(*) 2014-2015 Theatre Season at Playhouse San Antonio

Playhouse season focuses on women

By Deborah Martin : January 9, 2014

The Playhouse San Antonio is starting the new year by looking ahead to next season.

The theater's 2014-'15 season focuses heavily on women, featuring several pieces written by female playwrights, including a world premiere, and a number of juicy roles for actresses.


Here's the lineup for the Russell Hill Rogers stage upstairs:

The Wizard of Oz, Oct. 3-Nov. 2: Odds are, you know the story — tornado-displaced Dorothy tries to make her way home — as well as the music, including “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” and “Over the Rainbow.”

Fiddler on the Roof, Dec. 5-22: Patrons frequently request the musical, said Playhouse President and CEO Asia Ciaravino. It follows a family in a time of transition, as the parents cleave to tradition and their daughters start to venture into a changing world.

Gypsy, Feb. 13-March 15: The musical is based on the childhood of burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, who was raised by a stage parent who went by the handle Mama Rose.

Drood (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), May 29-June 21: The musical is based on Charles Dickens' unfinished novel “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” The audience determines the ending.

Grease, July 17-Aug. 16: The final audience fave of the upstairs season looks at the greasers and their gals at Rydell High in 1959.

Sheila Rinear (via Express-News)

And here's what the Cellar Theater lineup holds:

End of the Rainbow, Oct. 10-Nov. 2: The piece, which looks at Judy Garland's final days, will run concurrently with “Wizard of Oz,” Ciaravino said. The film version of “Wizard” helped establish Garland's place as a pop culture superstar, so offering the two shows will allow audiences to explore her work from two perspectives.

Merry Gentlemen, Dec. 11-14: San Antonio-based playwright Sheila Rinear will spend this year working with students and community members to develop this piece, a holiday-themed work that will premiere in the Cellar.

The Last Five Years, Jan. 30-Feb. 22: Jason Robert Brown's musical about the end of a relationship is built around a nifty gimmick: The wife tells her version of events beginning at the end and moving backward through time, while her soon-to-be-ex-husband tells things in chronological order.

Crime and Punishment, March 13-April 5: Marilyn Campbell's and Curt Columbus' script boils the Dostoyevsky novel into a taut 90 minutes.

4000 Miles, May 15-June 7: Amy Herzog's play is about a young man who suffers a loss and recovers by moving in with his 91-year-old grandmother.

Water by the Spoonful, July 3-26: Quiara Alegría Hudes's Pulitzer Prize winning drama is about an Iraqi war veteran trying to forge a life for himself stateside.

In addition, plans are afoot for Motherhood Out Loud, a Vagina Monologues-like look at parenting; it's slated to run May 8-10. Ciaravino is making plans to present it away from The Playhouse. The production will be a fundraiser for the theater's education programs.


dlmartin@express-news.net

(*) Jump-Start Performance Company Moves Out of Blue Star, Express-News, January 7, 2014

 

Jump-Start bids farewell to Blue Star

By Deborah Martin : January 7, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — Billy Muñoz was a little startled last weekend to discover that the stage at Jump-Start Performance Co.'s current home in the Blue Star Arts Complex was gone.

“I felt a little saddened by it,” said Muñoz, who became a Jump-Start company member in 2002. “I don't really pray, I don't really do any of that. But any time that I did a show, I would go and touch the stage and just kind of have this moment — 'Treat me well.' And now it's gone.”

That particular ritual will continue in a different form before he takes part in “Performance Party 29: Wrecking Ball” on Saturday, he said: “I'll touch the platforms or the floor.”

ARTHeism by Samantha Beasley and Topher Sipes (photo: Kevin Bradley)

The stage — along with virtually everything else that the company has accumulated in its 20 years in the space — has been moved out. “Performance Party 29: Wrecking Ball,” which starts at 7 p.m. Saturday, will be the company's final performance in the Blue Star Arts Complex.

Jump-Start learned in April that its lease was not being renewed. After a few months of hunting, they found a new home in a cozy spot at 710 Fredericksburg Road, in the heart of the nascent Beacon Hill arts district.

Read more at www.MySA.com

Read CTXLT article of December 31 about Jump-Start's Wrecking Ball fundraiser

(*) Deborah Martin: Overtime Theatre's 2014 Season, San Antonio

Overtime's 2014 season holds all-new material, including a weekly serial

By Deborah Martin : January 2, 2014

Overtime Artistic Director Kyle Gillette (via MySA.com)

SAN ANTONIO — When the folks at the Overtime Theater sat down to choose their 2014 lineup, they had a lot to choose from.

After their call for original work went viral, the company ended up getting around 300 scripts, a huge increase in the usual pool, said Kyle Gillette, the company's artistic director: “I'd say it was three or four times what we normally get.”

The scripts came from all over the country.

A total of 15 wide-ranging pieces — including a new serial — made the final cut. One piece, Overtime Executive Director Michael Burger's “The Beasts of Baverly Grove,” will take place in both of the Overtime's theaters.

To get the complete story, audiences will need to check out the show in each space. It plays Oct. 17-Nov. 15.

For the most part, the smaller, more experimental pieces this year can be seen in the Overtime's smaller space. That theater, which has been informally known as the Li'l OT, has been named The Stables. The name is a nod to the stables where director David Lynch shot some of his surreal 1977 classic “Eraserhead,” Gillette said.

Click to view Express-News listing of season by titles, dates and Overtime venues

(*) Deborah Martin's Favorites for San Antonio Theatre in 2013, Express-News, December 26, 2013

Best of 2013: Stage

December 26, 2013

This was a very good year for fiercely original work, including several pieces created out of whole cloth and fresh takes on “Hamlet” and “Little Shop of Horrors.”

Here's the best of the best:

• “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” Woodlawn Black Box Theatre
• “The Book of Mormon,” Broadway in San Antonio
• “Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” Overtime Theater
• “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Sheldon Vexler Theatre
• “Hetarae,” Jump-Start Performance Co.
• “I Am Celso,” Teatro Farolito
• “In the Heights,” Woodlawn Theater
• “Les Miserables,” Playhouse
• “Little Shop of Horrors,” Sheldon Vexler Theatre
• “Method & Madness: Hamlet 2013,” Jump-Start Performance Co. and Classic Theatre
• “Other Desert Cities,” Inception Theatre
• “Painting Churches,” Classic Theatre
• “Picnic,” Playhouse Cellar Theatre
• “Port Cove,” Overtime Theater
• “Ragtime,” Playhouse
• “Red,” Playhouse Cellar Theater
• “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Klose/Seale Productions
• “Treasure Island,” Magik Theatre
• “Waiting for Lefty,” Proxy Theatre Company:
• “White,” AtticRep and the Aesthetic of Waste
• “Wittenberg,” Playhouse Cellar 

Deborah Martin

Playhouse's Tribe Brings Theatre to Teens, by Deborah Martin, San Antonio Express-News

 

Playhouse's Tribe brings arts to teens

By Deborah Martin  December 20, 2013

Daniel Quintero (photo: Jim Reel via San Antonio Express-News)SAN ANTONIO — Daniel Quintero remembers really, really wanting to be involved with theater, and not being entirely sure how to make that happen.

Quintero, 18, eventually found his way to The Playhouse San Antonio, scoring an internship and launching the Daniel the Intern blog, where he provides a behind-the-scenes look at goings-on at the theater.

A few months ago, he started working on a project to give other teens a similar experience.

“I want other kids that have that same yearning to have the opportunity to engage themselves in theater,” Quintero said. “I'm a senior (at Keystone School); I'll be gone in a year. I want to leave behind something I didn't have.”

That something is The Tribe, a group of high school and college students based at The Playhouse. The roughly 20 members — all of whom have made cash donations to the theater as part of the program, giving them a literal investment in the theater — help market The Playhouse. They also see Playhouse productions and serve as an informal welcoming committee at performances, chatting with audience members about the theater and whatever show is taking place. 

They've also helped facilitate events: Quintero recently mediated a Q&A following a performance of the play “Wittenberg” in the Cellar Theater.

They host some of their own events, too. Their first was a preview of the spring shows in the Cellar Theater; all of the Tribe members delivered spirited readings from the plays.

The program was modeled, in part, on the Young Adult Council, a teen group based at the acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

Amy Mireles, Naomi Villegas, Andrew Gutierrez (photo: Jim Reel via San Antonio Express-News)

Read more at San Antonio Express-News

(*) Profile by Deborah Martin: Chet Walker Directs Pippin at Trinity University

Quick on his feet for 'Pippin'

By Deborah Martin : November 7, 2013

Jonathan Moore, Chet Walker, Alberto Moore (photo: Robin Jerstad, Express-News)

Broadway director and choreographer Chet Walker is all about saying yes.

Would he be willing to come to Serbia to work with autistic kids? Yes. Would he like to come to Tel Aviv to choreograph “The Producers”? Absolutely. How about spending a few weeks at Trinity University as part of the Stieren Arts Enrichment Series, directing and choreographing a student production of “Pippin”? Why not?


The musical, which follows a young man's quest for fulfillment, opens Friday at Trinity.


Directing and choreographing weren't the only tasks Walker fulfilled during his stay here. He also gave a lecture about his career, and saying yes to things was the big take-away from it.


“I told them how (whether) you're coming up, you're coming down, you just don't know where you're going to be,” said Walker, 59. “So you kind of have to be open to anything.”


Saying yes has worked out pretty well for Walker. He started dancing on Broadway when he was a teenager; the original run of “Pippin” was his second professional credit. Most recently, he choreographed the circus-themed revival of “Pippin” on Broadway, a big-buzz show for which he received a Tony nomination and a slew of other awards. (His favorite is the Fred and Adele Astaire Award for Choreography “because that's why you do the things you do, is because of that man.”)



His decision to come to Trinity while “Pippin” is still wowing crowds on Broadway owes something to serendipity. The university's theater department had lined up someone else as part of the Stieren series this fall; when that deal fell apart in May, there was some scrambling to find a replacement.

Click to read full article at MySanAntonio.com

Changes at the Classic Theatre, San Antonio, from the San Antonio Express-News, October 28, 2013

From Deborah Martin's 'Art Beat' column at the Express-News:





by Deborah Martin  October 28, 2013

There’s been some shifting behind the scenes at Classic Theatre.

Renee Garvens, who had been the company’s education director and also handled its marketing, has moved to Magik Theatre as a development associate.

Joseph Urick, an actor who is also on the faculty at San Antonio College, came on board several weeks ago to handle the company’s PR. Urick is also Classic’s resident fight choreographer, a skill he has also put to use with other companies. Most recently, he took care of the fight choreography for “Les Miserables” at the Playhouse.

And Christie Beckham, who has often appeared on stage in Classic productions and taught drama at Clark High School, is joining the company as its education director.

Both will also appear onstage in Classic’s “Taming of the Shrew,” which opens Nov. 8 at the Sterling Houston Theater at Jump-Start.

San Antonio Express-News Posts Alamo Theatre Arts Council 2013 Globe Award Winners for October 13 Ceremony

What shows are getting ATAC Globes? Here’s the list

as posted by Deborah Martin, September 19, 2013

Eighteen San Antonio productions will be recognized at the Alamo Theatre Arts Council’s Globe Awards next month.

Awards will be given for acting, directing, design and other achievements.

Shows and theaters slated to receive awards are:

University of the Incarnate Word: “Italian American Reconciliation.”

Classic Theatre: “Scapin,” “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Painting Churches.”

Sheldon Vexler Theatre: “The 39 Steps,” “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “August: Osage County.”

Woodlawn Black Box Theatre: “Chapter Two” and “When Pigs Fly.”

Woodlawn Theatre: “In the Heights” and “The Producers.”

Trinity University: “La Tempesta.”

Playhouse Cellar Theater: “Red.”

Playhouse: “Ragtime” and “Spring Awakening.”

Overtime Theatre: “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”

San Antonio College: “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

Harlequin Dinner Theatre: “Let’s Go to the Movies.”

In addition, the Jasmina Wellinghoff Award, which recognizes contributions to the San Antonio theater community, will go to director William McCrary and director/choreographer Michelle Pietri, a husband-and-wife team who teach at UTSA and who have worked with theaters all over town.

Folks who show up for the awards ceremony will get to vote on a People’s Choice Award, which will be given that evening.

Molly Cox, who directed the soon-to-be-award-winning staging of “Ragtime,” will host.

Cocktails are at 6 p.m. and the curtain rises at 7 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Charline McCombs Empire Theatre. Tickets, which cost $35, go on sale soon at the Majestic Theatre box office and all Ticketmaster outlets.

San Antonio: Deborah Martin's Best of SA Stages in 2012, San Antonio Express-News

The Best of 2012: Stage

Tracy Letts' works stood out in S.A. theaters

By Deborah Martin, December 29, 2012

[CLICK ILLUSTRATION TO GO TO A 15-IMAGE SLIDE SHOW FROM WWW.MYSANANTONIO.COM]

Rusty Thurman, Allan S. Ross, Kat Connor (image: Dwayne Greene)

This was a big year for playwright Tracy Letts' work on local stages.

Letts wrote three of 2012's strongest productions. The biggie was the Sheldon Vexler Theatre's stunning San Antonio debut of his masterpiece, “August: Osage County.” Every aspect of the director Paul Fillingim's production was rooted in truth, resulting in a show about family that was both funny and shattering.

The two other Letts shows that popped up to excellent effect were the Playhouse Cellar's “Superior Donuts,” including nuanced and heartbreaking turns from Bill Gundry and Kristopher “K.T.” Thomas; and the Rose Theatre Company's aptly disturbing staging of “Killer Joe.”

The other memorable shows this year included:
“King Lear,” Classic Theatre: Allan S. Ross delivered a towering performance in the title role.

“Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” AtticRep: Gloria Sanchez-Molina, who stepped into the monster role of Martha less than three weeks before the show opened, crafted one of the performances of the year. She was well-matched by the rest of the cast, especially the great David Connelly as Martha's seething husband/sparring partner, George.

“íCarpa!” Jump-Start Performance Co.: Billy Muñoz's immersive trek back in time was funny, visually striking and achingly sad.

“Open Sesame!” Overtime Theater: Playwright Rick Stemm's inventive Bollywood/panto mash-up, staged with a sense of merriment by director Kyle Gillette, may have been the most fun you could have in a theater this year.

“Firebugs,” Classic Theatre: Director Diane Malone pulled together a sizzling, unsettling take on Max Frisch's absurdist play.

“A View from the Bridge,” Sheldon Vexler Theatre: Vividly drawn performances from Scott Leibowitz and Belinda Harolds provided the foundation for director Jim Mammarella's explosive production.

“Macbeth,” Proxy Theatre Co.: Staged in a tiny space, director Nathan Thurman's production had a visceral kick that was tough to shake.

“God of Carnage,” AtticRep: The dark comedy about adults behaving childishly — complete with a set surrounded by a sandbox — was memorably tart and funny.

“I-DJ,” Overtime Theater: Rick Sanchez delivered a fierce, fantastic performance in Gregg Barrios' far-reaching piece, which helped open the Overtime's new home in fine style.

“25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” Woodlawn Black Box: The musical's misfit spellers — particularly those played by Ben Carlee, Benjamin Scharff and Walter Songer — were weird and winning.

“Les Misérables,” Broadway in San Antonio series at the Majestic Theatre: Given a complete overhaul for its 25th anniversary, the touring production earned many goosebumps and prompted many tears.

“An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein,” Cameo Theatre's Zumbro Lounge: Four versatile comics presented offbeat skits and songs.

“Hello, Dolly!” Playhouse: An excellent Katy Stafford Moore played the title role and got terrific support in the staging.

“My Fair Lady,” Playhouse: Director Frank Latson's smooth and creamy production included a superb rendering of “On the Street Where You Live” by Christopher Garcia.

“American Buffalo,” AtticRep: The company ends the year on a strong note with a pitch-perfect staging, which closes today.

Freelance writer Michael E. Barrett contributed to this list.       dlmrtin@express-news.net

Read at www.mysanantonio.com . . . .