THE DEAD PRESIDENTS' CLUB by Larry L. King, Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, October 18 - November 3, 2013

[Austin Playhouse, temporary facility at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd - click for map]

presents

directed by Don Toner
October 18 – November 3, 2013
Thursdays–Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. (no performance on Oct. 31)
Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78752

TICKETS: $28 Thursday/Friday, $30 Saturday/Sunday
$50 Opening Night Benefit, October 18th
BOX OFFICE: 512.476.0084 or online at: www.austinplayhouse.com
DISCOUNTS: All student tickets are half-price. $3 discount for Seniors 65 and up.
Half-Price for Season Ticket holders and their guests. Season Ticket holders must call the box office or email to receive their discount!
No discounts for October 18th benefit.

WEB: www.austinplayhouse.com

In this comic gem by the famed Texas playwright best known for "The Night Hank Williams Died" and "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," four former presidents - Richard M. Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Calvin Coolidge and Harry S. Truman- find themselves in an exclusive holding pen outside heaven awaiting the decision of an admissions committee. "Just who is on that committee?" asks the recently arrived Nixon. "That's the problem: a buncha narrow-minded damned saints!" Johnson replies. As the sanctified weigh the leaders' good deeds against their sins of omission and commission, "Landslide Lyndon" and "Tricky Dick" plot to get around the bureaucracy and go straight to the Boss.

The cast includes Austin Playhouse Company members David Stahl as Nixon, Michael Stuart as LBJ, Tom Parker as Harry Truman, Huck Huckaby as Calvin Coolidge, and Hans Venable as the Heavenly Bureaucrat, with a special appearance by Jacqui Cross.

This show is rated PG-13 due to somewhat "salty" language (mostly LBJ's).

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Born Yesterday by Garson Kanin, Austin Playhouse, May 6 - June 3

presents

Born Yesterday

by Garson Kanin

May 4 - June 3

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m.

Austin Playhouse temporary facility, 1801 1/2 Simond Street, Mueller Development (click for map)

Starring Andrea Osborn, Michael Stuart, Benjamin Summers, Brian Coughlin, Hans Venable, Dirk van Allen, and Mary Agen Cox

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Austin Playhouse, January 14 - February 13

This "Trivial Comedy for Serious People" opened in 1895 and it was the last shining moment for Wilde's career as writer and dramatist. Soon afterwards he found himself in court, accused of immoral behavior and then sentenced to gaol. Because of that scandal the original production closed after only 86 performances. Since then it has become one of the most dependable and regularly revived comic satires on the boards.

Wilde's earnest young men show themselves of strenuously conventional Victorian morality in society but entirely subversive in their private lives.

Both Algernon Moncrieff (Jason Newman) and Jack Worthing (Benjamin Summers) have secret identities. Algernon goes "Bunberrying," using the excuse of a mythical ailing relative to escape from unappealing social engagements and to sail off on devil-may-care exploits.

Jack uses the excuse of his mythical brother "Earnest" to get away from the tedium of the country and the responsibilities of his guardianship for the fetching but bubble-headed Cecily, his ward and the daughter of his deceased benefactor. Masquerading as "Earnest" while in London, Jack is courting Algy's cousin Gwendolen.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Ongoing: Three Viewings by Jeffrey Hatcher, Austin Playhouse Larry L. King Theatre, October 15 - 30

UPDATE: Review by Cate Blouke for the Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, October 21

Received directly:

presents

Three Viewings

by Jeffrey Hatcher

directed by Ben Wolfe

October 15 - 30 at the Larry L. King Theatre
Penn Field Building C, 3601 South Congress

Tickets: $20, $15 for main stage subscribers and guests, $10 for students
Box office: (512) 476-0084

Call 476-0084 or visit https://austin-playhouse.ticketleap.net/ for tickets!

Austin Playhouse continues its 11^thThree Viewings in its alternative space, the Larry L. King Theater, for this year’s Halloween season. Rich characters, surprising twists, and a darkly comic tone connect three tales set in a small town funeral parlor.

Austin Playhouse has been drawn to Hatcher’s work since its production of the classic ghost story The Turn of the Screw last October. This season Austin Playhouse delves back into Hatcher presenting Three Viewings.

Three Viewings is told through a trio of monologues, in which characters engage directly with the audience. Set at three different funerals, the play brings together the stories of three characters and reveals the intricacies of their lives. Although the characters have no real interactions with each other, their stories are woven seamlessly together, combining three short-plays into one complete production.

When produced by Connecticut’s “Theater Works,” the New York Times described the play as a “gripping production” of an “exceedingly successful notion to play upon three unrelated deaths as a means of unmasking three separate lives.”

During the play you will meet Emil, a mild-mannered undertaker secretly in love with a real estate agent who attends all his funerals. His unspoken passion for her leads him to commit crimes while planning a way to confess his true feelings. Next introduced is Mac, a drifter who makers her living stealing jewelry from corpses returns home after her wealthy grandmother dies and leaves her nothing, in an attempt to regain her inheritance. Finally we hear the story of Virginia, the widow of a wheeler-dealer contractor who discovers that her husband’s shady business deals have left her in debt to the banks, her family and the mob.

Hatcher was nominated for the Edgar Award for his adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He has written many other plays including an adaptation of Miss Nelson is Missing! and darker plays such as Murderers, and Murder by Poe.

THE THREE VIEWINGS CAST

Hans Venable as “Emil”

Cyndi Williams as “Virginia”

Jenny Gravenstein as “Mac”

Images by Christopher Loveless: Three Viewings, Austin Playhouse Larry L. King Theatre, October 15 - 31

Images by Christopher Loveless of solo performers Hans Venable, Jenny Gravenstein and Cyndi Williams in Three Viewings:

presents

Three Viewings

by Jeffrey Hatcher

directed by Ben Wolfe

October 15 - 30 at the Larry L. King Theatre
Penn Field Building C, 3601 South Congress

Tickets: $20, $15 for main stage subscribers and guests, $10 for students
Box office: (512) 476-0084 or visit https://austin-playhouse.ticketleap.net/ for tickets!

Pictured: Jenny Gravenstein

Click to view five additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

A Flea in Her Ear, Austin Playhouse, March 27 - May 3

In the madcap 19th century world of French playwright Georges Feydeau, two qualities in farce are certain to produce merriment: man's unfulfilled desire and woman's unsatisfied curiosity.

No one ever says that, of course. This is not Oscar Wilde, his contemporary from across the channel.

The ample, delighted laughter at Austin Playhouse's production of A Flea in Her Ear is provoked by antics, deceptions and astonishing coincidences that bring respectable bourgeois folk sneaking into the shady world of the rent-by-the-hour Hotel Coq d'Or. That's the"Golden Rooster Hotel," with the bonus of the sly phallic reference for us English speakers -- in fact, Étienne the prissy butler to the Chandebise family disparages the institution as the "Hotel Cock de Whore!"

The centerpiece of the play is the voluminous bed at center stage in Act II -- focus of man's desire and woman's curiosity, and locale for wildly funny shifting and scrambling by the various characters. This being comedy, the bed never actually serves for seduction and recreation. It's variously a temptation, a hiding place, and, with the click of a strategically placed button, a turntable subterfuge that offers pretend respectability, complete with an arthritic, indignant old codger in a nightcap and nightshirt.

Read More at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .