Upcoming: Jubilee, a group work by Rubber Repertory at the Off Center, April 5 - 21

presents

*JUBILEE*

directed by Josh Meyer and Matt Hislope

featuring Eva Claycomb, Arthur Simone, Jen Brown, Jay Byrd, Steven Fitzpatrick, Anna Marcella McConnell, Sophie Ricketts, Susan Peterson, Paul Szent-Miklosy, Jacob Trussell

April 5-21, Thursdays-Sundays at 8 p. m.
The Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St. Austin, TX 78702 (click for map)
Tickets: $15. Thursdays are pay-what-you-wish (at the door).
Order online ($16.52 including fees) at

or call 1-800-838-3006.
Ages 16 and up

Lighting: Steven Shirey -- Costumes: Company


What shall we sing this tenth year? What movements shall we make? What skits shall we perform? This will be Rubber Repertory’s last show before an indeterminate hiatus, and we’re looking for more than just a good idea; we’re looking for atonement. We want to find the very proper time to sound the trumpet. We want to put on the clothes that will make us disappear. We want to arrange our bodies in a way that gives real comfort. Part dance and all devotion, JUBILEE is a nonstop, non-narrative, and non-denominational leap of faith. [NOTE: To carnal minds we may appear to act absurdly, but the path of duty is rarely the path of safety.]

“What's wonderful about Rubber Repertory is that they take the concepts, the tenets, the expectations of theatre, and blow them out of the water.” -Avimaan Syam, Austin Chronicle

ABOUT RUBBER REPERTORY Since 2002, Co-Directors Josh Meyer and Matt Hislope have created some of the most unique theatre in Texas. With shows such as Biography of Physical Sensation, The Casket of Passing Fancy (2007 Rockefeller MAP Fund grant), Surprise Annie, RED CANS, and the American premiere of Wallace Shawn's notoriously "unstageable" A Thought in Three Parts, Rubber Rep pushes boundaries and creates work that's high on invention and surprise. Their productions have garnered B. Iden Payne and Austin Critics Table Awards for "Outstanding Theatrical Innovation," "Outstanding Direction," "Unique Theatrical Experience," and "Outstanding Late-Night Adventure." For more information, visit www.rubberrep.org.

Ongoing: Dear Frailty, Coldtowne Theatre, Fridays in August

From the review by Wayne Alan Brenner in the Austin Chronicle, August 6:


Dear Frailty
written and performed by Arthur Simone
Coldtowne Theatre, Fridays at 9 p.m. during August

There's no improvisation here. No goofs for laughs, particularly, either, although the several characters Simone portrays in his almost 60 minutes onstage provoke both nervous giggles and the occasional helpless guffaw. These aren't cartoons he's got going here; these are evocations of real and twisted people, the places where cheaper parody comes from: a grocery-store clerk who's obsessed with physical decay and aging and wants to burn the decay out of everyone's all-too-human flesh; a girl who's not quite happy about her lover's predilection for, ah, water sports; an old woman remembering her harsh past; and the PowerPoint presenter with his hilarious report on the future of capitalism.

And Simone, throughout it all, inhabiting the different characters to a believable and creepy level, with little costumery or props, renders a series of portraits as his muse increases the current to provoke another creative seizure, the jolts reflected in the actor's eyes, his jittery intense manner of delivery. This is good stuff; this is dark and twitchy and very human stuff; it is well-written and equally well-performed, and sometimes it will make you laugh.

Read more at the Austin Chronicle. . . .