Upcoming: This Uh . . . Body, Austin Mime Theatre at the Vortex Repertory, October 4 - 13

This Uh . . . Body


Oct. 4 - 13, 2012 Thursday-Sunday 8 p.m.

Special "Industry Night" Monday, Oct. 8

The VORTEX, 2307 Manor Rd. Austin, TX 78722

Free Parking. Bus Route.

The Butterfly Bar @ The VORTEX (open nightly at 5pm)

Tickets: $30-$10

$30-$25 Priority Seating, $15-$20 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists

Available at www.vortexrep.org or call 512-478-5282

Limited seating. Advance Purchase Recommended.

THIS UH...BODY is a high energy, sometimes-comical, often-tragical, always-compelling look at what happens when a body suddenly appears on a busy street full of busy people with busy jobs ... people just happy the bullet missed them today ...all too busy to notice ... a Body? Through poetic, stylized physical acting with original music and a lot of briefcases, THIS UH...BODY comes to life.

Sure, somebody gets shot, but who? The nagging Housewife? Her comatose Husband? The not-so-blind Beggar or bumbling Thief? The jovial Cop is sure everything is fine. Meanwhile, the Cat Lady sheds her fur, has a good roll and slinks away with her friends. Is this uh . . . body . . . dead or alive? The Bag Lady doesn't care, the Little Girl does, her Friend thinks it's totally weird, and we all spiral through a mesmerizing world of the remaining scraps of humanity.

THIS UH...BODY features a powerful cast of physical actors! Principals in the company include artistic director Michael Lee, Amelia Turner, Kyle Connealy, and Melissa Trevino. Joining them are Becky Karpovsky, Anna McConnell, Lucas Reilly, Melissa Vogt-Patterson, and Joanna Wright.

Conceived, written and choreographed by Michael Lee. Original music by Bradley Murphy. Lighting Design by Steven Shirey

For tickets and more informations, visit www.vortexrep.org

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Second Video: Director and Crew Discuss The Dragon Play by Jenny Connell

Another video from Lydia Nelson featuring director Shannon Grounds and the cast discussing the

presentation of

The Dragon Play

by Jenny Connell, directed by Shannon Grounds
March 22 through April 14, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 pm
at The Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale (click for map)
Tickets $16.52 including service fee via

(Click to go to previous video about The Dragon Play)

Images by Kimberley Mead: Lear, Vortex Repertory, May 20 - June 18

Images by Kimberley Mead:

presents

Lear

by William Shakespeare in a new adaptation by Rudy Ramirez

starring Jennifer Underwood

directed by Rudy Ramirez

May 20 - June 18

Thursdays - Sundays at 8 p.m.

Vortex Repertory, 2307 Manor Rd. (click for map)

(Jennifer Coy as Regan, Suzanne Balling as Cordelia)

In an age when women hold more power and in a time when the media turns the private into the public a mother divides her empire among her daughters. As her world crumbles and her family turns its back on her, can she face the storm and find love, forgiveness, and peace? A Celtic legend made into a Renaissance masterpiece, The VORTEX now re-imagines William Shakespeare's King Lear as a female leader for the modern world, where globalization blurs the line between governments and corporations and names like Clinton, Palin, Thatcher, Stewart, Wintour, and Winfrey have inspired admiration, contempt and controversy. Jennifer Underwood leads a cast of Austin's finest actors in a story of gender and power, family and business, compassion and betrayal.

Click to view additional images by Kimberley Mead at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Upcoming: God's Ear by Jenny Schwartz, Biophiliac Productions at the Blue Theatre, April 22 - May 2

UPDATE: Review by Virginia Heckenlaible for the Daily Texan, April 28

UPDATE: Second NowPlayingAustin podcast about God's Ear, April 26

UPDATE: Creative Alliance podcast interviewing Shannon Grounds about God's Ear, April 19 (6 min.)

Received directly:
The recently transplanted Biophiliac Productions
presents

God's Ear
the Off-Broadway play by Jenny Schwartz
directed by Amelia Turner in its regional premiere
at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road
April 22 – May 2, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m.
with a matinee performance on Saturday, May 1 at 2 p.m.
General admission $15, $12 for seniors, military, and students with ID, available through www.biophiliacproductions.com, at www.smarttix.com, or fromSmartTIX at (212) 868-4444. Group discounts for 6 or more available through Biophiliac Productions. Cash only at the door.

God's Ear introduces us to Ted and Mel, a devastated young couple trying to come to terms with their son’s accidental death as their marriage and lives begin to disintegrate. Lost in their bizarre labyrinth of grief, Ted seems continually to run into parents with dead children. Everything Mel touches turns to stone. Their daughter Lanie starts receiving counseling from a G.I. Joe doll and from the Tooth Fairy. Central to God’s Ear is the concept of language, inventively explored as the characters rely on repeated expressions and clichés in an attempt to navigate their grief.

The cast features Shannon Grounds (Austin Critic’s Table Award Winner and seven-time B. Iden Payne Nominee) and Phil Aulie (Austin Slam Poetry Finalist), Senait Fessehaye, Lindsley Howard, Felix Rivas, Greg Spencer, and Amelia Turner.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Curse of the House of Usher, Weird City Theatre Company, February 18 - 28

Weird City Theatre Company specializes in the creepy, the spooky and the haunting. Their sense of "weird" shares something with the scruffy, quirky laid-back attitude of the now clichéd slogan "Keep Austin Weird," in that they are working on a shoestring and a vision. But they are really embracing a different notion of Austin creativity: the idea of translating otherworldly out-of-copyright works into evening séances to give us suspense, a shiver and a release.

Patti Neff-Tiven's set and Philip B. Richard's lighting provide plenty of atmosphere. That's particularly important for a piece in which Poe immediately establishes the crumbling Usher mansion as a character in its own right. In the first paragraph of the short story as he arrives on the scene, the unnamed narrator stops to examine that manse:

What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble. [. . . ] I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Poe's language goes on like that through his twenty atmospheric pages, as the narrator seeks to renew the childhood friendship and draw Roderick Usher from black depression and acutely painful reactions to sound and sensation.

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

The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Weird City Theatre Company, July 16 - 26

Here's what I like about John Carroll and the Weird City Theatre Company: they have a sense of fun that's irreverent and modern, but they take their drama seriously.

Necessarily low-rent but not sloppy, the company performs with energy, confidence, and an appreciation for the text, whatever it might be. They have a taste for pop -- we've seen an adaptation of Night of the Living Dead, a faithful production of William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes, and around Halloween we'll get their take on Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau's 1921 unathorized film version of Dracula.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals from 1775 is pop of a different sort. Sheridan, born into a theatrical family and married for love. The success at Covent Garden of this, his first play, spurred him to buy out Garrick's Drury Lane and subsequently to run successfully for Parliament. It's a comedy of manners in which Jack, an artistocratic military officer, disguises his well born origins in order to court Miss Lydia Languish, a dizzy heiress beguiled by popular novels and intent on forfeiting her ample trust fund by marrying poor, for love.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .