Upcoming: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Transit Theatre Troupe, St. Edward's University, April 27 - May 1

Received directly:

The Transit Theatre Troupe presents …

THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS

By Paul Zindel

Directed by Jon Wayne Martin

April 27 – May 1

Wednesday - Saturday at 8:30 p.m., Sunday at 8 p.m.

Fondren Lawn (behind the Carriage House)

St. Edward’s University, 3001 South Congress Ave.(click for map)

Free admission, donations for SafePlace accepted

The Transit Theatre Troupe closes its 2010-11 season with Paul Zindel’s1964 lyrical drama THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON-MARIGOLDS, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and the Obie Award for Best American Play.

The old, unkempt place where Tillie (Lora Blackwell) lives is more like a madhouse than a home. Tillie's mother, Beatrice (Jennifer Scott), is bitter and cruel, yet desperate for her daughters' love. Her sister, Ruth (Lainey Murphy), suffers epileptic fits and sneaks cigarettes every chance she gets. In the midst of chaos, Tillie struggles to keep her focus and dreams of winning the science fair alive, even against her cat-boiling competition, Janice Vickery (Meredith Montgomery). This dynamic yet dysfunctional cast of characters is rounded off with Tiffany Rogers playing Nanny.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

On The Verge (or the Geography of Longing) by Eric Overmeyer, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, March 3 - 13

"Bebe Rebozo!"

Those two words summarize the wit and triviality of Eric Overmyers' On the Verge (or The Geography of Longing), now playing at the Mary Moody Northen Theatre at St. Edward's University.

I laughted at the sudden illumination of an impression from 40 years ago. Bebe Rebozo - Richard Nixon's buddy. The Florida banker. The guy with the home in Key Biscayne where our Darth Vader president took refuge from the demands of office.

But so what?

Overmyer invents a tale of three Victorian-era lady explorers venturing off to terra incognita. Pith helmeted and wrapped in voluminous skirts, they recount their observations to us and to one another in the quaintly precise language of 19th century journals. The playwright mischievously sends them enigmas and clues that signal to us the fact that these earnest and intrepid demoiselles are journeying in time as well as in space.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images by Bret Brookshire: On The Verge (or The Geography of Longing), Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, March 3 - 13

Images by Bret Brookshire, received directly:

presents

On The Verge (Or, The Geography of Yearning)

by Eric Overmyer

directed by David M. Long

March 3 - 13, Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 2 p.m.

Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, 3001 S. Congress (click for map)

Advance tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students and seniors. All tickets are $18 at the door. As special Student Night production on Mar. 10 at 7:30 p.m., offers half price tickets to those with a student ID.

Information and reservations at the box office, (512) 448-8484

St. Edward’s University Theatre Program goes on an expedition with playwright Eric Overmyer’s wild theatrical ride, On The Verge (Or The Geography of Yearning). Equipped with optimism, humor and a pound of pluck, three Victorian women set off on an expedition to Terra Incognita, uncharted territory. Armed with their umbrellas, backpacks, and terribly large vocabularies, the trio encounters a Beat-poetry spouting troll, Mr. Coffee, a Yeti, Cool Whip and a 1950s presidential campaign.

Playwright Overmyer is best known as a writer and producer for such acclaimed television series as “Treme,” “The Wire,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “New Amsterdam,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Law & Order,” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” His plays include Native Speech, In a Pig’s Valise, In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe, Mi Familia Tropicano, Mi Vida Loca, Dark Rapture and The Heliotrope Bouquet, among others. He is the recipient of the Le Comte de Nouy Award for playwriting, a McKnight Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

Directed by David M. Long, the St. Edward’s production features Michelle Brandt, Avery Ferguson, Lindsley Howard and Jon Wayne Martin. George Marsolek provides the scenic design, with lighting design by Kris Carpenter, costume design by Alyssa Johnson, and sound design by Phillip Owen.

Click to view additional images by Bret Brookshire at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Upcoming: On The Verge by Eric Overmeyer, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, March 3 - 13

Found on-line:

presents

On The Verge (Or, The Geography of Yearning)

by Eric Overmyer

directed by David M. Long

March 3 - 13, Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 2 p.m.

Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, 3001 S. Congress (click for map)

Advance tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students and seniors. All tickets are $18 at the door. As special Student Night production on Mar. 10 at 7:30 p.m., offers half price tickets to those with a student ID.

Information and reservations at the box office, (512) 448-8484

St. Edward’s University Theatre Program goes on an expedition with playwright Eric Overmyer’s wild theatrical ride, On The Verge (Or The Geography of Yearning). Equipped with optimism, humor and a pound of pluck, three Victorian women set off on an expedition to Terra Incognita, uncharted territory. Armed with their umbrellas, backpacks, and terribly large vocabularies, the trio encounters a Beat-poetry spouting troll, Mr. Coffee, a Yeti, Cool Whip and a 1950s presidential campaign.

Playwright Overmyer is best known as a writer and producer for such acclaimed television series as “Treme,” “The Wire,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “New Amsterdam,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Law & Order,” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” His plays include Native Speech, In a Pig’s Valise, In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe, Mi Familia Tropicano, Mi Vida Loca, Dark Rapture and The Heliotrope Bouquet, among others. He is the recipient of the Le Comte de Nouy Award for playwriting, a McKnight Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

Directed by David M. Long, the St. Edward’s production features Michelle Brandt, Avery Ferguson, Lindsley Howard and Jon Wayne Martin. George Marsolek provides the scenic design, with lighting design by Kris Carpenter, costume design by Alyssa Johnson, and sound design by Phillip Owen.

The Imaginary Invalid by Molière and David Chambers, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, September 16 - 26

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin would not have objected at all to this re-do of his 1673 farce. He wrote The Imaginary Invalid in rapid-fire prose, using verse only for comic ballets at the intervals (omitted in this staging). David Chambers' translation/interpretation of the piece follows the action faithfully, although often with slangy word choices. Between them, Chambers and director David Long apply a clownification of the characters and a Borscht Belt leer not obvious in the original texts.

David Long has a good time, sending the characters zinging along. Some of his direction recalled those presentational techniques he used last year for bobrauschenbergamerica -- marking soliloquies and the young lovers' mock operetta with rapid, showy shifts of lighting, for example.

Argan, the title character played with fine finicky flair by veteran actor Richard Robichaux, is a rich hypochondriac with two daughters. Their mother passed away and Argan remarried -- to an effusive gold digger determined to persuade him to deed his property to her. Chambers renders this character -- Béline in the original -- as "Nastya," played by the charming Jill Blackwood with a patently fake Russian accent. Argan is determined to marry off his elder daughter Angelina (Michelle Elisabeth Brandt) to a physician so that he'll have free medical care, but she has already fallen in love with another (Cléanthe, played by Jon Wayne Martin).

Robichaux has lots of grumpy one-liners, mostly insults. His perpetual antagonist is Toinette, the servant, but he also gets into it with physician Thomas Diablo (Robert Faires), with Cléanthe, and with his brother (also played by Faires). In contrast and to our great amusement, the hypochondriac goes all goo-goo eyes with wife Nastya and gets entirely panicked by the rages of his principal physician Dr. Defecato (Meredith Montgomery).

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . .

bobrauschenbergamerica, Mary Moody Northern Theatre at St Edward's University, September 17 - 27

Don't go looking for Robert Rauschenberg the 20th century modern artist in this grab bag. This is homage purely by reference.

Playwright/facilitator Charles Mee is frank in his admission that the piece is a collage of ideas and random bits that had as their starting points some of the images that appear in Rauschenberg's work.

Mee and others free associated about those images. They collected texts and images and other random bits to share in theatre workshops. Mee says that he told his collaborators, "Anyone can steal anything I brought in to make whatever piece they might want to make, and I could steal whatever they brought in."

He sifted through the material, workshopped it again, threw half of the results away and worked the rest up with the SITI Theatre in New York in 2001. We Austinites can think of that ensemble theatre company as the Rude Mechs of New York City.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .