Man of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman, Austin Playhouse, September 6 - October 6, 2013

by Catherine Dribb

While the impossible dream of Austin Playhouse moving into Mueller Development may still be just that, they’ve finally released Man of La Mancha into the Austin art world. For two years it’s been slated as the opening production in their newly built theatre, but with no ground breaking yet, it seems Don Quixote will have to settle for Highland Mall instead.

Which seems appropriate really. For the man who battles windmills and sees the potential of the world instead of its hardships, would have walked into that all but abandoned mall, and raised his arms in agony. “To be or not to be?”

Rick Roemer, Jacob Trussell (photo: Christopher Loveless)

To be! Don Quixote would have undoubtedly decided. And with the final weekend approaching, the Playhouse has announced that this has been their highest earning musical in all their eleven years of existence.

And as the prisoners of the Inquisition turn their jail cell into an inn and then into a castle, so has Austin Playhouse turned an old Footlocker into an intimate live theatre space and that small stage into a daring dungeon housing victims of religious and political zealotry.

Man of La Mancha enters its final weekend tomorrow with Rick Roemer still giving a beautiful rendition of its protagonist, Miguel de Cervantes/Don Quixote. Roemer’s voice has never sounded so strong, and his Impossible Dream will bring you not to your feet, but to your knees with its tenderness. 

Despite some pitch issues in the cast, notable performances include that of chorus member Lara Wright, who doesn’t play the usual quirky, gregarious sidekick you’ve undoubtedly seen do at Zach Theatre and the Playhouse, but rather the roles of an understated kitchen wench and a seductive Gypsy dancer. In addition, Leslie R. Hethcox is delightful (as usual - did you see him in Little Shop this summer?!) with his barber cameo. And both sets of galloping horse legs (Hethcox and Stephen Mercantel) were indeed impressive.

The set is well crafted with a trap lowering dramatically into the dungeon, interrupting Miguel de Cervantes’ story and jarring the audience back to “reality” as well. We wonder, what world do we live in, and how do we choose to proceed? Is our story retold with hope and imagination as its greatest honors?

(photo: Christopher Loveless)

Only you can decide! So choose to indulge this weekend in Man of La Mancha at Austin Playhouse. It’s guaranteed to stir your soul and help you dream some of your own impossible dreams.

Tickets are available online at the AustinPlayhouse.com website or by calling the boxoffice at (512) 476-0084.

Photos by Christopher Loveless of 'Man of La Mancha' cast, Austin Playhouse, September 6 - October 6, 2013

A portfolio of seven cast photos by Christopher Loveless for the

Rick Roemer (photo: Christopher Loveless)

production of


Man of La Mancha


by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh

directed by Don Toner musical direction by Michael McKelvey

with Rick Roemer as Don Quijote

September 6 – October 6, 2013, Thursdays–Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.
Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78752 - click for map
WEB: www.austinplayhouse.com
TICKETS: $34 Thursday/Friday, $36 Saturday/Sunday, $38 Opening Night with champagne reception: Friday, September 6, 2013 All student tickets are half-price. $3 discount for Seniors 65 and up.
BOX OFFICE: 512.476.0084 or online www.austinplayhouse.com

Boni Hester and cast (photo: Christopher Loveless)

Click to view additional photos by Christopher Loveless

MAN OF LA MANCHA, Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, September 6 - October 6, 2013

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

presents

 

by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh
directed by Don Toner musical direction by Michael McKelvey

September 6 – October 6, 2013, Thursdays–Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.

Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78752 - click for map
WEB: www.austinplayhouse.com

TICKETS: $34 Thursday/Friday, $36 Saturday/Sunday, $38 Opening Night with champagne reception: Friday, September 6, 2013 All student tickets are half-price. $3 discount for Seniors 65 and up.

BOX OFFICE: 512.476.0084 or online www.austinplayhouse.com
Winner of five Tony Awards including that for Best Musical, Man of La Mancha has enchanted audiences for decades with the lyrical adventure of Don Quixote de la Mancha. Set during the Spanish Inquisition, Miguel Cervantes, writer and tax collector, is imprisoned for foreclosing on a church. In order to win favor with his fellow prisoners he tells the tale of Don Quixote, a would-be knight who sees only goodness in a world of darkness and despair. The musical shifts from the prison’s bleak reality to Quixote’s idealized world with prisoners becoming characters in Quixote’s story. Featuring a breathtaking score including “The Impossible Dream,” “Dulcinea,” and the title song, Man of La Mancha is powerful American musical theatre at its best.

Starring Rick Roemer as Cervantes/Quixote, Jacob Trussell as his manservant/Sancho Panza, Boni Hester as Aldonza (Dulcinea), Huck Huckaby as the Governor/Innkeeper, Ben Wolfe as the Duke/Dr. Carrasco, Josh Wechsler as the Padre, Wendy Zavaleta as the Housekeeper, Claire Grasso as Antonia, Brian Coughlin as Pedro, and Leslie Hethcox as the Barber, with Kimberly Barrow, Ann Richards, Stephen Mercantel, Paul Koudouris, Glenn DeVar, Brian Losoya, and Patrick Crowley.

Direction by Don Toner, musical direction by Michael McKelvey, choreography by Lisa del Rosario, costume design by Jessica Colley-Mitchell, set design by Don Toner and Patrick Crowley, lighting design by Don Day, and sound design by Joel Mercado-See.

Man of La Mancha will be produced in Austin Playhouse's temporary space at Highland Mall. The South Entrance (by the IBC bank) is closest to the theatre. Proceed down the escalator and turn right. Austin Playhouse will be on your right by the water feature. Detailed directions are available on our website: http://austinplayhouse.com/season/tempfac.html


Austin Playhouse 2013-2014 Season
Our Season opens with Man of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion, & Mitch Leigh, running September 6 - October 6, 2013, followed by the murder-mystery And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, November 22 - December 22, 2013, a new adaptation of Corneille’s 17th century farce The Liar by David Ives, February 7 - March 9, 2014, the world premiere of Roaring by Cyndi Williams, April 4 - May 4, 2014, and a TBA, May 23 - June 22, 2014.

In addition to our five-play season, Austin Playhouse will produce the popular comedy The Dead Presidents’ Club by Larry L. King, October 18 – November 3, 2013, and the provocative recent Broadway hit Venus in Fur by David Ives, January 3 – 26, 2013.

Austin Playhouse is a professional theatre currently performing its 13th season. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Don Toner and Artistic Director Lara Toner Haddock, 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)

Harvey by Mary Chase, Zach Theatre, Topfer Theatre, May 15 - June 16, 2013

Martin Burke (image: Kirk R. Tuck)

by Christine Mendez


Harvey by Mary Chase at the Zach Theatre, directed by Dave Steakley, is a laughter-inducing good time. It centers around Elwood P. Dowd , a charming, generous and altogether very pleasant man who happens to have an invisible six-foot rabbit named Harvey as his best friend. 

 Martin Burke’s comic performance is flawless, once again. His subtle gestures and affably earnest conversations with Harvey have you almost seeing the giant white rabbit yourself! Burke portrays Elwood’s genuinely friendly without out a single false note.

Elwood’s sister (Lauren Lane) and her daughter Myrtle Mae (Erin Barlow) have spent years of hiding the invisible and unseemly Harvey from society, and they decide the time has come to commit Elwood to a sanitarium. A mix-up confines the wrong person, and a happily unaware Elwood continues on his pleasant way with a smile in place.

Lauren Lane (image: Kirk R. Tuck)

Lane and Barlow as mother and daughter duo have you feeling the shame and hilarity of the situation simultaneously. Lauren Lane’s predicaments had the audience laughing all evening long – so much so that at times one had to strain to hear the dialogue. A week of preview performances should have been sufficient to adjust the timing – but perhaps the audience for the official opening night was particularly exuberant. I wished the ladies would have another beat before delivering their lines, but they definitely succeeded in keeping us amused.

Liz Beckham, Martin Burke, Jacob Trussell (image: Kirk R.Tuck)

Elwood’s gentle courtesy makes Nurse Kelly (Liz Beckham) feel appreciated and cherished even when the man she has her eyes set on, Dr. Sanderson (Jacob Trussell), treats her poorly. Elwood’s unwavering chivalry is refreshing, disarming and disconcerting to the other characters.

The Pulitzer-Prize-winning play from 1945, familiar to many from the Jimmy Stewart movie, poses a still relevant question about delusions, social propriety and responsibility. Is it right to lock up a friendly, generous and good-natured man who is harmlessly out of contact with reality as we conceive it? What’s the danger to us if he imagines he has a giant invisible rabbit as companion and best friend? People reject behavior they do not understand, so they instinctively move to counter it and exclude Elwood, even though he’s charismatic and kind.

Harvey the rabbit remains invisible, but his presence is palpable and apparent in the set design by Michelle Ney. Rabbit figures are to be found littered throughout the set. I was pleasantly surprised to detect a few rabbits in portraits on the walls of the sets, and I spent much of the intermission trying to find them all. The revolving stage was a quick and fun way to change between the two sets. The contrast between the warm library and the cold, almost empty environment of the sanitarium was stark – but it had no effect on the effervescent Elwood.

I recommend that you hop over to Zach Theatre to catch this performance of Harvey before he disappears!

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

HARVEY by Mary Chase, Zach Theatre, May 15 - June 16, 2013

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


HARVEY

by MARY CHASE
directed by DAVE STEAKLEY
featuring MARTIN BURKE and LAUREN LANE

Previews May 15-22 - Champagne Opening and Press Night is Thursday, May 23 at 7:30 p.m., followed by a reception with the stars of show.

LGBT Wilde Party with pre-show mixer is Thursday, May 16. 

Performances continue Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. through June 16, 2013.

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'oeuvre boxes opens one hour prior to showtime and remains open for one hour post-show.


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

In this 1945-Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy "Austin's favorite actor" (The Austin Chronicle), Martin Burke stars as Elwood P. Dowd, a happy-go-lucky chap with a kind word for everyone he meets, especially his invisible best friend, a six-foot tall rabbit named "Harvey." When Elwood's social-climbing sister decides to have him committed, this delightful play embarks on a madcap discovery that is by turns hilarious and endearing. Maybe our dreams are more important than we ever imagined.


ZACH’s Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley says: “Martin Burke and the role of Elwood in HARVEY is a marriage made in heaven. Martin’s charm, ability to make us see Harvey as a fully-realized ‘pooka’, and gift for comedy will be a large amount of fun for all of us. Martin is joined by actress Lauren Lane, who is such a gifted interpreter of physical comedy, which makes her a natural for this project. This Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Mary Chase, as funny as it is, was also her indictment of McCarthyism in telling the story of the easy-going dreamer with a vivid imagination who is pitted against those who want him to conform to an accepted version of reality. I couldn’t help but think about local First Amendment hero John Henry Faulk when I read this play. John Henry was Karen Kuykendall’s uncle, which makes this show very appropriate to this particular inaugural season on the Karen Kuykendall stage.”

ZACH’s production of HARVEY features an all-star cast:  

MARTIN BURKE as Elwood P. Dowd, LAUREN LANE as Veta Louise Simmons, ERIN BARLOW as Myrtle Mae Simmons, LIZ BECKHAM as Ruth Kelly, R.N., DAVID JARROTT as Judge Omar Gaffney, FRITZ KETCHUM as Betty Chumley, SCOTTY ROBERTS as E.J. Lofgren, MICHAEL STUART as William R. Chumley, M.D., VICTOR STEELE as Duane Wilson, JACOB TRUSSELL as Lyman Sanderson, M.D, and M.J. VAN DIVIER as Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet

Scenic Design by MICHELLE NEY · Lighting Design by MATT WEBB · Costume Design by SUSAN BRANCH TOWNE · Sound Design by CRAIG BROCK · Properties Design by JUSTIN COX · Stage Management by LISA GOERING

ZACH’s production of HARVEY is sponsored by Executive Producers: James Armstrong and Larry Connelly, Carolyn and Marc Seriff, Carla Tyson Photography

Free Balcony Play series in conjunction with HARVEY

The second Balcony Play, to be launched in conjunction with HARVEY, opening May 15, will be a new comedic riff on A Midsummer Night's Dream. All Balcony Plays are FREE and open to the public. Concessions will be available; no tickets or reservations are necessary. See the schedule here: http://www.zachtheatre.org/content/balcony-plays-mad-beat-hip-gone-conversations.


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. Launching its 80th season in 2012, 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.
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)

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 . . . .

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)

DayBoyNightGirl, DA! Theatre Collective, Rollins Theatre, Long Center, June 6 - 10

by Dr. David Glen Robinson

I walked two blocks to reach the Long Center, with its blackbox Rollins Studio Theatre, where DayBoyNightGirl played. Without a doubt, the spectacular 21^st century cityscape of downtown Austin upstages every performance staged there. After all, the downtown view is the first thing one sees upon arriving at the Long Center. DayBoyNightGirl pushed back admirably against the sensory overload. The show was spectacular at every level.

If you’re tired of small plays in small theatres, I offer you my fascination with small companies that do enormous things with their talents. Da! Theatre Collective is one such company, and DayBoyNightGirl is enormous in its scope and bold execution, without ever becoming pretentious, precious or trite. The piece is a fine example of multiple-arts performance, showcased for us recently by the offerings of the Fusebox Festival. It is my hope that multiple-arts companies thrive and create a dominant trend in American theatre. They offer freshness and quite possibly true originality.

The source of Da! Theatre Collective’s creative diversity lies in the company’s founders. Heather Huggins and Lisa del Rosario have international backgrounds in theatre and dance, and their collaborations seem to balance these major branches of the fine arts. Kirk German is a gifted playwright; the stage play of DayBoyNightGirl is brilliant (adapted from a story by George MacDonald); the language never lapses into mere functional storytelling, but at times the words in the mouths of the actors seem to vault into iambic hexameter, giving an Elizabethan lilt to many of the text passages. The thing sparkles.

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

Upcoming: DayBoyNightGirl, DA! Theatre Collective at the Rollins Theatre, June 6 - 10

DA! Theatre Collective proudly presents…

DAYBOYNIGHTGIRL

June 6 - 9, Wednesday - Saturday at 8 p.m.

matinees at 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 9 and Sunday, June 10

Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center for the Performing Arts, 701 West Riverside Drive

Tickets    $15 - $35 (sliding scale)  available on-line via DA! or via the Long Center box-office

FOR ONE WEEK ONLY, DA! Theatre Collective is proud to present the premiere of DAYBOYNIGHTGIRL, their first full-length production since the award-winning 2009 hit Leave it to Beverly.  Developed and work-shopped for over a year by the Collective under the direction of Heather Huggins, DAYBOYNIGHTGIRL features choreography by Lisa del Rosario, a script by Kirk German, and an original score composed by guest artist Catherine Davis.

Loosely adapted from The Romance of Photogen & Nycteris, a magical novella written by Scottish author George MacDonald in 1882, DAYBOYNIGHTGIRL tells the fable of a mysterious castle where one child is raised entirely in darkness while another is nurtured by the sun.  But kids will be kids, and each of the children soon starts craving new experiences… Using only bodies, music, and light, DA! intertwines movement, music and storytelling to illuminate this forgotten Gaelic fairy tale.

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

Upcoming: Jubilee, a group work by Rubber Repertory at the Off Center, April 5 - 21

presents

*JUBILEE*

directed by Josh Meyer and Matt Hislope

featuring Eva Claycomb, Arthur Simone, Jen Brown, Jay Byrd, Steven Fitzpatrick, Anna Marcella McConnell, Sophie Ricketts, Susan Peterson, Paul Szent-Miklosy, Jacob Trussell

April 5-21, Thursdays-Sundays at 8 p. m.
The Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St. Austin, TX 78702 (click for map)
Tickets: $15. Thursdays are pay-what-you-wish (at the door).
Order online ($16.52 including fees) at

or call 1-800-838-3006.
Ages 16 and up

Lighting: Steven Shirey -- Costumes: Company


What shall we sing this tenth year? What movements shall we make? What skits shall we perform? This will be Rubber Repertory’s last show before an indeterminate hiatus, and we’re looking for more than just a good idea; we’re looking for atonement. We want to find the very proper time to sound the trumpet. We want to put on the clothes that will make us disappear. We want to arrange our bodies in a way that gives real comfort. Part dance and all devotion, JUBILEE is a nonstop, non-narrative, and non-denominational leap of faith. [NOTE: To carnal minds we may appear to act absurdly, but the path of duty is rarely the path of safety.]

“What's wonderful about Rubber Repertory is that they take the concepts, the tenets, the expectations of theatre, and blow them out of the water.” -Avimaan Syam, Austin Chronicle

ABOUT RUBBER REPERTORY Since 2002, Co-Directors Josh Meyer and Matt Hislope have created some of the most unique theatre in Texas. With shows such as Biography of Physical Sensation, The Casket of Passing Fancy (2007 Rockefeller MAP Fund grant), Surprise Annie, RED CANS, and the American premiere of Wallace Shawn's notoriously "unstageable" A Thought in Three Parts, Rubber Rep pushes boundaries and creates work that's high on invention and surprise. Their productions have garnered B. Iden Payne and Austin Critics Table Awards for "Outstanding Theatrical Innovation," "Outstanding Direction," "Unique Theatrical Experience," and "Outstanding Late-Night Adventure." For more information, visit www.rubberrep.org.

Upcoming: Hill Country Underbelly, a musical by Elizabeth Doss and Mark Stewart, Paper Chairs at the Vortex Yard, August 5 - 21

Received directly:

Paper Chairs Announces Production of an Original Musical –

Hillcountry Underbelly: A Pilgrimage on the Outskirts

Book and Lyrics by Elizabeth Doss, Music by Mark Stewart

Thursdays – Sundays from August 5 to August 21 nightly at 8:30 p.m. (please note later start time) in The VORTEX yard (2307 Manor Rd. - click for map).

Tickets: Pay-What-You-Want Thursdays; Fridays-Sundays after that - $15.00 - $25.00 general seating. Advanced ticket purchase will be available through our website as of July 18, 2011 (www.paperchairs.com).

Paper Chairs excitedly announces its third production, Hillcountry Underbelly: A Pilgrimage on the Outskirts, written by Elizabeth Doss, with original music by Mark Stewart, directed by Dustin Wills and Keri Boyd.

Pa’s fall down a deathtrap rattles through the land like thunder. His ghost appears in limestone, prophesying a great flood will take the hillcountry by storm. His six surviving orphans must head to higher ground to elude their demise. Watch the pack aim to outrun and outsmart every obstacle on the outskirts in the fierce pursuit of life. How do you survive a flood when you’ve lost your roots? Paper Chairs will flood the VORTEX Yard and wash away a scorching August in an environmental production of this torrential tale. Holes, floods, tunes, dogs and buzzards abound. Prepare for a soaking.

Featuring performances by Robert Pierson as Pa (2011 Critic’s Table and 2010 B. Iden Payne Best Supporting Actor), Caroline Reck as the Theotokos, and Jacob Trussell, Emily Tindall, Noel Gaulin, Kelli Bland, Jenn Hartmann, and Mark Stewart as the orphans – oh, and musicians too.

Scenic design by Lisa Laratta (2010 Critic’s Table Best Scenic Design), costume design by Dustin Wills, projection design by Noel Gaulin and lighting design by Natalie George (2011 Critic’s Table Best Lighting Design).

Hillcountry Underbelly runs Thursdays – Sundays from August 5 to August 21 nightly at 8:30 p.m. (please note later start time) in The VORTEX yard (2307 Manor Rd.; Austin, Texas 78722). Tickets: Pay-What-You-Want Thursdays; Fridays-Sundays after that - $15.00 - $25.00 general seating. Advanced ticket purchase will be available through our website as of July 18, 2011 (www.paperchairs.com).

Hillcountry Underbelly will be presented in the VORTEX yard – we encourage folks to dress down! The Butterfly Bar will sell cooling refreshments and Paper Chairs will offer bug spray (if needed), fans, mist, general comfort and an outhouse – you can even bring your own chair if you don’t like ours.

Paper Chairs creates sensorially dynamic theatre combining fractured subjectivity, music, unconventional audience situation, surrealism and labor-intensive mechanics. We favor challenging texts that allow for a fusion of various performance styles, music genres, and historical periods to excite modern sensibilities and educate by suggesting past and present cultural connections. The work is outrageous, well-researched, and a little bit dangerous.

OUR KICKSTARTER SITE: www.kickstarter.com/projects/paperchairs/hillcountry-underbelly

Flying by Olga Mukhina, Breaking String Theatre at the Off Center, January 28 - February 19

ALT's first take, for NowPlayingAustin's "A-Team":

Olga Mukhina’s Flying is a fast, dangerous and exhilarating ride.

Graham Schmidt and Breaking String Theatre put audiences up close to the beautiful youth of post-Soviet Russia in this 2004 piece. Olga Mukhin Qa one of those who originated the “New Drama” that came raging into Russia's mid-1990’s. It plays until February 19 at the Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street (behind Joe’s Bakery on 7^th Street).

Heedless, hedonistic and rootless, a gang of six young professionals address one another only by their remarkable nicknames. Snowstorm, Blizzard, Snowflake, Maniac, Orangina and Lenochka strut, talk, preen and play hard. They revolve about one another and thrust themselves through the drab Moscow nights like shooting stars. Director Schmidt, choreographer Adrian Mishler and composer Justin Sherburn give this story a kinetic power that leaves the audience breathless at the end of the first half.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Flying by Olga Mukhina, Breaking String Theatre at the Off Center, January 28 - February 19

Received directly and researched on-line:

i

in association with the Rude Mechanicals proudly presents

the North American premiere of

Flying

by Olga Mukhina
translated by John Freedman

directed by Graham Schmidt

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

January 28 - February 19

January 28, 29, 30 (Friday - Saturday; Sunday at 5 p.m.)

February 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Thursday - Monday)

February 10, 11, 13, 14 (Thursday - Monday)

February 16, 17, 18, 19 (Thursday - Saturday)

Performances at 8 p.m. except for Sunday, January 30

Tickets * $15-25 General Admission

* Mondays (February 7 and 14) are pay-what-you-want industry nights

A group of Russia’s so-called “golden youth,” smart, talented, well-heeled twenty-somethings are heading for disaster. Among them are DJs, VJs, PR agents and on-screen presenters for a hot new youth-oriented Moscow television production company. These people, with hip-sounding names like Snowstorm, Maniac, Snowflake and Orangina, are creating and living the images that will define the future. None wastes much time thinking about why one of their group is repeatedly battered by her husband or why another constantly takes tranquilizers to maintain her cool, collected image. But when an unsullied teenage girl joins their group one day, they are compelled to look beyond the usual limits of their purview. And when Snowstorm is arrested for possession of drugs and Orangina undergoes a religious experience, the insular nature of their world is quickly breached.

Breaking String has been proud to collaborate with playwright Olga Mukhina and critic / translator John Freedman in the development of this production.

The Cast: Jesse Bertron, David Boss, Joey Hood, Michelle Keffer, Adriene Mishler, Michael Plaster, Gricelda Silva, Jacob Trussell, Katie Van Winkle

The Crew: Graham Schmidt (Director), Angelica Mañez (Stage Manager), Adriene Mishler (Director of Movement) Ia Ensterä (Set Designer), Jamie Urban (Costume Designer), Steven Shirey (Lighting Designer), Justin Sherburn (Music and Sound Designer), Eric Johnson (Carpenter / Electrician)

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Baal by Bertolt Brecht, Paper Chairs at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, November 11 - 28

Received directly:

Paper Chairs excitedly announces its sophomore production

Baal

by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Peter Tegel from the 1922 edition

directed by Dustin Wills.

Ba·al [bey-uhl, beyl]

1. any of numerous local deities among the ancient Semitic peoples, typifying the productive forces of nature and worshiped with much sensuality.

2. (sometimes lowercase) a false god.

The slightly intoxicated, morally bankrupt patrons of “The Night Cloud” are putting on a play about their idol, Baal. Baal is a mysterious figure said to have roamed the forests, inns and bars leaving nothing but poetry, destruction and a hefty bar tab in his wake. The perfect – though some may disagree – idol for a band of hooligans in a seedy cabaret.

Bertolt Brecht’s first play, Baal, drags its audience deep into a body of youthful desires and complete moral abandon. Written in 1918, when Brecht was 20 years old – before the Epic Theatre and the overtly political work for which he is lauded – Baal unfolds in fragments; like a piecemeal of the nearly forgotten events of a drunken evening. It tells the story of our poet-musician and title character, Baal, fleeing the civilized world to live the extreme life somewhere in the forest finding plenty of people and pursuits to indulge his insatiable appetite for experience. The themes coursing through this text are especially pressing today: emerging adulthood, substance abuse, nature’s destruction, homosexuality, and exploration of the body. This performance of Baal also features original score and 8 songs written to Brecht’s verse performed live by the bar patrons and composed and directed by boozers Andy Tindall and Rob Greenfield. We also invite 12 audience members to buy priority seats at tables on stage – free refreshments included!

Featuring bar patrons Joey Hood (2010 Critic’s Table Best Actor), Robert Pierson, Jacob Trussell, Noel Gaulin, Michael Amendola (2010 Critic’s Table Best Supporting Actor), Rob Greenfield, Kelli Bland, Adriene Mishler, Elizabeth Doss, Kimberly Adams, Chase Crossno, Sonnet Blanton, and Gabriel Luna (2010 Critic’s Table Best Actor) in the title role, Baal. The Night Cloud Cabaret is designed by Lisa Laratta (2010 Critic’s Table Best Scenic Design), the costumes by bar regular Benjamin Taylor Ridgeway, and the lovely Natalie George hanging lights from the trees.

Baal runs Wednesdays – Sundays from November 11 to November 28 nightly at 8:00 p.m. (three weekends in total) at The Salvage Vanguard Theater (2803 Manor Rd.; Austin, Texas 78722). Tickets: Pay-What-You-Want Wednesdays and Thursdays; Fridays-Sundays - $15.00 general seating, $30.00 table seating. Advanced Purchase ticket pricing ($15 each) will be available through our website as of October 18, 2010 (www.paperchairs.com). There will be no performance Thanksgiving, November 25.

Paper Chairs creates sensorially dynamic theatre combining fractured subjectivity, music, unconventional audience situation, surrealism, provocative design and labor-intensive mechanics. We favor challenging texts that allow for a fusion of various performance styles, music genres, and historical periods to excite modern sensibilities and educate by suggesting past and present cultural connections. The work is outrageous, well-researched, and a little bit dangerous.

Leave It to Beverly, DA! Theatre Collective at the Off Center, November 5 -21

Kirk German's Leave It to Beverly is a rib-tickler. His characters and cast go sailing off into TV Land of the 1950s and 1960s, taking the gags and the mannerisms way up over the top. DA! applies its energetic young 21st-century humor to Mom and Pop's naive entertainments and comes away a winner.

Consider, for example, canned laughter. The early days of television featured many programs filmed before live audiences, but with rising costs and the introduction of video tape, producers were happy to sweeten audience reactions or do away with them entirely by using "laugh tracks." A single eccentric artist, Charlie Douglas, pretty much had the monopoly of that business through the 1960s, thanks to his "laff box," a complicated non-computerized device.

German's opening episode "Leave It to Beverly" features our dear housewife Beverly, newly a mother of twins, and Husband, a big, genial horned-rim-glasses-wearing avatar of Robert Young. Author and actors satirize the saccharine and the silliness of those classic sitcoms, in an acting style both coy and twinkling, and the action is regularly interrupted by roars of recorded laughter.

Beverly and her girlfriends become somewhat flustered by this unexplained punctuation of their lives. Eventually, after "Trixie Knows Best," the knock-off of both Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, the girls discover great big tins resembling 2-gallon Campbell's soup containers, labeled "HA.HA.HA." Within them is a gelatinous colored substance that has got to be the canned laughter that permeates their existence. How it got there and the reason for it are enigmas that are solved in the final, post-intermission episode, "Make Room for Lorraine."

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