CYBERFEST, Ethos at the Vortex, September 20 - 28, 2013

ethos presents

Cyber-Fest 2013

An Audio-Visual Immersion Event
September 20-28, 2013 9 p.m.
Friday-Sunday, September 20-22 and Thursday-Saturday, September 26-28
Join us for cocktails with the artists after the shows
The VORTEX, 2307 Manor Rd. Austin, TX 78722 - click for map Free Parking. Bus Route. The Butterfly Bar@The VORTEX--open nightly at 5 pm
Tickets: $30-$10: $30 Priority Seating, $20 General Admission , $10 Artists/Students
Available at www.vortexrep.org or 512-478-5282. Advance Purchase Recommended.
Radical Rush—Limited Free tickets available nightly at 8pm.
The VORTEX rocks the doors wide open for CyberFest-- an audio-visual emersion event. This extraordinary live musical performance features fantastical costumes, stunning lighting, spectacular hyper-real imagery, cybernetic movement, and electronic music-- showcasing the original work of ethos, an Austin-based performance troupe headed by composer and visionary Chad Salvata. A blend of electronic media and live performance transcends a typical theatrical or musical experience. This concert-style show invites the audience to dance, drink, tweet, and take photos. In fact, there will be an Instagram photo contest during the performances. The Grand Prize will be a Cybernetic Makeover and photo session as well as a collection of ethos CDs.
Since 1995, Chad Salvata has been shaping ethos’ unique work and vision. CyberFest includes great songs from ethos’ award-winning cybernetic operas including The Black Blood, Panoptikon, Triskelion, and Elytra as well as Pythia Dust, Pink Sun, and The Dragonfly Queen. Additionally, CyberFest presents a sneak preview of three new songs from ethos’ upcoming film Octia of the Pink Ocean, the long-awaited sequel to Elytra and even a rocking new version of a Salvata classic, Invisible House. Over the past 20 years, ethos has received many B. Iden Payne Awards and Austin Critics’ Table Awards for Outstanding Original Scores, Costume Design, Performance, and Multi-media Excellence.
CyberFest features a cast of ethos all-stars including Melissa Vogt-Paterson, Anderson Dear, Betsy McCann, Eryn Gettys, JoBeth Henderson, Mick D’arcy, Justin LaVergne, Emerald Mystiek, Trey Deason, Gabriel Maldonado, Aisha Melhem, and Chad Salvata. With Tyler Mabry on Keyboards and Matthew Patterson on Percussion.
Directed by Bonnie Cullum. Lighting Design by Jason Amato. Video Design by Sergio R. Samayoa. Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon. Costume Coordination by Talena Martinez. Sound Design by Roy Talyor. Stage Management by Tamara L. Farley.
Tickets and more information www.vortexrep.org
CyberFest is funded and supported in part by VORTEX Repertory Company and by the City of Austin through the Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office/Cultural Arts Division, believing 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)

EARTH, conceived by Bonnie Cullum, Vortex Repertory, March 22 - April 20, 2013

(Vortex Repertory Company, 2307 Manor Rd.)
presents

Earth

Conceived and Directed by Bonnie Cullum. Original Music by Chad Salvata and Chris Humprey

March 22 - April 20, 2013

Vortex Repertory Company, 2307 Manor Rd., Thursdays - Sundays, 8 p.m.

VORTEX Repertory Company presents the world premiere of EARTH, a new multi-disciplinary show performed in a mountain of dirt. The audience surrounds an actual mound of moist earth that engages the senses as performers sing, dance, play, and tell stories of the Earth from diverse global mythologies.

Conceived and directed by Bonnie Cullum, EARTH is the next in VORTEX’s The Elementals, a series of devised works with sacred intention. As we embrace the power and magic of the elemental forces of Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit, we intertwine ritual and environmental action with our theatrical art.

Tickets:

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

2-for-1 admission on Thursdays and Sundays with donation of 2 canned goods for SafePlace.

ASL Interpreted April 5


EARTH features a stellar cast of VORTEX Repertory Company members-- Mick D’arcy, Anderson Dear, Gabriel Maldonado, Betsy McCann, Emerald Mystiek, Mindy Rast-Keenan, and Melissa Vogt-Patterson with the VORTEX debut of Aisha Melhem.

Conceived and Directed by Bonnie Cullum. 

Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon. Lighting Design by Jason Amato. Costume Design by Talena Martinez. Choreography by Toni Bravo. Original Music by Chad Salvata and Chris Humphrey. Stage Management by Tamara L. Farley. Production photography by Kimberley Mead.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Water (the elementals series), Vortex Repertory, September 1 - 29

Vortex Repertory Company

presents the world premier of

  

WATER

Get Ready to Be Wet!

September 1-29, 2012 Thursdasy-Sundays 8 pm
The VORTEX, 2307 Manor Rd. Austin, TX 78722 (click for map)

Tickets: $30-$25 Priority Seating, $15-$20 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists
Available at www.vortexrep.org or call 512-478-5282

Limited seating. Advanced Purchase Recommended.

Free Parking. Bus Route. The Butterfly Bar @ The VORTEX (open nightly at 5pm)

[image posted on Facebook by Vortex Repertory]

Splash Zone!

WATER is next in The Elementals series that Bonnie Cullum has been crafting with VORTEX Repertory Company for several years (AIR and FIRE). In September, VORTEX artists flood the stage with actual water and shimmering effects. The actors dance through water-- swimming the depths, relishing life force, honoring Water in many forms, and engaging the audience in a visceral journey of cleansing, healing, and heart. Devised in collaboration with the ensemble and designers and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, WATER teams Cullum with long-time collaborator Toni Bravo to create a show unlike anything ever seen at The VORTEX.

WATER features a stellar cast of ShapeShifters including VORTEX veterans Andy Agne, Anderson Dear, Krysta Gonzales, Gabriel Maldonado, Chelsea Manasseri, Betsy McCann, Emerald Mystiek, Minerva Villa, and Joanna Wright with the VORTEX debuts of Rebecca Goldstein, Monza Lui, and Caleb Perkins.

Conceived and Directed by Bonnie Cullum. Choreography by Toni Bravo. Original Music by Chad Salvata. Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon. Lighting Design by Jason Amato. Costume Design by Talena Martinez. Stage Management by Tamara L. Farley. Photography by Kimberley Mead.

WATER is funded and supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin's future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com.

Vortex Repertory Company announces

the world premier of

WATER

Get Ready to Be Wet!

When: September 1-29, 2012 Thursday-Sunday 8pm

Where: 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. Advanced Purchase Recommended.

Splash Zone!

WATER is next in The Elementals series that Bonnie Cullum has been crafting with VORTEX Repertory Company for several years (AIR and FIRE). In September, VORTEX artists flood the stage with actual water and shimmering effects. The actors dance through water-- swimming the depths, relishing life force, honoring Water in many forms, and engaging the audience in a visceral journey of cleansing, healing, and heart. Devised in collaboration with the ensemble and designers and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, WATER teams Cullum with long-time collaborator Toni Bravo to create a show unlike anything ever seen at The VORTEX.

WATER features a stellar cast of ShapeShifters including VORTEX veterans Andy Agne, Anderson Dear, Krysta Gonzales, Gabriel Maldonado, Chelsea Manasseri, Betsy McCann, Emerald Mystiek, Minerva Villa, and Joanna Wright with the VORTEX debuts of Rebecca Goldstein, Monza Lui, and Caleb Perkins.

Conceived and Directed by Bonnie Cullum. Choreography by Toni Bravo. Original Music by Chad Salvata. Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon. Lighting Design by Jason Amato. Costume Design by Talena Martinez. Stage Management by Tamara L. Farley. Photography by Kimberley Mead.

WATER is funded and supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin's future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com.

Upcoming: The Elementals: Air, Vortex Repertory, February 18 - March 20

Found on-line:

presents the world premiere of

The Elementals: AIR

Sacred Dance Theatre
conceived andd irected by Bonnie Cullum, music by Chris Humphrey
Feb.18-Mar.20, 2011; Thursdays-Sundays @ 8 p.m.

Tickets: $30-$25 Priority Seating, $20-$15 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists
Thursdays and Sundays 2-for-1 admission with donation of 2 non-perishable food items for SafePlace Pantry.

Limited seating. Advanced purchase recommended.

[image: "Towering Clouds," Shi Yali, www.stockphoto.com

Fresh Breezes. Heavenly Song. Fearless Flying.
Storm Winds. Gentle Floating. Sweet Scent.
Pulsating Didgeridoo. Glowing Sunrise.
Soaring Eagle. Starfinder.

The Elementals: AIR celebrates the gifts and stories of Air through dance, song, poetry, and sacred intention. AIR features aerial dance, live music, poetic narrative, and illuminating imagery on a multi-level playground. Environmental themes focus on the precious Elemental Forces of Air. Spirits of the Air include Eagle, Butterfly, Sylph, Dragon, Phoenix, Harpy, Angel, and Airbender. AIR is the first in a unique series of five sacred elemental explorations (Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Spirit) to be created collaboratively with performers and designers over the next several years at The Vortex.

The Elementals: AIR features VORTEX veteran performers Gabriel Maldonado, Betsy McCann, Andy Agne, Jennifer Coy, Krysta Gonzales, Justin LaVergne, and Alejandro Rodriguez. Making their VORTEX debuts with AIR: Celeste Bliss, Bethany Summersizzle, Courtney Brock, Joanna Wright, Kylie Baker, Jenny Lavery, and Carole Metellus.

Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon. Lighting Design by Patrick Anthony and Jason Amato. Costume Design by Talena Martinez.

The Elementals: AIR is funded in part by VORTEX Repertory Company, the City of Austin under the auspices of the Austin Arts Commission, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Upcoming: R.U.R., Rossum's Universal Robots, Vortex Youth Production

Found on-line:

VORTEX Summer Youth Theater
presents

R.U.R. Rossum’s Universial Robots
by Karel Capek|
Directed by Gabriel Maldonado
Jul.31-Aug.02 (Friday-Sunday) AND Aug.06-08 (Thur-Sat)
8 pm !! Only 6 shows !!

Tickets: $30-$10: $30-$25 Priority Seating, $20-$15 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists
Limited seating. Advanced purchase recommended.

Journey into a chillingly plausible future of artificial intelligence and human cloning in Karel Capek’s prophetic 1920’s play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Capek’s play introduced the term “robot” into the English language. Summer Youth Theatre brings this treasure of modern drama to life in a stylish new production, directed by Gabriel Maldonado.

R.U.R. features adult guest artists Daniel Sawtelle and Andy Agne. The Summer Youth Company features students from around Central Texas including, Cooper Acord, Ariel Atlas, Hayley Armstrong, Zeni Bechtol, Anjelica Hymel, Stephanie Lumpkin, Anissa L. McVea, Hannah Newcomer, Wyndham Shortt, Ismael Sobek, Xander Slay-Tamkin, and Cassidy Timms.

Scenic Design by award-winning resident designer, Ann Marie Gordon. Lighting Design by Patrick Anthony. Costume Design by Talena Martinez. Sound Design by David DeMaris. Assistant Direction by Jonathan Blackwell. Stage Management by Adam Gunderson. Production Management by Helen Parish.

Photo by Kimberley Meade.

The Austin Chronicle lauds VORTEX’s Summer Youth Theatre (SYT) as “The Best Theatre for Kids That Treats Kids Like Grownups”. Now in its 18th year, SYT has mentored hundreds of Central Texas students, teaming them with adult professionals to create many award-winning productions of great world literature including Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, The Visit, Vitriol and Violets: Tales from the Algonquin Round Table, Machinal, The Frogs, and Moby Dick.

Oceana, A Musical, Vortex Repertory, May 9 - June 3

There is, indeed, an oceanic feel to the staging of this production. Arriving spectators are welcomed by undulant costumed young persons bathed in blue and green lights designed by Jason Amato. The actors are welcoming, slithery, playful and exotically costumed. Director/author Bonnie Cullum extends the compact playing space of the Vortex vertically, transforming it at times into the visual equivalent of an aquarium. She stations her three singing sirens on a high shelf across the back, with the band mostly out of sight in the grotto below them.

Steel gym rings hang just out of reach of the front rows on either side of that V-thrust stage, and the sleekly muscular merpeople regularly hoist themselves fluidly up and around those swaying fixtures. Anyone with scuba diving experience recognizes at once the promise of liquid flight and freedom from gravity that they evoke. As well as the surprise and satisfaction of coming face to face with schools of fishy creatures -- the cast numbers 14, and most of them are somewhere on that compact stage throughout the presentation.

Cheerful mischief marks these goings-on. For example, I had placed myself in the front row; one of those swinging mer-guys reached down, and with a flick, untied my shoelace. While the characters spoke with mythic seriousness, they often moved in poses, prances, and postures, emphasizing their otherworldliness.

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

Auditions for Youth: for RUR at Vortex Repertory Summer Program, auditions May 19 - June 2

VORTEX Summer Youth Theater
presents

R.U.R.
Rossum’s Universial Robots
by Karel Capek

Karel Capek, one of Chzechoslovakia’s most renowned playwrights, wrote R.U.R. in 1920. This visionary play addresses concerns about the loss of human individuality. It presents immediate correlations with contemporary issues of artificial intelligence and scientific cloning. R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) first coined the term robot.

The VORTEX’s Summer Youth Theatre’s production provides students unique opportunities with exceptional world literature, challenging language, stylized movement, extraordinary characters, and technical theatre.

Auditions & Interviews May 19-June 2, 2009
DOWNLOAD SYT BROCHURE AND APPLICATION

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

The School for Scandal, Vortex Summer Youth Theatre

Summer theatre programs for young persons are wonderful. I got my own start treading the boards in just such an enterprise. The Vortex Repertory in east Austin has run its tuition-free program for 13- to 17-year-old actors since 1991. The theatre has racked up awards and the participating students have gotten their own rewards, intrinsic and experiential. For this production of Sheridan’s School for Scandal the company of 14 actors worked with Vortex resident artists Betsy McCann and Gabriel Maldonado (directors) and Stephen Fay, as well as a full technical team of Vortex regulars. I attended the Thursday, July 31 performance of their second and final weekend, for which the 150-seat theatre was two-thirds full.

The School for Scandal was staged in May, 1777, at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, which Sheridan had purchased from the famous David Garrick.


The text is a challenging read and even more challenging in presentation. Sheridan creates for us the glittering world of London aristocratic society, peopled with bejeweled gossips, the idle, and the profligate. In the first scene we meet the conniving Lady Sneerwell (Brenna Pritchard, left), who is adroitly planting gossip around town with the assistance of her conniving assistant Snake (Hayley Armstrong, right).

A dual intrigue develops. It involves, first, the foolish knight Sir Peter Teazle (Fay), married late in life to a country girl (Anjelica Jewell) who has fallen for the glamour of city ways, tattling, spending and flirting.

Secondly, acquainted with Teazle and Sneerwell’s gossips are two brothers, Joseph the hypocrite and Charles the wastrel, whom we see exposed when their long-distant benefactor Sir Oliver (Jonathan Blackwell) returns incognito from India. To assess their characters, he interviews them, separately, in assumed identities as an impoverished distant relative and as a moneylender willing to bid for family portraits, the last assets of the house.

Theatre historians report that the idea of a "scandalous college" of gossips had occurred to Sheridan five years earlier in connection with his own experiences in Bath:

“His difficulty was to find a story sufficiently dramatic in its incidents to form a subject for the machinations of the character-slayers. He seems to have tried more than one plot, and in the end to have desperately forced two separate conceptions together. The dialogue is so brilliant throughout, and the auction scene and the screen scene so effective, that the construction of the comedy meets with little criticism. . . . “

[from Encyclopedia Britanica, 1911, quoted at http://www.theatrehistory.com/irish/sheridan001.html]

The wit and brilliance of the dialogue are the attraction of the play but they are also the greatest challenge for the actors. Irretrievably set in the raillery of the London salon, the play gives every character the same arch phrasing, elaborate sententiousness, and wit – as one 19th century commentator noted, “Their wit is Sheridan's wit, which is very good wit indeed; but it is Sheridan's own, and not Sir Peter Teazle's, or Backbite's, or Careless's, or Lady Sneerwell's.”

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_for_Scandal#Appraisal]

So how do young 21st century actors handle this beautifully archaic mode of expression? The cast is, after all, dealing not only with the sense of the text but also seeking to emulate the orotund sing-song of upper-class British speech -- while delivering lines with appropriate comic timing.

Director McCann’s choice to set the play in the 1920s helps somewhat, and some speak their words very well, ‘fore God.

The two women in the image above, Brenna Pritchard and Hayley Armstrong, combine eloquence of speech with apposite appearance. Pritchard, also a talented song-writer, has an animated valentine-shaped face framed with a flapper’s short bob. Armstrong, with ingenious expression and mime, slithers herself into an entirely convincing snakey malevolence.

Another standout is young Alexander Slay-Tamkin, who out-Fauntleroys Little Lord Fauntleroy. The diminutive Slay-Tamkin confidently plays the fop, and his presence and diction are as remarkable as his plaid stockings and gold kerchief.

Anjelica Jewell as Lady Teazle is bubbly and wide-eyed, as befits a rapidly urbanizing lass, and she is particularly affecting in her duo scenes with old Sir Peter (Fay), both early, when she teases him, and later, after she is discovered by her husband to be hiding in Joseph Surface’s quarters. Joseph (Wyndham Shortt) offers a mendacious explanation; with her long, deliberate pause before admantly contradicting him, Jewell shows that she and director McCann know how to ride the audience’s expectations.

Kristen Crane as Rowley, steward to Sir Peter, is assured and not in the least intimidated by a role originally written for a man. The rival brothers – Shortt as the sanctimonious Joseph and Romeo Joy as Charles the n’er-do-well – are cast to type and deliver their characters clearly.

Jonathan Blackwell as Sir Oliver has fun fooling his nephews in the characters of the fey moneylender Premium and the doddering relative Stanley. He plays them broadly, but no one seemed to mind that!

Vortex staff and cast deal with the challenges of multiple locales by simply announcing them away – no change of furnishings was required, because actors promenading through the playing space announced the change of locale and the attendant maid and butler scrolled up a different portrait in the frame at stage left.

At the curtain call the cast surprised the enthusiastically applauding audience by plopping themselves down on the set. Members Chance Parmley and Anissa L. McVea stepped forward for a brief, humorous appeal for support for the Vortex summer program (“For this program, which is tuition-free, we’ll take your cash, your car, your house, your children – and put them all to good use for the theatre.”)

Smiling, these two stationed themselves with a fishbowl at the exit of the theatre.

I couldn’t resist. I gave them my thanks and dropped in a double sawbuck.

Keye-TV Channel 42 on the Summer Threatre Program

Brenna Pritchard's MySpace Profile and YouTube presentation of her song "Can Believe"