Upcoming: Connect, Four Short Plays by Alan Baker, Abby Productions at the Off Center, April 1 - 17

UPDATE: Strongly positive review by webmaster at TheatreAustin, Yahoo groups, April 8

UPDATE: Feature by Virginia Heckenlaible for the Daily Texan, March 31: Plays place gay issues front and center - UT alumnus examines relationships in GLBT community with four short plays

Found on-line:

Connect: Four Short Plays

By Allan Baker

Directed by Theresa Leckbee

"Only connect!" -- E. M. Forster, Howard's End

"We gotta connect. We just have to. Or we die." Terrence McNally, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune

April 1 - 17 at the Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo Street

June 4 at the Rollins Theatre, The Long Center

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(25 minutes) It's Saturday night and two gay guys are online trying to hook up, each for a somewhat different reasons. Jason sees quick and easy sex as a way to avoid emotional intimacy. Michael sees it as a way to get to emotional intimacy more quickly. Jason: Adam Pearson Michael: James Jackson Leach

This play was produced as part of Austin's FronteraFest, at Hyde Park Theatre, in 2008. (Adult language.)

Voices

(32 minutes) A conversation across four generations, among five members of a family, all residents of a cemetery in rural Texas. Taking Our Town in a new direction, Voices focuses on Martha, the tyrannical, ninety-seven-year-old matriarch of a Texas family, born in the 1860s, and how she deals with the two most recent arrivals at the cemetery: Cole, a relatively young, gay victim of AIDS and Peggy, her seventy-five year old, oft-married, spirited and rather bohemian granddaughter.

Stage Manager/Cole: Kirk Burg Jeannie: Alexa Doggett Glen: Trey Townsend Martha: Sharon Elmore Peggy: Suzanne Kennedy

A shorter version of this play was produced as part of FronteraFest in 2007. The current version was a finalist for Emerging Artist Theatre's 2009 Spring Festival of One Act Plays in New York City.

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