GUEST BY COURTESY by Jenny Larson and Hannah Kenah, April 18 - 20, 2013

 
[Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Rd. -- click for map]

and the Fusebox Festival present

Guest by Courtesy

created by Hannah Kenah and Jenny Larson, written by Hannah Kenah
performed by Jason Hays, Hannah Kenah, and Jenny Larson, with an original score by Graham Reynolds

Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Rd.
April 18 - 20 at 3 p.m.

Click to purchase tickets via the Fusebox Festival


Click for Austin Live Theatre review, November 8, 2011



Come ye. Come ye and observe this sorry entry into that hopeful realm of female comedy.
In the deeply pro-feminist setting of a masonic hallway, Hannah Kenah and Jenny Larson stage a two-women, one-man, two-arms, one couch, imaginary props, terrible miming, genre-bending, era-bending, woman-bashing, man-worshipping show that plumbs the depths of desperation and duration.

 
Guest by Courtesy pretends to answer the question, what the fuck should a girl do with all her spare time, and decisively proves that women are not sane. Two cousins – one poor and single, one rich and married – wage their bizarre relationship over the course of a failing afternoon tea. The work was developed by Jenny Larson, artistic director of Salvage Vanguard Theater, and Hannah Kenah, company member, performer and writer for the Rude Mechs, and scored by Graham Reynolds, Austin’s best-loved composer of all things brilliant.
Come and see them not know what kind of show they are making. A dance show? A clown show? A play? Discover how much you can tolerate. Test the limits of your patience for women floundering.
“Larson and Kenah, with perfect comic timing and tempo, keep us laughing for a good solid hour” – Austin Chronicle
Special thanks to our guest directors Will Davis and Kathy Catmull, and the extraordinary understudy, stage manager, and jack of all trades Jay Byrd.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Guest by Courtesy by Hannah Kenah and Jenny Larson, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, November 4 - 19

by Michael Meigs

On their opening night Hannah Kenah and Jenny Larson attracted an audience with lots of youngish faces more often lit by footlights, spots and stage lighting than by house lights. Those audience members were happily anticipating an entertainment that had been in gestation for two years. The two well known and well liked Austin actresses had presented workshop versions of Guest by Courtesy in May and November 2009 as part of the SVT's Works Progress Austin series.

They begin your evening with a lengthy cryptic tableau, a kōan of the brash physical comedy that is to come. The brightly lit black box performance space is anchored by a sofa set at center stage, draped with a white sheet. Two pairs of motionless bare feet are on view, the only parts visible of two persons seated or more likely reclining beneath that cover.

There's a silent motionless prologue going on here for those who aren't busy finding seats, climbing past audience knees, texting, listening to the hectic top 40s soundtrack or chatting: whose feet are we seeing? The pair at stage left are slim and almost self-effacing but there's a gauze bandage wrapped around one big toe; the pair at stage right are strongly defined, forthright with fiercely rampant big toes, the sort of feet that might be used for kicking butt. You have about twenty minutes to place your mental bets; I got mine wrong.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Over the Garden Wall by Ruth Margraff, staged reading at the Salvage Vanguard, January 8 and 9

UPDATE: GACA A-Team review by Ross Scarano, January 11

Found on-line:

Salvage Vanguard Theater Puts Artists to Work with "Works Progress Austin 2010," including

Over The Garden Wall

by Ruth Margraff
a staged reading of the new parlor play
directed by Jenny Larson

The production features actors Robert Pierson, Mark Stewart, Jamie Rhodes, La Tasha Stephens, and Jason Hays.

Nationally acclaimed playwright Ruth Margraff's band Café Anastarsia will perform before the play.Tickets are $10 at the door.

The Salvage Vanguard's annual Works Progress Austin (WPA) - the development project that gives artists a playground to develop new works - returns on January 8th through 24th. During the course of three weeks, a variety of actors, writers, directors, dramaturges, and musicians are given the opportunity to incubate and experiment. Inspired by Roosevelt's Works Projects Administration, Salvage Vanguard's program aims to put artists to work.

Upcoming: Guest by Courtesy by Hannah Kenah and Jenny Larson, workshop at Salvage Vanguard, November 8

Advertised in the Evil Dead program and found on-line:

Guest by Courtesy

Written by Hannah Kenah
Created by Hannah Kennah and Jenny Larson
Original live and improvised piano score by Graham Reynolds
Performed by Hannah Kenah, Jenny Larson, and Jason Hays

November 8th 2009 at 5 p.m.
at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 E. Manor Rd

A “tea,” even though it can be formal, is nevertheless friendly and inviting. One does not go in “church” clothes nor with ceremonious manner; but in an informal and every-day spirit, to see one’s friends and be seen by them. A smaller room is preferable, too much space with too few people gives an effect of emptiness which always is suggestive of failure.

Tickets $10, sold at the door only