Video Promo: W.K., devised by Gale Theatre Company, January 17 - February 2, 2014

Video by Zoey Cane Belyea

W.K.


Coming to the Vortex January 17-February 2!

2803 Manor Rd - click for map







Directed by Katherine Wilkinson
Text by Zoey Cane Belyea
Choreographed by Celina Chapin
Original Music by Mobley
Dramaturgy by Sarah Loucks

Performed by Celina Chapin & Aaron Alexander

A STREETCAR STRAIGHT TO HELL, The Exchange Artists at the Blackheart, October 31, 2013

by Dr. David Glen Robinson

For this Halloween edition of The Exchange Artists’ Hot Nights series, they changed the name to Hot Bloody Nights. Other key elements remained the same, including the typically high performing skills exhibited on-stage, teaming up with a musical group, location in an upscale watering hole, a one-night-only run, and creativity unbounded. The Exchange Artists haven’t missed a beat with this series since they started it more than a year ago.

The show was based loosely, repeat loosely, on A Streetcar Named Desire. The opening scenes introduced characters familiar to some, and this is where the good acting and clever stage-play were found. But this was all set up and prologue to the finale of charnal horror worthy of the best horror movies of the 40s and 50s--and of a good Austin Halloween night downtown.

Aaron Alexander choreographed the fight scenes and enacted most of them with athletic skill and superb timing. Rachel Wiese played the disturbed visiting relative who lit the fuse to the conflagration. All the actors showed great skill in operating the set, the props, their costumes, and themselves. When actors make the difficult look easy, then the outcomes of their actions are surprising rather than predictable.

Rachel Wiese (photo: The Exchange Artists)

Some of the credit for this particular success goes to the directors Lindsey Sikes and Rachel Wiese. The producers, who put it all in motion, were Bridget Farr and Rachel Wiese, who each add another winning feather to a producer cap.

Even reviewers acknowledge the essential uselessness of reviews written after a performance run has finished, but in the case of Exchange Artists’ Hot Nights series, a posted review serves as a memory marker in time and space. The marker says that we found them; they were here in such-and-such a place, and they made the core transaction of theatre art with an audience.

This is the deep artistic satisfaction a theatre enthusiast seeks and deserves. The audience at the Exchange Artists’ Halloween show did their work in finding this brief, satisfying show. The call now is for the like-minded community to remain alert for the next Hot Nights show. And then please seek it out, wherever it may play (Hint: the Blackheart Bar is a favored venue). The rewards are great.

The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013 (Review No. 2)

Indigo Rael (poster: Capital T Theatre)

by Michael Meigs

Let's get right down to that title. The expletive noun is one of the most offensive combinations in the English language, and many of us get a sharp visceral twinge seeing it used in the title of Guirgis's play. The noun and variants of its subsidiary combinant verb are also among the most common oral expressions in the English language, especially in American parlance.

Words are powerful, especially when they evoke taboos. Publications and individuals may try to exorcise personal responsibility for using them -- or even knowing them -- by altering them into recognizable euphemisms. MoFo, used in a recent Tweet by an admired young Austin director, probably percolated up from American ghettos of poverty. Fug was foisted upon Norman Mailer's 1949 The Naked and the Dead by editors at Andre Deutsch's Allen Wingate press. The doughty men and women of the television series Battlestar Galactica were allowed to say frack. One happy chant of a star marching band of a high school in coastal Virginia has long been "We don't drink! Nor smoke! Norfolk! Norfolk!"


Playwright Guirgis, a successful screenwriter, probably intended to provoke with that title, one that still can't be mentioned in broadcasts without a beep or printed in most general-circulation publications without a couple of asterisks applied like pasties on a pole dancer's most prominent delights.

Indigo Rael, J. Ben Wolfe (photo: Capital T. Theatre)

But this story takes place entirely within the hard pressed underclass of an outlying borough of New York City. The characters struggle with alcoholism, drugs, crime and one another, and the expletives and taboo speech authenticate the milieu for us. If you're bothered by the title on the poster, give this one a miss, because that's the language used throughout the play by the protagonist and others. Their coarse speech assumes a music and rhythm of its own; one becomes inured to the literal meaning of the obscenities. Guirgis conveys intensely complex meanings and feelings in that impoverished speech.


People talk like that. Not just those in the underclass, of course -- those words are probably applied with a shade more imagination in many a locker room across the country, and I recall the slight uneasiness I experienced when I heard one of my grown children regularly using the "f-word" (yet another euphemism) without a trace of self-consciousness.


Mark Pickell's Capital T company and their sponsor, Ken Webster's Hyde Park Theatre, have a sharply defined taste for the type of theatre commonly termed edgy or dark. For lack of a better classification, many a reviewer would probably say they're dealing in black humor. These are stories with cynical twists, peopled with characters that are sharply drawn and often obsessive. We thank God that we don't have their flaws.


Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . . 

The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013 (Review No. 1)

by Dr. David Glen Robinson

Capital T Theatre’s production of The Motherfucker with the Hat (TMFWTH) by Stephen Adly Guirgis fairly screamed “exploitation!” in its promise,-- or rather, warning -- of foul language and nudity. As usual , the reality escaped the hype in unpredictable ways. TMFWTH was a far more serious play than its unfortunate title suggested.

The story of TMFWTH was fairly direct. Jackie (W. Ben Wolfe) comes home to the apartment he shared with his love, Veronica (Indigo Rael), after having found a job, difficult to do as a recent parolee from prison upstate. Before Jackie and Veronica begin their weekend-long celebration, Jackie finds another man’s hat in the apartment, and it hadn't been there that morning when he left. The recriminations are lengthy and end with Jackie leaving.

J. Ben Wolfe, Indigo Rael (photo: Capital T Theatre)

The story looked like a tale of revenge at that point, but in fact it changed quickly into a larger tale of the struggle for life in the worst of circumstances , amidst a shifting mosaic of sobriety and addiction. It could have become a sex farce, but the sexual situations were anything but farcical. The other on-stage characters were Ralph (Aaron Alexander), Victoria (Antoinette Robinson) and Cousin Julio (Rommel Sulit).


As is often the case in Austin theatre, the nudity in the show was all male. Bulky, covering underwear on women does not count. But contrary to expectation, the brief showe of bare skin was anything but gratuitous; instead, the revelation (ha!) sharply pivoted the plot.


The foul language in the play merely reflected the street patois of Latino and other ethnic sections of New York City, and playwright Stephen Adly Giurgis revealed a keen ear for spoken language. The script, however, taught no lessons beyond this one. The semantic potential of cursing in literary forms can go much further than this, however. The uses of billingsgate in drama were explored and workshopped in editions of Breaking String Theatre's New Russian Drama Festival last year and earlier this year. There, it was made clear that cursing can open deeper levels in the minds and personalities of characters. Not so here.

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

Photoshoot: The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013

Photo shoot for posters for the

presentation of

Indigo Rael, J. Ben Wolfe (photo: Capital T)

The Motherfucker with the Hat

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Directed by Carrie Klypchak

August 8 – 31, 2013

Thursday-Saturday at 8pm

Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St at Guadalupe - click for map

Things are looking up for recovering alcoholic Jackie and his girlfriend Veronica—until Jackie spots another man’s hat in their apartment and embarks on a sublimely incompetent quest for vengeance. Fast-paced and uproarious, Motherfucker is a gleefully foul-mouthed look at modern love and other addictions.

Capital T Theatre is proud to present the regional premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ outrageously funny and touching comedy directed by Cap T company member Carrie Klypchak starring Austin favorites Ben Wolfe (The Pain and the Itch), Indigo Rael (Exit, Pursued by a Bear), Antoinette Robinson (Mr. Marmalade), Rommel Sulit (Men of Tortuga) and Aaron Alexander (Behanding in Spokane).

Antoinette Robinson (photo: Capital T)

Aaron Alexander (photo: Capital T)

UPDATE: Review by Jeff Davis at www.austin.broadwayworld.com, August 16

Click to view additional photos at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Video: The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre at the Hyde Park Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013

Video for the

presentation of

Indigo Rael (photo: Capital T Theatre)

The Motherfucker with the Hat

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Directed by Carrie Klypchak

August 8th – 31st

Thursday-Saturday at 8
pm

Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St at Guadalupe - click for map






Things are looking up for recovering alcoholic Jackie and his girlfriend Veronica—until Jackie spots another man’s hat in their apartment and embarks on a sublimely incompetent quest for vengeance. Fast-paced and uproarious, Motherfucker is a gleefully foul-mouthed look at modern love and other addictions.

Capital T Theatre is proud to present the regional premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ outrageously funny and touching comedy directed by Cap T company member Carrie Klypchak starring Austin favorites Ben Wolfe (The Pain and the Itch), Indigo Rael (Exit, Pursued by a Bear), Antoinette Robinson (Mr. Marmalade), Rommel Sulit (Men of Tortuga) and Aaron Alexander (Behanding in Spokane).

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

THE MOTHERFUCKER WITH THE HAT by Steven Adly Guirgis, Capital T Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, August 8 - 31, 2013

[performing at the Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St. at Guadalupe -- click for map ]

presents

The Motherfucker with the Hat

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Directed by Carrie Klypchak

August 8th – 31st
Thursday-Saturday at 8pm
Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St at Guadalupe - click for map




Things are looking up for recovering alcoholic Jackie and his girlfriend Veronica—until Jackie spots another man’s hat in their apartment and embarks on a sublimely incompetent quest for vengeance. Fast-paced and uproarious, Motherfucker is a gleefully foul-mouthed look at modern love and other addictions.

Capital T Theatre is proud to present the regional premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ outrageously funny and touching comedy directed by Cap T company member Carrie Klypchak starring Austin favorites Ben Wolfe (The Pain and the Itch), Indigo Rael (Exit, Pursued by a Bear), Antoinette Robinson (Mr. Marmalade), Rommel Sulit (Men of Tortuga) and Aaron Alexander (Behanding in Spokane).

Cast

Jackie - Ben Wolfe

Ralph D - Aaron Alexander

Veronica- Indigo Rael

Cousin Julio - Rommel Sulit

Victoria - Antoinette Robinson

Lighting Design by Patrick Anthony
Costume Design by Cheryl Painter

About the Playwright

Stephen Adly Guirgis- Playwright

Co-artistic director and proud member of LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been performed on five continents and throughout the United States. Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, Our Lady of 121st Street, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and The Little Flower of East Orange were all produced by LAByrinth and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Judas and Little Flower were co-productions with the Public Theater. Other plays include Den of Thieves, Race Religion Politics, Dominica: The Fat Ugly Ho and the upcoming Untitled/St. Paul play. UK and regional premieres at the Donmar Warehouse (Olivier nom.), the Almeida (dir. Rupert Goold), the Arts, the Hampstead, Edinburgh (Fringe First Award) and two Midwest premieres at Steppenwolf. New Dramatists alumnus, MCC Playwrights and Ojai Playwrights member. TV writing credits include NBC’s “UC: Undercover,” David Milch’s CBS drama “Big Apple,” “NYPD Blue” and “The Sopranos.”

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Videos for Upcoming: Holier Than Thou by Bastion Carboni, Poison Apple Initiative at the Off Center, June 20 - July 6, 2013

Video answers recorded by Bethany Perkins for

Five Short Answers

for One Big Question:

What Would You Do

with the Powers of Jesus?

Answer Number 1:

CJ3P0 from Bethany Perkins on Vimeo.

Click 'Read more' for additional answers . . . .

GOLDEN BOY by Clifford Odets, selected scenes by The Exchange Artists at The Blackheart, January 31, 2013

 


The Exchange Artists present scenes from
Golden Boy
by Clifford Odets
Produced by Bridget Farr and Rachel Wiese
Directed by Rachel Wiese
with Language Room for a one night only knock-out show at the Blackheart Bar.

Thursday, January 31st at 9 p.m., doors at 8pm. $5 cash at the door.

The Blackheart, 86 Rainey St, Austin, Texas 78701 (View Map )


Odets’ Golden Boy is Joe Bonaparte, concert violinist who gives up his music for boxing and it’s promise of fame and fortune. He becomes a winner in the ring, but the prize he really wants is Lorna Moon, his manager’s mistress. In these scenes we see the story of Joe and Lorna’s relationship, from strangers to lovers through hurt, and finally desperation. The scenes are tied and carried by the musical and creative sounds of Language Room. There will be violence. After a 20 minute piece of theatre, we'll have a 15 minute break and then a full set by Language Room.


Language Room is Matt, Scott, Todd & Sean

Cast:
Aaron Alexander as Joe Bonaparte
Akasha Banks Villalobos as Lorna Moon

with…
Matt as Tom Moody
Scott as Tokio
John William Daley as The Chocolate Drop (Boxer)
(Click to return to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Macbeth by William Shakespeare, EmilyAnn Theatre, Wimberley, October

"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."

The EmilyAnn Theatre and Gardens presents its professional fall Shakespeare production of

Macbeth

directed by Jeff Hinkle

October 5-27, Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00 p.m.

Featuring some of the finest local and Austin classical actors, this show is sure to be a wonderful Halloween treat for everyone. Set in the mobster 1920s, the smoky, flapper atmosphere will entice all audiences, no matter how familiar with Shakespeare. The production features award-winning actors, Aaron Alexander as Macbeth and Bridget Farias as Lady Macbeth. The show is directed by Jeff Hinkle, award-winning director from City Theatre, Austin.

Tickets available at the gate or online at www.emilyann.org. $15/adults, $10/students and groups

(Click to return to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, a rock musical, Doctuh Mistuh Productions, June 7 - July

Doctuh Mistuh Productions

presents

(image via Michael McKelvey)

 Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (a rock musical)

June 7 - July 1, Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m.
special performances on Wed., June 27 at 7:30 pm & Friday, June 29 at 11 pm
at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale (click for map)
Tickets $15-22.  $10 Price Student Rush 30 minutes prior to curtain

Tickets available online via








or by calling (800) 838-3006


From the people who brought you Evil Dead, The Musical -- DM Productions is proud to present the Texas premiere of one of the most talked about musicals in years, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. An exhilarating and white-knuckled look at one of our nation's founding rock stars, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson recreates and reinvents the life of "Old Hickory," from his humble beginnings on the Tennessee frontier to his days as our seventh Commander-in-Chief. It also asks the question, is wanting to have a beer with someone reason enough to elect him? What if he's really, really hot? 


The show portrays Andrew Jackson as an Emo Rock Star and scrutinizes the American politic machine with wit and cynicism.   The theatricality of BBAJ ranges from hard-edge Green Day-like concert to PBS historical recreation to vaudevillian buffoonery.  Nothing is sacred, especially not the rise and fall of the man whom many consider America’s most popular president.  “Populish Yea Yea.” 

The cast features David Gallagher, Haley Smith Montgomery, Jose Villareal, Libby Dees Detling, Aaron Alexander, Rebecca Robinson, Scott Swanson, Sarah Marie Curry, Joey Banks, Eve Sampaga, Stephen Jack, Joel Mercado-See, Nathan Jerkins, David Ponton, Alan Marequiota and Trevor Detling.  

The production staff includes Michael McKelvey (stage & musical director), Ben Wolfe (Assistant Director), Glenda Barnes (costume designer), Joe Carpenter (set designer), Rocker Verastique and Danny Herman (Choreographers) and Erin  Fleming (lighting designer).

About Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson:   Book by Alex Timbers; Music & Lyrics by Michael Friedman. Developed by New York-based experimental company Les Freres Corbusier, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson had workshop productions in August 2006 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and in May 2007 at the New 42nd Street Studios, New York. It premiered in January 2008 in Los Angeles at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, produced by Center Theatre Group. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson made its New York premiere in May 2009 at The Public Theater in New York in a concert version, and returned to run from March through June, 2010.  The show premiered on Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on October 13, 2010 and ran until January 2, 2011.

Upcoming: The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm by Rachel McGinnis, Paper Moon Repertory at the Blue Theatre, February 17 - March 4

Received directly:

presents

The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm

by Rachel McGinnis

February 17 - March 4

Thursdays - Saturdays, Mondays at 7:30 p.m.; Sundays at 6 p.m.

Playing as the first part of a double bill with Will Hollis Snider's Messenger No. 4

Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale (click for map)

Purchase double-bill on-line ($26.72 per ticket) or call to reserve: (512) 524-3761

When a powerful invention lands in the hands of impulsive Phineas Hamm on his 25th birthday, he’s faced with the possibility of altering his reality with the single pull of a lever. What happens when desires and abandon trump resilience and loyalty? Set to music with choreography by Ballet Austin’s Kaitlyn Moise, Phineas is an exploration of tempting fortunes and their immediate outcomes.

The cast features Austin favorites Aaron Alexander (Big Love), Katie Blacksmith (Servant of Two Masters), Molly Fonseca (Going with Jenny), Jay Fraley (Spirits to Enforce), Omid Ghorashi (The Assumption), Toby Minor (Spirits to Enforce), Andrea Smith (Big Love), Breanna Stogner (Down the Drain), Brie Walker (The Tempest), and newcomer Gabriel Peña as Phineas.

The late 1800s. Dancing and indulgence. Invention and industry. The world of Phineas Hamm is ever-changing, swiftly shifting from opulence to poverty and barreling through 21 versions of reality in an age of mass produced workhouses, manors, tenements and brothels. A visual feast set to music with choreography by Ballet Austin’s Kaitlyn Moise, The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm is a tender look at the power of choice, the pressure of the future, and the spectacular possibility of changing the past.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Videos for Upcoming: Holier Than Thou, Poison Apple Initiative for FronteraFest, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, January 26 - February 4

Received directly from

Five Short Answers

for one big question:

(For a FULL set of answers, see Holier Than Thou by Bastion Carboni, Poison Apple Initiative at FronteraFest, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 1/26, 1/28, 1/31, 2/04)

Answer Number 1:

Dominic the Bominic from Bethany Perkins on Vimeo.

Click for additional answers at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Upcoming: Big Love by Charles Mee, Shrewd Productions at the Rollins Theatre, Long Center, November 10 - 27

Received directly:

presents

Big Love

a comedy by Charles Mee

directed by Robert Faires

November 10 - 27, 2011
Thursdays - Sundays at 8 p.m.
Rollins Studio Theatre at the Long Center for the Performing Arts

50 runaway brides seek refuge in a villa on the Italian coast in this hilarious and heartbreaking comedy by Charles Mee. When 50 determined grooms drop out of the sky, the villa erupts in a clash of wills, song and dance, romantic reverie, violent fits, satin ribbon, and one final, unforgettable showdown.

Based on the oldest play in the western world, The Suppliants by Aeschylus, Mee's modern take is at once an unflinching look at the themes of justice and revenge, and an ode to the enduring power of love.

Robert Faires directs this tulle covered, rice throwing, dangerous confection of a play. Big Love features some of Austin's finest theatrical talent, including Aaron Alexander, Lana Dieterich, Shannon Grounds, Anne Hulsman, Rob Matney, Nathan Osburn, Michael Slefinger, Andrea Smith, Rommel Sulit and Julianna Elizabeth Wright with lighting design by Patrick Anthony, set by Ia Enstara, costumes by Pam Friday, choreography by Toby Minor and sound by Buzz Moran.

Presented by special arrangement with International Creative Management, Inc.

Upcoming: A Behanding in Spokane by Martin McDonagh, Hyde Park Theatre, April 28 - May 28

Received directly:

Hyde Park Theatre

presents

the Austin premiere of

Martin McDonagh’s

directed by Ken Webster

Featuring Aaron Alexander, Michelle Keffer, Mical Trejo, and Ken Webster

April 28 – May 28

Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m.

Hyde Park Theatre 511 W. 43rd Street at Guadalupe (click for map)

Tickets $19 and $17 Fridays and Saturdays. Pay-What-You-Can Thursdays

Final weekend tickets are $21 and $19

Charge tickets online at www.hydeparktheatre.org or call 479-PLAY (7529).

Hyde Park Theatre continues its love affair with the black comedies of the brilliant young Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, this time with McDonagh's first play set in America, the savagely funny A Behanding in Spokane. The New York Times called the play “perfect, demented, ecstatic, and imaginative.” “Wildly entertaining…truly explosive,” said The Daily News. The Wall Street Journal said, “You’ll spend 90 minutes laughing nonstop.“

In Behanding, Carmichael's 37-year search for his missing left hand brings him to a small-town hotel where he encounters a bizarre hotel clerk and a small-time con-artist couple who claim to have the hand.

Austin critics called HPT's 2008 production of McDonagh's The Lonesome West "witty, engaging, intense, and wickedly funny" and "utterly hilarious." HPT's 2007 production of McDonagh's The Pillowman sold out every performance during an unprecedented three extensions; Austin critics called it "utterly compelling," "an excellent production of an immensely challenging and strikingly brilliant play," and "one fascinating, entertaining night of theatre that we can't recommend highly enough." Those productions were also directed by Ken Webster.

McDonagh won an Academy Award for Best Short Film for Six Shooter and an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for In Bruges.

Hedda Gabler, adapted by Nigel O'Hearn, Palindrome Theatre Company at the Blue Theatre, February 18 - March 13

Hedda Gabler puzzled and annoyed audiences across Europe when it was first staged in 1890 and 1891 -- pretty much the same reaction Ibsen had elicited with most of his later plays. He was 61 when he wrote this one, exasperated with the bourgeois public that went to the theatre and purchased copies of his plays.

The last lines of the play are spoken by Judge Brack, that worldly sybarite who took Hedda's husband George and her would-be lover off to an all-night stag party, then comfortably assured Hedda he was looking forward to a cozy triangle, with her at the apex. In the crashing finale after Hedda kills herself with a pistol shot to the head, Brack expostulates, "But good God! People don't do such things!"

If that's a spoiler for you, accept my apologies. The secret has been out for a long time, however, and the real question of this play is not whether Hedda is going to use that pistol, but why she's going to do it. The first audiences for the work, in Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Cristiana, the capital of Norway, had stronger reactions than Judge Brack.

Attitudes changed gradually, however. Hedda, along with Nora from A Doll's House, were eventually viewed with more sympathy, particularly as women strove against the paternalism prevalent throughout Western society.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Hedda Gabler, Palindrome Theatre, February 18 - March 13

Received directly:

HENRIK IBSEN’S

HEDDA GABLER

New adaptation by Palindrome Theatre’s Resident Playwright Nigel O’Hearn

Feb. 18^th-Mar. 13^th, Thursday-Saturday 8 pm, Sundays 5 pm

The Blue Theater, 916 Springdale (click for map)

Ticket Price: $20 general admission, $12 -25/65+

512-939-6829 - www.palindrometheatre.com

To open our second season, Palindrome offers the internationally acclaimed Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler in a new adaptation by Palindrome's resident playwright, Nigel O'Hearn. Directed by Kate Eminger and featuring Robin Grace Thompson, Chase Crossno, Aaron Alexander, Nathan Osburn, Rommel Sulit, Rachel McGinnis, and Jackie Harper, this world premiere will run for four weeks only.

Upcoming: A Feast of Fools, Shrewd Productions at the Off Center, December 16 - 18

Received directly:

Feast of Fools:

Merriment & Misrule

December 16-18
Thursday – Saturday, December 16 - 18 at 8 p.m.
Doors open at 7 p.m.
The Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo (click here for a map)

Tickets: $20-30* A limited number of tickets are onsale now for $15! Use the password "Misrule".)
Call 512-626-5901 or click here to buy online!

Taste the Cake of Reckoning! Win a chance at the Crown of Misrule!
Be Queen or King for a Night!

A feast for the senses and a delight for the soul, join the Company Shrewd for our Feast of Fools as we celebrate twelve magical days in just one night.

A festival of song, dance, comedy and games crowned by gourmet treats, fabulous prizes, live music and a fantastic silent auction, Feast of Fools is the holiday party you don't want to miss!

A portion of all proceeds will be donated to HAND (Helping the Aging, Needy and Disabled).

Featuring Aaron Alexander, Kristen Bennett, Jennifer Davis, Trey Deason, Ashley Edwards, Shannon Grounds, Jason Hays, Kimberley Mead, Alex McDonald Villareal, Marisa Pisano, Alejandro Rodriguez, Bryan Schneider, Justin Scalise, Sarah Skelton, Andrea Smith and Amelia Turner with guest artists The Confidence Men: Improvised Mamet.

SUPPORT OUR WORK!

Thanks to all of those who joined us last season for Shrewd Summer Nights and MilkMilkLemonade! For more information about our productions and company history, visit our website at www.shrewdproductions.com. Help Shrewd take The Long Now on the road in 2011! Support our work by making a donation though Paypal. All donations are tax deductible.

Fill out your e-mail address to receive our newsletter!

Common Ground by Antoinette Winstead, ProArts Collective, April 3-5

An impressive cast brought San Antonio playwright Antoinette Winstead's Common Ground to the Boyd Vance theatre this past weekend, with the sponsorship of the Pro Arts Collective. LeVan Owens stands tall at the center of the piece, in the character of James Parker, a powerfully built man stiff legged from a rodeo accident long ago. He's a dutiful son enduring a deep, mute resentment.

Winstead sets the piece at a Christmas sometime in the early 70s, starting the action with the unexpected arrival home of younger brother Luke, an Air Force pilot back from Vietnam. Luke's wife Sara Beth and his six-year-old child Veronica have for some undefined period (years?) been living with the boys' mother, "Miss Ruth."

In program notes Winstead says that Common Ground is her attempt at addressing family dysfunction in all its dark and illustrious glory.

The situation depicted is plausible. The drama arises from tensions between the brothers and the enigmatic position in the family of Luke's wife Sara Beth. Six-year-old Ronnie is a lively and inquisitive child who worships Uncle James and initially distrusts the smooth, smiling stranger said to be her father. And "Miss Ruth," with a mother's sharp eyes and authority works hard to keep comity in the household with the best weapons she has at hand -- cooking, chores for everyone, good-natured grousing, and, when necessary, straight talk.

Read More at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .