Blood Wedding by Federico García Lorca, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, November 14 -24, 2013

by Michael Meigs

Federico García Lorca's Bodas de Sangre takes places in the stark and arid landscape of the mind. The setting is rural Spain, somewhere far out in the countryside, and the characters are peasant families. They have no names, with the single exception of Leonardo, the angry and frustrated young farmer who precipitates the tragedy.

García Lorca identifies the others by role: the intended groom (novio), the bride (novia), the mother, the neighbor, the father of the bride. The story is simple: the confident young novio goes courting and fixes upon an eligible young woman related to men who killed his father and his brother. We watch the courting and attend the wedding; we also witness the anger of Leonardo, who still burns with a passion for the novia even though their acquaintance was broken years ago when Leonardo married the novia's cousin.

Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Anna C. Shultz (photo: Bret Brookshire)

Blood will have blood, despite all efforts to forget, to reconcile and to wash lives clean.

García Lorca had already achieved renown as a lyric poet when this, his first great success, was staged in Madrid for the first time in 1933. He doesn't fill these characters' mouths with abstractions or self-indulgent speculations, however; dialogue in the first half of the play is quick, sentences are short, and speech is often staccato. The early dialogue is sharp and cutting, much like the "little knife" that the novio's mother laments -- "A knife is such a simple object but it can take away the life of a man."

Contrasting with this energy are songs with imagery as lyrical as any of the author's poetry. In the second scene, Leonardo's wife and mother-in-law sing a cryptic lullabye about a mythic horse that refuses to drink; during the act two wedding preparations both servants and guests join in song, each offering a line or couplet.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

BLOOD WEDDING by Federico Garcia Lorca, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, November 14 -24, 2013

(poster: Mary Moody Northen Theatre)

Babs George, Alec Esteban Cudmore (photo: Bret Brookshire)

Jose Antonio Rodriguez , Anna Schultz (photo: Bret Brookshire)

MUSEUM by Tina Howe, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, September 26 - October 6, 2013

(St. Edward's University, 3001 South Congress Avenue)

presents

Museum

by Tina Howe

directed by David M. Long
September 26 – October 6, 2013
Thursdays – Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St Edward’s University
3001 South Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78704 -- click for map
Tickets: $22 Adults Advance ($17 Students, Seniors, SEU Community), $22 at the door
Available through the MMNT Box Office, 512.448.8484 and
Available online at http://www.stedwards.edu/theatre
Box Office Hours are M-F 1-5 p.m.
STUDENT DISCOUNT NIGHTS: Friday, September 27 and Thursday, October 3: Student tickets $8 with ID.
Reserved Seating -- Recommended for ages 12 and up.

Mary Moody Northen Theatre, the award-winning producing arm of the St. Edward’s University professional theatre training program, kicks off its 41^st anniversary season in fine comedic style with Museum, by Tina Howe, running September 26 – October 6, 2013.

Obie award winner Tina Howe sets her effervescent comedy on closing day at a contemporary art exhibition called “The Broken Silence.” And break silence she does, with glorious irreverence. All makes and models of people weave in and out of the exhibit hall, offering us a hilarious and heartfelt glimpse at the intersection of life and art. Inspired by actual comments overheard at the Whitney Museum biennial art exhibition, this play promises to engage everyone who has visited a mind-bending art exhibit, created contemporary artwork, or tried to find meaning in abstraction. Featuring Equity guests Babs George, Jarrett King and David Stahl.

“Eighty-five laugh out loud minutes.” – Curtain Up

About Mary Moody Northen Theatre Mary Moody Northen Theatre operates on a professional model and stands at the center of the St. Edward’s University Theatre Training Program. Through the Mary Moody Northen Theatre, students work alongside professional actors, directors and designers, explore all facets of theatrical production and earn points towards membership in Actor’s Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States. MMNT operates under an AEA U/RTA contract and is a member of Theatre Communications Group. For more information, contact the theatre program at 512-448-8487 or visit us online at www.stedwards.edu/theatre.
About St. Edward's University St. Edward’s is a private, liberal arts Catholic university in the Holy Cross Tradition with more than 5,000 students. Located in Austin, Texas, with a network of partner universities around the world, St. Edward’s is a diverse community that offers undergraduate and graduate programs designed to inspire students with a global perspective. St. Edward's University has been recognized for 10 consecutive years as one of "America's Best Colleges" by U.S. News & World Report, and ranks in the top 20 of Best Regional Universities in the Western Region. St. Edward’s has also been recognized by Forbes and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Mad Beat Hip & Gone by Steven Dietz, Zach Theatre, April 3 - 28, 2013

by Michael Meigs

At first I was disconcerted by the time-line.


Playwright-director Steven Dietz places his creations the Nebraska buddies Danny and Rich in 1949 and engineers an encounter with beat adventurers Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassady. We don't see it; as in ancient Greek theatre that event is reported to us, endowing it with distant mystery and epic sense.



But in the opening scenes of Mad Beat Hip & Gone, suddenly Jacob Trussell as Danny is ranting center stage in full Beat style, declaiming verse that has no rhyme, not much reason, a rush of disconnected jagged images. Now how did this smalltown boy start channeling the fullblown Kerouac style, when On the Road wasn't published until 1951?


But I got over that. Dietz made it clear before too long that he was taking us to fantasy land, where his two protagonists weren't really tracking or channeling the beats; they were engaged in their own shambolic adolescent plunge toward adulthood. It takes the entire first act to get Danny and his gregariously goofy buddy Rich (Jon Cook) into the front seat of the sedan that's going to be their literary vehicle.



 
They don't have much help growing up in that first act. Danny's father disappeared long ago, although Rick Roemer regularly appears in that role, always ineptly tangled up in something or other. No adult help there; he's long gone, another fantasy figure, wearing a suit but walking gnomically barefoot or appearing as a traveling salesman, always present but always absent. 


 Babs George as Danny's mom is equally unhelpful, a sort of spiritual weather vane spinning merrily in the winds of her own cheerfully unapologetic irresponsibility.


And The Girl -- doesn't every coming-of-age fable need A Girl? -- dominates the second act. First encountered in the company of Jack and Neal, Erin Barlow as Honey becomes real for us after the intermission when our protagonists, too, get to the land of dreams in San Francisco. Pale, hip, distracted, a beat hanger-on, she's with us just long enough to drive our boys wild and then to disappear into the fog of the Golden Gate. Then they learn that yet another jumper has thrown herself from that span down into the void.


Topaz McGarrigle hangs about the stage during much of this, working his melodious saxophone.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com

MAD BEAT HIP & GONE by Steven Dietz, Zach Theatre, April 3 - 28, 2013

(Zach Theatre, S. Lamar at Riverside (parking on Riverside and on Toomey Rd, one block south), 

presents the world premiere of

 A coming-of-age comedy about the beat generation

at ZACH’s Topfer Theatre, S. Lamar at Riverside

April 3-28, 2013, Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Champagne Opening and Press Night is Thursday, April 11 at 7:30 p.m., followed by a reception with the stars of the show. Happy Hour Theatre is April 3 ($28 tickets for patrons under 30, plus a reception beginning at 6:45 p.m. and a post-show party). LGBT Wilde Party with pre-show mixer is Thursday, April 4. Performances continue through April 28, 2013. Four weeks only!

To order tickets call 512-476-0541 ext. 1 or visit www.zachtheatre.org. Tickets range from $25-$65. Student Rush Tickets: $18 one hour before showtime (with valid ID). ZACH’s full bar featuring signature cocktails and hors d’oeuvres opens 90 minutes prior to showtime and remains open for one hour post-show.

Free Balcony Play Festival also begins April 3

ZACH Theatre – Austin’s Theatre and Texas’ longest running theatre, in the first season its new Topfer Theatre, co-commissioned by the University of Texas at Austin College of Fine Arts, presents The World Premiere of MAD BEAT HIP & GONE written and directed by STEVEN DIETZ (Becky's New Car, Shooting Star)


Steven Dietz, one of the most-produced playwrights in America, who also calls Austin home, created this world premiere specifically for ZACH's first season in the new Topfer Theatre. MAD BEAT HIP &GONE is a coming-of-age comedy that chronicles our rich and elusive dreams, immersing audiences in the cultural phenomena of the beat generation.
In the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady famously went "on the road." But what about Danny Fergus and Rich Rayburn — the young guys in the car right behind Jack and Neal, the guys whose history never ended up in books? What were these kids searching for in those "mad days" of "gone kids" trying so hard to be hip? Chock-full of smooth live jazz and exuberant theatricality, MAD BEAT HIP &GONE answers these questions and more as it takes audiences on a journey back in time.

ZACH’s Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley says: “I’m thrilled to produce the world premiere of Steven Dietz’s new coming-of-age comedy MAD BEAT HIP & GONE, which was commissioned by the University of Texas College of Fine Arts. Steven teaches playwriting at UT, and it’s no secret we are big fans of his work, having produced his plays Shooting Star, Fiction, and Becky’s New Car. I’m in love with his new play, which sings with the beat poetry style made famous by Jack Kerouac and possesses Steven’s sly sense of humor and gift for a turn of phrase. The play also involves a live saxophone player on stage who interacts with the actors, punctuating the comedy with jazz riffs in a clever call and response.”

Of his long-time relationship with ZACH, Steven Dietz says: “I need ZACH Theatre – it is because of their bold and populist artistic aesthetic that I was inspired to create this story.”

ZACH’s production of MAD BEAT HIP & GONE features an all-star cast including: JACOB TRUSSEL as Danny, JON COOK as Rich, ERIN BARLOW as Honey, BABS GEORGE as Mrs. Fergus and RICK ROEMER as The Alberts.

Scenic Design by MICHAEL RAIFORD · Lighting Design by MICHELLE HABECK · Costume Design by SUSAN MICKEY · Sound Design by CRAIG BROCK · Video Design by COLIN LOWRY · Properties Design by JUSTIN COX · Stage Management by CATE TUCKER·

MAD BEAT HIP & GONE Previews April 3-10.


ZACH’s production of MAD BEAT HIP & GONE is presented by 3M and supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

NEW BALCONY PLAY FESTIVAL

In conjunction with MAD BEAT HIP & GONE, ZACH will launch the Balcony Play Festival – consisting of a series of 10-30 minute plays performed free for the public prior to mainstage productions. Drawing inspiration from the Juliet-style balcony overlooking the main entrance of ZACH’s new Topfer Theatre and from famous balcony scenes from plays and musicals, these new plays will invite a diverse audience of patrons and pedestrians alike to gather on ZACH’s People’s Plaza to enjoy this original, site-specific work. ZACH Associate Artistic Director Sarah Rasmussen (Head of MFA Directing Program, UT Austin and Associate Director, Black Swan Lab, Oregon Shakespeare Festival), will build on ZACH’s partnership with UT, involving MFA students in both the design and direction of the plays.


About ZACH Theatre ZACH Theatre is Austin’s leading professional producing theatre, employing more than 600 actors, musicians, and designers annually. Founded in 1932, ZACH is the longest running theatre company in Texas, serving 95,000 adults and youth annually. ZACH creates its own nationally recognized plays and musicals that ignite the imagination, lift the spirit, and engage the community under the proven leadership of Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley and Managing Director Elisbeth Challener. Now in its 80th year, ZACH continues to expand and engage with Austin, adding the new 420-seat, 32,000-square-foot Topfer Theatre to its performing arts campus, nearly doubling ZACH’s capacity while retaining its hallmark intimate theatre-going experience. Visit www.zachtheatre.org for more information.



For real-time updates on ZACH Theatre news, events and happenings, visit http://www.zachtheatre.org/blog, like ZACH on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/zachtheatre, and follow ZACH on Twitter @zachtheatre http://www.twitter.com/zachtheatre.

ZACH Theatre is sponsored in part, by Applied Materials, Austin Catering, Four Hands Home, Holiday Inn-Lady Bird Lake, Kirk Tuck Photography, Marquee Event Group, OnRamp, Austin American-Statesman, KXAN TV 36, and Time Warner Cable; and by grants from Junior League of Austin, The Shubert Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, and the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division, which believes an investment in the arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com.



(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Other Desert Cities by Jon Robert Baitz, Austin Playhouse, January 25 - February 24, 2013

by Michael Meigs

In an age when 'dysfunctional' all too often is appended to 'American family' in the U.S. theatre, Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities spends much of its two acts appearing to explore yet another meltdown.


Lyman and Polly Wyeth are prosperous California retirees with backgrounds in Hollywood and Republican politics. Their children are several sorts of messes. The older son got into drugs and then into political violence, getting implicated in a deadly firebombing before disappearing forever from a ferry in the waters outside Seattle. The daughter, Brooke, a promising writer, wound up in a psychiatric institution and is only now crawling back to reality. The younger son's a cynical survivor who produces a television show where small claims are decided by a retired judge and a jury of freaks.

Rick Roemer, Lara Toner (photo: C. Loveless)

Just your average California family, so to speak. And to add some zip, it's Christmas, and the recovering daughter has written a tell-all autobiography that she wants her parents to embrace.


Baitz's script is carefully crafted, loading us up with exposition over the first twenty minutes or so and only slightly stretching our creduility. We're helped by Toner's casting, for Babs George and Rick Roemer give their characters good solid Republican self-assurance. She comfortably inhabits the sharp-tongued, steadily bibulous mother, and Roemer radiates warmth and charisma, no doubt much like that of Ronald Reagan. 

Brooke the wayward daughter is annoying. She suffers from cognitive dissonance, determined to publish the exposé and yet wanting the victims of the revelations, her family, to approve the exercise. Lara Toner does the best she can with the character's whining intensity.


This is a spiritually amorphous California-American family, not anchored anywhere except in bourgeois comfort. Polly is from a Jewish family, but she's not in the least engaged in faith; Lyman's a man of bonhomie and appearances. That is, at least in part, what the play's about: what is really important to these characters, deep down, as Polly threatens to punish their daughter by refusing to speak to her ever again?

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Kickstarter Appeal from Steve Moore for 'Adam Sultan,' Celebrating Austin's Theatre Community, Mortality and This Moment in Time

 



How would you as an Austin theatre artist want to be remembered decades from now? Steve Moore explains the rationale for his play Adam Sultan, scheduled to open at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre at the end of March and asks for your support.

Adam Sultan is a real person here in Austin - a composer, performer, teacher, friend. At the moment, he is still alive.

You can select your own memento and lend it to Steve and the Physical Plant Theatre Company, as many of us already have. You can also donate toward the $4900 the company needs to produce the show. Click HERE or on either Kickstarter logo for further information and to pledge.

 

Adam Sultan is a play slated to open in Austin on March 28th - just about two months from now.
The play centers around a real person in the world named Adam Sultan. Great guy. Lives here in Austin. He's a musician, composer, dancer, storyteller, actor, and teacher.

We imagine Adam's life about forty years in the future. It's the year 2052, and Adam is in his eighties. Many of his dearest friends have died, including his wife -- and much has changed. Including Adam. Over the years he's gone from happy and adventurous to cranky and withdrawn, in large part because the community he was once a part of has disintegrated around him. That's where we begin.

One day, seemingly at random, an exact puppet version of Adam arrives at his apartment. It can't see Adam and can't hear him, but it is definitely alive. It walks, eats, drinks, and sleeps. And it's living some version of Adam's own life....


Go to the Kickstarter page for more information. . . .

OTHER DESERT CITIES by Jon Robin Baitz, Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, January 25 - February 24, 2013

(performing in 2013 at Highland Malll -- click for instructions and map)

presents

Other Desert Cities

by Jon Robin Baitz

directed by Don Toner

January 25 – February 24, 2013

Thursdays–Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.

Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78752

WEB: www.austinplayhouse.com

TICKETS: $28 Thursday/Friday, $30 Saturday/Sunday

$37 Opening Night with champagne reception: Friday, January 25

Box office 512.476.0084 or online at: www.austinplayhouse.com

DISCOUNTS: All student tickets are half-price.

Austin Playhouse is proud to bring Austin audiences Baitz’ powerful family drama. In the award-winning Other Desert Cities, Baitz brings us an emotionally charged play about a family coming to terms with long-held secrets. “Baitz’ latest familial drama manages to be funny, cutting, and illuminating. Secrets, lies, and betrayals play out against a backdrop of Californian affluence and restraint. This is rich dysfunction – zingers are delivered with a whiskey chaser.” –The Huffington Post

Brooke Wyeth (Lara Toner) returns home to Palm Springs after a six-year absence and a mental breakdown to celebrate Christmas with her parents (Babs George and Rick Roemer), her brother (Jacob Trussell), and her aunt (Bernadette Nason). Brooke announces that she is about to publish a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family's history—a wound they don't want reopened. In effect, she draws a line in the sand and dares them all to cross it.

The play premiered Off-Broadway in January 2011 to critical acclaim and transferred to Broadway in November 2011, marking the Broadway debut of a Baitz play. The play was named Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play by the Outer Critics Circle and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. It was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (Click to view Wikipedia article)

Jon Robin Baitz’s plays include My Beautiful Goddamn City, Ten Unknowns, The Paris Letter, Mizlansky/Zilinsky or Schmucks, A Fair Country, The Substance of Fire, and an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. His television credits include The West Wing, Alias, and Brothers and Sisters, which he created.
Production Team Don Toner is the director. Buffy Manners is the costume designer. Don Day is the lighting designer. Set Design is by Don Toner and Patrick Crowley.
Critical Praise "The most richly enjoyable new play for grown-ups that New York has known in many seasons…In his most fully realized play to date, Mr. Baitz makes sure our sympathies keep shifting among the members of the wounded family portrayed here. Every one of them emerges as selfish, loving, cruel, compassionate, irritating, charming and just possibly heroic…leaves you feeling both moved and gratifyingly sated." —NY Times. "Astutely drawn…juicy and surprising." —NY Daily News. "Spending time with these messed-up, complicated people is a genuine pleasure." —NY Post. "Power, passion, and superbly crafted palaver stippled with blowdarts of wit—this is what Baitz does best." —New York Magazine.
Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall
Austin Playhouse is currently performing at Highland Mall. The mall’s South entrance is the most convenient to Austin Playhouse. Take the escalator down to the lower level and turn right. Austin Playhouse is on your right, across from the Express.

Austin Playhouse is a professional theatre currently performing its 13th season. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Don Toner and Associate Artistic Director Lara Toner, Austin Playhouse has grown from a three-play season on the campus of Concordia University, to a year-round operation producing an average of eight plays a year. Austin Playhouse is currently building its own two-performance venue space in the heart of the new Mueller Redevelopment Town Center, adjacent to the new Austin Children’s Museum.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

The Attic Space by Nigel O'Hearn, Palindrome Theatre at the Salvage Vanguard, December 14 - 22

by Michael Meigs


Nigel, this is stupid stuff. There, now I've said it.


You and your friends of Palindrome have made arresting, sometimes astounding art in the three years that you promised yourselves for the experiment after your graduation from the theatre program at St. Ed's. 


You have shown yourself to be an impressive actor and promoter of our dear, beloved and commercially moribund art of live theatre, gathering award nominations and recognition along the way.


You made contacts with some Austin's best in the field, many of them teachers -- Ev Lunning, with whom you worked in the Ar Rude Actors's Equity project of McNeil's A Long Day's Journey into Night directed by Lucien Douglas, and Babs George in that fine Cherry Orchard by Breaking String where appropriately enough you portrayed the eternally yearning and optimistic student Trofimov. 


You were a memorable drifter challenging a stolidly bourgeois Jude Hickey in Albee's At Home at the Zoo, with Robin Grace Thompson as his wife. You crafted a pungent Hedda Gabler last year by reworking someone's literalist pony translation from the original, staged it with Robin successfully here and at the Edinburgh Fringe, and caught the eye of the flattered Norwegians.


Before approaching its three-year expiration date, Palindrome's artists and sometime provocateurs have furnished Austin with fine stagings of classics. I wish I could have seen them all. I missed Babs with Harvey Guion in Arthur Miller's All My Sons last summer, Dario Fo's Accidental Death of An Anarchist, and Sarah Ruhl's Melancholy Play. I did see, and will long remember, Beckett's End Days with Jarrett King, Gabriel Luna and Helyn Rain Messenger.


You've been gracious and forthcoming throughout all of this. I still have a twinge of bad conscience about not recognizing you immediately two years ago when you greeted me in the lobby at the Mary Moody Northen Theatre at the opening night for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, where Babs was Martha and Ev was George. I was glad to get a close-up rehearsal view of the revised Hedda before the departure for Edinburgh last year, and I was flattered to be invited along with other theatre scriveners to last weekend's advance staging for the press of your work The Attic Space, with Babs and Ev. It was a remarkable and unexpected opportunity to mingle briefly before the show with Elizabeth Cobbe of the Austin Chronicle, Jillian Owens and Cate Blouke of the Statesman and newcomer Jeff Davis of www.austin.broadwayworld.com.


The Attic Space seems grossly derivative to me. You've brought your two characters Harold and Harriet together in George Marsolek's claustrophobic and dimly lit attic space that contains the stored detritus of their lives. The dialogue is a similar in style to that of Beckett, full of ellipses and references to shared but unrevealed events and relationships. Harriet is high strung but disconnected; Harold is restrained, patient and long-suffering. She insists on staying in the attic amongst the boxes, trunks and discarded furniture. She's searching for something but doesn't know what that is. Harold urges her to come back downstairs. The dialogue suggests that they feel the suppressed terror of advanced age even though these two actors are plainly in their flourishing middle age.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: The Attic Space by Nigel O'Hearn, Palindrome Theatre at the Salvage Vanguard, December 14 - 22

Palindrome’s Final Production: 7 performances only of

the Premiere of  

The Attic Space

Starring Babs George and Ev Lunning Jr. 

December 14 - December 22 at 8 p.m., Sunday at 6 p.m.,
Donate-what-you-can show Wed 19th
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd. 78722 (click for map)

Ticket Price: $10 subsidized ticket price*
Length: 80 min.

Reservation Website: www.palindrometheatre.com ; Reservation Line: 512-736-5191

Three years ago, when opening their inaugural season with Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, Palindrome Theatre promised it would expire in December 2012. Seven productions, one international festival, and a heap of critical praise (mostly) later, Palindrome is set to do just that after their premiere production of The Attic Space, by Resident Playwright, Artistic Director, and native Austinite Nigel O’Hearn.

Known for their intimate, often provocative, traditionally-influenced aesthetic, Palindrome is building on the classical foundation and intricate theatricality of their past work to present a new play that is at once in keeping with the literary influence of Beckett and Miller while striving for bold, experimental presentation (including meta-puppetry realized by Caroline Reck, Artistic Director of Glass Half Full Theatre, and designed by Tara Cooper).

Directed by O’Hearn, starring Babs George and Ev Lunning Jr. (both courtesy of Actors Equity), and featuring early Palindrome collaborator Helyn Rain Messenger, The Attic Space is an exploration of the capriciousness of memory, the complexity of companionship and the fear of uncertainty that accompanies the recurring life-long search for definite self-evidence; set in the place in our home which we visit the least, yet store all the things we can’t bear to go on without.

*In effort to help educate the Austin public on the cost and cultural impact of professional theatre, and though it costs much more than $10 a ticket to produce a professional play, Palindrome operates under the principle that while the theatre is not free, it should be experienced as a freedom- we do everything in our power to bring our productions to the Austin public at no cost or small cost without devaluing the theatrical event.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Al My Sons by Arthur Miller, Palindrome Theatre at the Salvage Vanguard, July 13 - August 4

presents

All My Sons

by Arthur Miller

directed by Austin Sheffield

with Babs George and Harvey Guion

July 13- August 4, Thurs-Sat at 8 p.m., Sundays at 6 p.m.

Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd. 78722 (click for map)

Open to the public, donations encouraged

Reservation Website: www.palindrometheatre.com - Reservation Line: 512-736-5191

Palindrome presents Arthur Miller’s seminal All My Sons as a way of exploring our nation’s military industrial complex, its reach into our homes, and its intertwining into the fabric of the American Dream.

Directed by Austin Sheffield, staring Babs George, Harvey Guion, and Nathan Osburn as the Kellers, and featuring designs from Holly Jackson, Natalie George, Sarah Aldridge, Buzz Moran, Elliot Haynes and Colin Lowry, Palindrome is offering All My Sons at no admission price to the general public under the belief that while theatre isn’t free, it should be experienced as a freedom.

The Lion in Winter by James Goldman, Austin Playhouse at Mueller Development, November 18 - December 18

Your medieval experience for Austin Playhouse's The Lion in Winter is unexpectedly complete, for in that almost unheated temporary tent structure on the windy plains of the Mueller Development you might just wish you were wearing castle-appropriate fur and wool like those of the period costumes put together for the actors by Diana Huckaby. Although I suspect that they might have been wearing high tech underwear for the long evening during which we sat motionless watching them.

The talkative lady from Chicago who settled next to us at the Sunday performance confided that she was there because high winds had prompted Austin Playhouse to cancel the Saturday staging. She went over to greet Artistic Director Don Toner as he was wrangling a space heater. The temperature fell during the first half of this two-act work, and she and her husband disappeared at the intermission, as did a number of other attendees.

That's the down side, but be of good cheer, for perhaps the cold will abate and you can come prepared. My wife and I were relatively comfortable because we put on hats and pulled out gloves stowed in coat pockets since last February.

The Lion in Winter, staged originally in New York in 1966, is a familiar title thanks largely to the 1968 film of the same name with Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn, which won Goldman an Academy Award for screenwriting. It's the year 1168, as the Queen reminds us in a memorably acerbic line, "and of course everyone is carrying knives." Vaguely based in English history, this piece has few of the complexities of Shakespeare's histories and none of the pageantry. King Henry married well, taking Eleanor and her Aquitaine, consolidating a reign of extent unmatched since the days of Charlemagne almost four centuries earlier. The royal pair had four sons but the first, Henry's namesake, died as a child. Now at the ripe old age of 50 -- ancient for the epoch -- Henry is canoodling with his 16-year-old female ward, he has kept his queen under house arrest in another palace for ten years, and he acknowledges the need to prepare for his succession.

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

Images by Gray G. Haddock for The Lion in Winter, Austin Playhouse, November 18 - December 18

Images by Gray G. Haddock for the production by

of

The Lion in Winter

by James Goldman

November 18 - December 18

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m.
No performance on November 24th (Thanksgiving)
Tickets: $35 opening night, $26 Thursday and Friday, $28 Saturday and Sunday
All student tickets are half-price. $5 discount for subscriber guests

Temporary Facility Location: 1800 1/2 Simond Avenue, Austin, Texas 78722
The temporary facility will be on the corner of Aldrich Street and Simond Avenue in the Mueller Austin Redevelopment. (Click for directions and map)
Austin Playhouse box office: (512) 476-0084 -- E-mail: austinplayhouse@aol.com -- Website: www.austinplayhouse.com
Blog: www.austinplayhouse.blogspot.com

Click 'Read more' to view additional images by Gray G. Haddock at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Ghosts, Penfold Theatre Company and Breaking String Theatre Company at Hyde Park Theatre, October 13 - November 5 (ALT Review 2)

by Michael Meigs

The Penfold-Breaking String joint production of Ghosts is a moody, beautiful piece. Its honesty to Ibsen's 1881 text is almost a disadvantage, for among we twentieth-first century chrononauts will be some who find inexplicable and inherently comic the restraint of his language. How quaint not to name the evils: prostitution, syphillis, debauchery, incest, spouse abuse, addiction, wifely duty, madness, social convention, obligatory purity for women, licensed libertinism for men . . . .

By retaining Ibsen's approach of creating in our minds the unnamed spectres which polite company will not name, director Graham Schmidt takes us back to the sharp blacks and whites of brittle European morality of the 19th century. Never mind that in our own day we indulge and are indulged by broad fields of gray and we celebrate the colors of experiment and diversity.

The subtle set designed by Ia Ensterë captures that world, with a sort of spider web of threads along the walls, wrapping the proper 19th century living space in an evocative indefinition. Costuming by Buffy Manners gives visual reinforcement to time and place -- from Mrs. Alving's gown to the opposed masculine visions of Pastor Manders' Norwegian cleric black and Oswald's muted extravagance.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Ghosts, Penfold Theatre Company and Breaking String Theatre Company at Hyde Park Theatre, October 13 - November 5 (ALT Review 1)

by Hannah Bisewski

Penfold Theatre Company and the Breaking String Theater joined forces to stage Ghosts, producing a well considered work that breathes a fresh vitality into a familiar story. Revolutionary reevaluation of old convention is precisely the theme of Ghosts.

Settling into their seats in the cramped, angular space of the Hyde Park Theatre, the audience sees a dusty, dirty, though elegant, Victorian-era living room. A dim chandelier hangs from a cobweb-lined ceiling. Given the play’s title, an uninformed audience member could reasonably guess that the cast will present a horror story.

Attractive young housemaid Regina Engstrand enters to clean the room, only to be interrupted by her scheming unwelcome father.One has no idea how entangled even the maid is in this family’s self-destructive legacy. Only during the confrontational conversation between the house’s matriarch Helene Alving and the family pastor, Manders, prompted by estate affairs following Captain Alving’s death, do the family secrets begin to spill forth. There are many, further complicated by Helene’s attempt to keep Osvald, her recently returned only son, from discovering any of them.

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

Upcoming: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, Penfold Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, October 13 - November 5

Found on-line:

and

present

Ghosts

by Henrik Ibsen
Adapted and directed by Graham Schmidt
Co-produced with Breaking String Theatre
Classic drama
Running time: About 2 hours 15 minutes, with one intermission.
Content advisory: For mature audiences.

October 13 - November 5, 2011
Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm. Sunday, November 5 at 2:00pm.

Hyde Park Theatre (Map it) 511 West 43rd Street

A special reception will follow the show on opening night.$20 Regular, $18 Students / seniors, $25 Opening night.Tickets go on sale later this season. For more information, call (512) 850-4849 or email us at info@penfoldtheatre.org.

Yesterday's secrets return to haunt you. Tomorrow, a new orphanage will be dedicated in honor of the late Captain Alving, but his widow is tormented by the ghosts of family secrets. Keeping these secrets may prove an impossible burden, but exposing them could spell ruin for the entire family. This classic masterpiece of modern drama features Babs George is produced in partnership with Breaking String Theatre.

Youth Opportunity: Shakespeare on the Hill does Love's Labor's Lost, Austin Shakespeare and St. Edward's University

Found at Ann Ciccolella's blog at

Shakespeare Summer Camp at St. Ed's

features Love's Labour's Lost, too!

Shakespeare on the Hill with Austin Shakespeare, June 13 - 17

Join a wonderful group of young people, led by Artistic Director Ann Ciccolella with guest artists such as actress and teacher Babs George. This week in mid-June will culminate in the students performing a short version of Love's Labour's Lost --- the show that the adult professional company is doing at Zilker Hillside Theater!

June 13–17 • ages 12–17 • 9:30 a.m.–4 p.m.

Be a part of one of Austin’s most popular theater workshops for high school and

middle school actors. This comprehensive workshop includes:

• Acting

• Text Analysis

• Stage Combat

• Voice

• Shakespearean History

The workshop concludes with a performance on the St. Edward’s campus!

Information: 512-428-1297, mikeem @ stedwards.edu or or ann @ austinshakespeare.org

Upcoming: Don Juan in Hell by George Bernard Shaw, staged reading by Austin Shakespeare, Rollins Theatre, February 27

Received directly:

-- presents --

a staged reading of

Don Juan in Hell

by George Bernard Shaw

one night only: Sunday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m.

Rollins Theatre of The Long Center for the Performing Arts

Tickets available at thelongcenter.frontgatesolutions.com (512) 474-5664

or nowplayingaustin.com/DonJuaninHell (512-474-8497)

All tickets $15

Don Juan in Hell is a staged reading of Bernard Shaw's witty "Parliament in Hell" on the progress -- or lack thereof -- of humankind. Harvey Guion appears as the suave Devil, Shelby Davenport as the rambunctious Don Juan, Babs George as the fabulously quizzical Doña Ana and Ev Lunning, Jr. as the comic commendatore father of Don Juan. The audience is invited to join the fun in a post performance discussion.

Review from Elsewhere: Ba

Quoted in its entirety, from Austinist.com:

FronteraFest Long Fringe 2011 Review:

A Writers Vision(s) at Salvage Vanguard Theater

John Boulanger knows American absurdism. His precedent-setting House of Several Stories, which garnered the ACTF National Student Playwrighting Award in 2008, presented a refreshing reminder of the genre's ability to stun and strike a deep, resonating cord. Viewers expecting something like a repeat of this stylistic acrobatics show be forewarned: despite typical elements like negligent mothers, incompetent therapists, and general confusion about reality, this show is only absurdist-ish. It's straight-up zany. This show simply won't allow you to take it seriously. Don't bother trying.

It's not just mad-cap and unleashed; there's technically a through-line narrated Seuss-style about a struggling writer visited a la Christmas Carol by three representations of his sub-conscious in his efforts to unclog unclear-to-him blockages in his latest creative process. It hardly matters though; the ridiculousness effervescing through the piece suffices in the place of any real meaning (though admission of this at the end of the piece comes across as unnecessarily defiant). It's a rambunctious pastiche of farce, absurdism, and pop cultural weirdness stuffed with appearances of local theatrical luminaries like Babs George, Jill Blackwood, Martin Burke, and Laura Lane that, in lieu of receiving Equity-scale pay, revel in enjoying themselves on-stage. Most successfully, it’s masturbatory and thoroughly self-amusing without being alienating. Like its lead character in the end, it simply refuses to take the process of writing "seriously" and is all the better for it.

By Bastion Carboni in Arts and Entertainment on January 25, 2011

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, November 11 - 21

I knew that this was going to be intense. I had invited friends to see it with me, and we had seats in the middle of the front row, south side of the "theatre in the square" at the Mary Moody Northen Theatre. After Michelle Polgar had dedicated the opening night's performance to the memory of Oscar Brockett, that grand old man of Austin theatre, the lights began to fade and I had a feeling similar to that you get when you light the fuse on a fistful of firecrackers and throw them down.

My usual view is that a cinema version of the text is irrelevant to the stage performance, but here I have to admit that in any staging of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the ghost of Richard Burton and the presence of Elizabeth Taylor roil fitfully about the set. The movie rating code had just been instituted when Mike Nichols' film was released in 1966. The MPAA had relented after a couple of minor revisions of the dialogue and gave it a "suggested for mature audiences" rating. In my town meant that you had to be 18 years of age to get in, unless accompanied by a parent. My father, a secret movie buff, insisted that I see it and he stood behind me as my 17-year-old self bought my ticket.

Thirteen Academy award nominations, including for Nichols as director and all four in the cast, with five wins, including Taylor as the monstrous Martha and Sandy Dennis as an unforgettably inebriated bubble-blowing little wife. So how can a contemporary theatrical production stand up to that?

The answer in Austin is simple but three-fold: by playing to an audience predominantly of college students who do not know the film; by enlisting Babs George for the role of Martha and Ev Lunning Jr. for the role of George; and with Christie Moore's tight direction in Leilah Stewart's starkly effective, almost claustrophobic set.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .