, A Magic, A Music, Movin' Melvin Brown at the Blue Theatre, January 22, 24, 25, 30

Melvin Brown is a big, serene tornado, a walkin', talkin', singin' and tap dancin' history of rhythm and blues, soul and entertainment. He comes from Cincinnati but traveled all over the country and abroad on the entertainment circuits, then settled near Austin after a long and eventful career.

This man has a vital energy and irrepressible joy in life. He's 65 years old but he is strong, fast, funny and attractive. He's got a fine mellow tenor voice like an oboe in full swing, and he does Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Chubby Checker and James Brown. With those magic feet and his powerful physique he will dance you Bo Jangles, Texas clogging, Gregory Hines and Michael Jackson's full repertoire.

Then let him do you a Southern revival preacher ("Amen!") before launching into "When The Saints Come Marching In!" He balances that one with a number taken directly from three years on the road as a male stripper, and we can tell you that he's in fine physique still.

We clapped along, we swayed, we shouted and applauded. Movin' Melvin will tell you the story of his life and give you a "highlights" show of mid-century African American music and entertainment that will leave you wanting more. So buy a CD at the stand, because the funds go for the "Change The World" project in Elgin where he plans to build a home for homeless children and the elderly.

Ongoing: Some Other Day, Schave & Reilly at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre , January 19, 27, 30, 31

Picked up at the Salvage Vanguard:

From www.schaveandreilly.com :

Have you ever seen a rubber chicken duel that you didn't like?

Welcome to the bizarre world of SCHAVE & REILLY. Modern-day versions of Vaudeville's baggy-pants comedians. Reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy, these two delightful clowns use an original blend of ridiculous dance, slapstick, and juggling to tell stories of life, love, and jubilation. Expertly intertwining emotion and absurdity, SCHAVE & REILLY appeal to adults and children alike. They are memorable, touching, one of a kind, and very, very funny.

SCHAVE & REILLY have taken their act all over the western world, performing in circuses, variety shows, and cabarets, cruiseships, renaissance fairs, and theatrical festivals. Trained at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and the Dell'Arte School of Physical Theatre, SCHAVE & REILLY work as performers and teachers in Austin, Texas.

Read more about us here

Ongoing: The Mommy Confessions, Rhonda F. Kulhanek, January 31

Card picked up at the Salvage Vanguard:

The Mommy Confessions

Blue Theatre, January 31, 7 p.m. (last of 4 performances)

To survive their maternal lives, a Memaw raising her grandkids confesses to Jesus, a former beauty queen comes clean at Mommies Anonymous, and an unwed mother-to-be confides in her unborn son. These are just three of 13 characters that confess their stories of motherhood throughout this hilarious one-woman show.
Join them as they demonstrate the joy, sorrow, laughter (and alcohol) required to be a mommy!

Upcoming: Tim Miller's UT Lecture and SVT Performance, January 29 - 31

UPDATE: Review by Clare Croft for the Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, February 2

UPDATE: Pre-lecture article/interview by Radhika Sakalkale in the Daily Texan, January 29

UPDATE: Clare Croft interviews Tim Miller for the Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, January 25

Found on-line from UT Department of Theatre and Dance:

Guest Artist Talk: Tim Miller

Tim Miller will speak Friday, January 29 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Winship Room 2.180. [ALT note: Miller performs his one-man show Lay of the Land at the Vortex January 29-31, 8 p.m.]

Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed performance artist. Miller’s creative work as a performer and writer explores the artistic, spiritual and political topography of his identity as a gay man. Miller’s performances have been presented all over North America, Australia, and Europe in such prestigious venues as Yale Repertory Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

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

In This House (Everything Is You), Salvage Vanguard & Tutto Theatre for FronteraFest at the Eponymous Garden, Januar 21-24

No, despite the enigmatic lines of the teaser, this is not a ghost story. It is collaborative imagination of memories tied to the faded upright eloquence of that two-story bed and breakfast residence in lower East Austin now known as the Eponymous Garden.

"Eponymous" because the Garden takes its name from the street, Garden Street, and perhaps -- it would seem appropriate -- from that neighborhood in Austin. It's just east of I-35 and a couple of blocks south of César Chávez Street. To find it, you drive east on Chávez and after you cross under the Interstate, at the next traffic light take a right onto Waller Street. The neighborhood has lots of small clapboard houses, of the sort that would have been homes for tradesmen and artisans back in the 'teens of the previous century.

The garden is not very much in evidence in January, but the pictures on the website suggest that the house is engulfed in blossom once better weather arrives. In its weathered pink-and-white elegance, 1202 Garden Street carries a strong flavor of earlier prosperity.

In This House is a collaborative work for which fourteen artists are credited in the single photocopied page of the playbill. Jenny Larson of the Salvage Vanguard and Dustin Wills of Tutto Theatre directed. Others are writers, writer/actors, and actors, both grown ones and child actors.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .