White Christmas by Irving Berlin, Zach Theatre, December 5 - 30

by Michael Meigs


The Zach throws everything it's got at White Christmas, and it shows.  Nick Demos' inventive choreography is on display; Allen Robertson conducts a vigorous nine-piece orchestra tucked out of sight beneath the stage; invited stars Matthew Redden and Matt Gibson make a plausible buddy team, even though they don't much resemble Bing and Donald.  Our Meredith McCall is there as the older, wiser and more angular of the hoofin' Haynes Sisters nightclub act, and the fifteen-person chorus includes such accomplished local talent as Joshua Denning and Sara Burke.

The Zach prides itself on the valiantly earned status as a significant regional theatre.  Earning those stripes and getting the awesome 425-seat Topfer Theatre built have taken decades of planning and work. But now Artistic Director Dave Steakley faces a new challenge -- the Zach has got that impressive magic box on South Lamar but how are they going to get enough rears onto those seats in order to make sure that it's a viable concern?

Matthew Redden with Lara Wright and Laura Galt (image: Kirk R. Tuck)

One approach is to dust off the standards and make them new.  Harvey, the one about the six-foot invisible white rabbit, is on the roster for late spring.  It was a play before it was a movie.
And here we have a real live version of Irving Berlin's 1954 film, a nostalgia vehicle even back then, firmly grounded on the 1930's and 1940's cinema musicals themed as "Come on, kids, let's put on a show!" and offering Depression-era escapist visions of the glamor of New York nightclubs.  Both the buddies and the sisters are show-biz entertainers, fetched away by chance and misdirection to the Vermont inn that good ol' General Henry Waverly sank his army savings and pension into, and by gosh, they decide to support the Old Man by putting on a show in the barn and inviting all of their war-time buddies who served under the Old Man, along with their families.  As a surprise to the General, of course.  And don't forget that sure-fire formula "Boy gets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl again" (oh, it was all just a misunderstanding).

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . .

Upcoming: Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Zach Theatre, December 5 - 30

in the first-ever season in its new Topfer Theatre, presents the Austin premiere of 

WHITE CHRISTMAS

Based on the Paramount Pictures film written for the screen by NORMAN KRASNA, NORMAN PANAMA, and MELVIN FRANK

Music and Lyrics by IRVING BERLIN, Book by DAVID IVES and PAUL BLAKE


Musical Direction by Allen Robertson
Directed and Choreographed by NICK DEMOS

Original Set Design by CLIFF SIMON • Lighting Design by JASON AMATO • Sound Design by CRAIG BROCK • Properties Design by BLAKE REEVES • Costume Design by DEBORAH ROBERTS

Previews December 5-12 - Champagne Opening and Press Night is Thursday, December 13 at 7:30 p.m., followed by a reception with the stars of show
GLBT Wilde Party pre-show mixer is Thursday, December 6

Performances continue through December 30, 2012, Tuesdays - Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

in ZACH’s new Topfer Theatre, 202 South Lamar Blvd. (corner of Riverside Drive and South Lamar Blvd.)

To order tickets call 512-476-0541 ext. 1 or visit www.zachtheatre.org. Tickets range from $25-$75. Student Rush Tickets: $18 one hour before showtime (with valid ID). ZACH’s new, full bar opens one and half hours prior to showtime and remains open for one hour post-show.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

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 Laramie Project, Ten Years Later, Zach Theatre, April 18 - May 13

by Michael Meigs

You know these people; you're comfortable with them.  Most likely because you attended their portrayal in March and April of The Laramie Project, but possibly also because you recognize them as the Zach regulars who have appeared before you so many times.  The Laramie Project 10 Years Later has the reassuring buzz of a class reunion, which is something like the way it must have been for the Tectonic Theatre Project as they undertook the visits and research in 2008 that led to this text.

The Laramie Project featured the looming absence of gentle Matthew Shepard, the boy-man who was enticed by two men from a bar into a pickup and then driven out to be beaten almost to death, left tied to a fence in a remote and desolate location.  It was crafted to tell the horrific, inexorable story of that spectacular event, the investigation and the actions in response both of the justice system and the townspeople of Laramie, a town of fewer than 30,000 persons on I-80 just north of the Colorado border. The work had a necessary beginning in outrage, a middle of reflection and discussion and an end featuring retribution and mercy.

10 Years Later has no such clean plot line, although Moisés Kaufman and the credited collaborators of the Tectonic Theatre Project worked assiduously to give it one.  They discovered that the vivid accounts at the trial and in the newspapers were no longer a daily reality in Laramie but instead the story of Matthew Shepard had undergone transformation, partly due to the collective process of healing via forgetfulness and partly due to disinformation from a national investigative television program that claimed drug use and drug dealing lay behind the murder.  The theatre troupe's interviews and re-enactments battle those claims, trying to re-establish for their wider audience the picture of a despicable hate crime.  They also chart the successful emergence from the closet of a woman who won a seat in the legislature and the ideological combat there over a proposed amendment to the Wyoming constitution to define marriage as consisting solely of the union between a man and a woman.

[images by Kirk R. Tuck]

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Uncle Vanya, Breaking String Theatre Company at the Off-Center, June 23 - July 2

Received directly:

presents

Anton Chekhov’s

Uncle Vanya

directed by Graham Schmidt

June 16th - July 2nd

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m., Monday, June 27 at 8 p.m.

at the Off-Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street (click for map)

Chekhov's meditation on hope and environmental stewardship speaks with increasing urgency a century after its first performance.

Tickets available at breakingstring.com/tickets and 512-784-1465

General Admission: $15 - 25, Sliding scale;

Monday, July 27th is a Pay-What-You-Will Industry Night

Student rush tickets released 10 minutes before curtain for all performances: $10

Breaking String revisits the Russian canon with a production of Chekhov’s 1899 masterpiece, Uncle Vanya. Ironically sub-titled “Scenes From Country Life,” the play chronicle a climactic moment of rural Russian life. Uncle Vanya is about finding meaning, hope, and conservation in a life that seems to promise little. Chekhov revised his early play Wood Demon (1889) into the triumphant Uncle Vanya.

Uncle Vanya’s theme of ecology speaks to the world's ever-more urgent discussions of conservation and sustainability. Chekhov's insight that the fate of humankind is tied to the fate of the environment now seems prophetic: "In all of you there’s a demon of destruction. You spare neither forests, nor women, nor one another…." (Yelena speaking to Vanya)

Breaking String’s Uncle Vanya features direction and an original translation by Graham Schmidt. The ensemble cast of actors includes Robert Deike, Emily Everidge, Liz Fisher, Harvey Guion, Anne Hulsman, Chris Humphrey, Robert Matney, and Matt Radford. The production also features sound design by Adam Hilton, scenic design by Ia Layadi, costume design by Julia Howze, and lighting design by Steven Shirey.

This is the fourth work for which Breaking String Theater has commissioned an original translation from resident translator Graham Schmidt. Of the practice Schmidt observed, “It is integral to our process, our identity, and is a reflection of our desire for direct contact with Chekhov's words, tailored for this moment and for our work.”

BREAKING STRING THEATER is a sponsored project of the Greater Austin Creative Alliance, a non-profit organization. Breaking String presents drama important to Russian history and exposes Austin audiences developing Russian theater. We seek to connect people across time and culture. Our mission is threefold: We create excellent productions of Russian traditional and avant-garde plays; we provide artists with a creative, respectful and professional work environment; we pursue collaboration with Russian theater artists through our partnerships with the Center for International Theatre Development’s Philip Arnoult, and Moscow-based critic/translator John Freedman.

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.

Upcoming: Reading of New Text for Hedda Gabler, Palindrome Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, December 6

Received directly from

ONE NIGHT ONLY- PUBLIC READING of

HENRIK IBSEN’S HEDDA GABLER

New adaptation by Palindrome Theatre’s Resident Playwright Nigel O’Hearn

Monday Dec. 6, 8 p.m., Hyde Park Theatr, Guadalupe & 43rd St.

Free. Donations accepted

www.palindrometheatre.com

Please join us for a preview of the first play of our second season- Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler with a new adaptation by Palindrome's resident playwright, Nigel O'Hearn- world premiere opening February 2011 at The Blue Theater.

The reading will be of the first two acts of the new material which has never before been seen in public.

Reading features Robin Grace Thompson, Chase Crossno, Bernadette Nason, Nathan Osburn, Gabe Luna, Kim Adams, and Harvey Guion (with playwright reading stage directions and scowling).

Drinks to be served, discussion to be had. Approx 2 hrs.

[image adapted from image at www.wfu.edu]

Hamlet, Scottish Rite Theatre, September 16 - October 3

Those lustrous eyes, that bony frame, that complexion sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought -- many of us believe that Justin Scalise was born to play Hamlet.

He has certainly trained for Shakespeare and for this role, in New Orleans, in England, and for the past three years in Austin. We have seen him as Bottom, Feste, Adam & Silvius, Don John, Mercutio and Lucio. And even Hamlet, freeze-dried, for Austin Shakespeare's 2008 and 2009 World's Fastest Hamlet.

This Hamlet drected by Andrew Matthews for the Scottish Rite Theatre is a keen, intelligent, entertaining and gripping production. Scalise has the principal role but this evening offers much more than just an outing for his fan club.

This cast knows how to speak the speech. Babs George as Gertrude, Harvey Guion as Claudius, Robert Deike as a whole suite of ordinaries, Brock England as Horatio, Chuck Ney as Polonius. . . the verse comes trippingly on those tongues. It's a thrill to hear it delivered articulately, with convincing scansion and appropriate targeting and emotion. The action is swift but unerringly certain. There are moments when one would like to see a bubble of silence as a character reflects or absorbs the meaning of something just said. But anyone who has studied the play, read it or seen any other version of Hamlet will follow the players all the way and will be on the edge of his seat.

Matthews has put them into contemporary costume but does not burden the play with unnecessary concept or gimmickry. No telephoning in performances, no AK-47s, no roller skates or cowboy hats. The familiar, haunting action develops immediately before us in the intimacy of the Scottish Rite Theatre, using a minimum of portable furniture placed as needed before various of its intricate trompe-l'oeuil 19th century painted backdrops. The striking, appropriate music before the play is recorded.

In this version, the play's the thing.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Our Town, Zach Theatre, April 15 - May 23

UPDATE: Review by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin at Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, April 19

Received directly:

presents

OUR TOWN

by Thornton Wilder

April 15 - May 23, Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. , Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Kleberg Stage , 1421 W. Riverside Dr. (corner of Riverside and South Lamar.)
Tickets range from $20 to $50, with $15 tickets available to students starting 1 hour prior to curtain time. Charge tickets by phone at 476-0541, ext. 1 or visit the Zach website to purchase on-line

Zach Theatre Re-Envisions “Our Town” in Our Town with all-star, all-Austin cast starring “Greater Tuna’s” Jaston Williams as the Stage Manager

Austin’s finest actors join together to tell the intimate, heartfelt story of America’s best loved play. Zach’s contemporary interpretation transports the audience to a chapel of love that will linger in your memory. Our Town audiences will watch the story unfold in several settings, including the wedding scene, which will be fully realized in its setting, costumes, environment with music by Austin area choral choirs. Directed by Dave Steakley, ZACH’s production is more than a play: it’s an experience as unique as Austin!

Jaston Williams, star of ZACH’s The Laramie Project and Austin‘s Greater Tuna will star as the iconic Stage Manager in Grover’s Corners. ZACH’s production also stars well-known, Austin favorites Michael Amendola, Michael Bryce, Janelle Bucahanan, Barbara Chisholm, Lana Dieterich, Christian Guerra, Harvey Guion, Billy Harden, Jordan McRae, Michael Mendoza, Crystal Odom, Don Own, Marco Perella, Scotty Robertson, Donelvan Thigpen, and Evan Underbrink,

ZACH Theatre is sponsored in part by Applied Materials, Austin American-Statesman, Time Warner Cable, Austin News TV 36, The Dell Foundation, Vollmer Public Relations, SOL Marketing Concepts, IKEA, The Shubert Foundation, The City of Austinunder the auspices of the Austin Arts Commission, The Texas Commission on the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

[Click for information on $5 discount offer]

Measure for Measure, Austin Shakespeare at the Rollins Theatre, Spetember 10 - 27

Austin Shakespeare's Measure for Measure can offer you a good time. It has a dramatic intrigue, lots of clowning, a clever time-warp setting in Savannah, Georgia of the 1920s and a cast that I'd be happy to put up against any other American Shakespeare company out there.

At the same time that he's entertaining us, Shakespeare is working some much deeper themes. These include the responsibility of authority; chastity, promiscuity, desire and disease; the role of the state in policing behavior; the arrogance of office and the equally reprehensible pride that may attend self-righteous virtue.

Summarizing all in a lengthy phrase, Measure for Measure deals with the folly of the pursuit of fleeting pleasure and the difficulty of making virtuous preparation for inevitable death.

Pretty crunchy stuff.

You don't have to take it that way, of course. The highly positive comments posted to date at NowPlayingAustin are all over the place, but each of the five ratings is for the maximum five stars.

Director Ann Ciccolella and the cast substitute Savannah for the Shakespeare's Vienna, which was imaginary, in any case, and their molasses Georgia accents give the words of this generally unfamiliar text further exotic tang. For that double distilled concoction -- Elizabethan text to Savannah speech -- you can expect your inner ear to take longer than usual to tune in. The clear diction of their wondrous speech helps.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .