A Steady Rain by Keith Huff, A Chick and a Dude Productions at the Hyde Park Theatre, February 22 - March 9, 2013

by Michael Meigs

Keith Huff imagines a dark, dark world for us, and Shanon Weaver's set design mirrors that. This is Chicago in grim weather. The bare stage has only a couple of banged up folding chairs and a table, and the stage walls are painted in vertical strips of greenish blue and black. It could be an interrogation room but really it's a barren nowhere, a place of the mind that one could just as easily imagine to be a menacing and oppressive jungle.

A Steady Rain doesn't need pretty. This is a work of words, images and animal energy. Kenneth Wayne Bradley and Tom Green are the only ones visible on this stage. They're a pair of cops who've known one another since grammar school, and who now are united in the grueling business of patrolling the city's seamy south side. The stage is their metaphorical cage; they've both taken the exam for promotion to detective three times, and they've both failed.


They're not the only inhabitants of this space. The story they tell, most of the time in alternate monologues, is peopled with others -- Rhonda the long-suffering wife of Denny (Bradley); a vengeful petty crook who ambushes Denny in an alley, and the crook's young nephew who lures Denny into it; Denny's bloodied and unresponsive young son; a naked and raving 9-year-old Vietnamese boy and the 'surfer-guy' who calmly takes custody of him; the unsympathetic precinct captain; and a couple of other cops who confront a desperate murderer armed with a service revolver.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

A STEADY RAIN, A Chick and a Dude Productions, February 21 - March 9, 2013

presents





















 
Hyde Park Theatre February 21-March 9, 2013!

Starring Kenneth Wayne Bradley and Tom Green.

Directed by Melissa Livingston-Weaver

Who cares about April showers? We're bringing the deluge to Hyde Park Theatre in February and March!
We're very excited to bring Keith Huff's magnificent two-hander to Austin, and we thought you'd like to know what we're up to. Here's our team thus far!
Tom Green--Joey
Kenneth Wayne Bradley-- Denny
Melissa Livingston-Weaver--Director
Katy Billik--Production Manager
Shanon Weaver--A.D/Set Design/Sound Design
Jason Amato--Lighting Design
Dan Price--Art & Media Director
Liz Kimball--Dialect Coach


(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

The Pain and the Itch, Capital T Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, October 25 - November 17

by Michael Meigs

Mark Pickell has an eye for mordant black humor, so Capital T's productions fit perfectly into Ken Webster's Hyde Park Theatre -- both into that odd and intimate space and into the ironic, brash, better-than-hip ethos of the place. If you like Ken's stuff, you'll love Mark's. And a further lure: the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago has premiered the last seven works of this playwright.


Bruce Norris' savage deadpan flaying of the earnest American upper middle class in The Pain and the Itch is more than mere satire, though. It's a paradox wrapped in an enigma presented in one of Ia Esterä's exquisitely imagined box sets. In the guise of a family visit to attorney Kelly and her house-husband Clay at Thanksgiving time, Norris serves up at least two mysteries: what is that reserved Middle Eastern taxi-driver doing in this American home? And what is the malady of adorable five-year-old daughter Kayla that Cash the pediatrician surgeon brother-in-law is called to investigate and at the same time to conceal?


I missed the staging of this 2005 play when the University of Texas MFA program did it in a April, 2011, followed immediately by Norris's Clybourne Park (which was later awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the 2012 Tony for best play).


The arc is from the squabbling of grown siblings to the disconnects of incomprehension, television, clashes of culture, accidents, victims and deceit. Norris writes with a scalpel whetted to such a fine edge that at first one doesn't realize the depth and damage of his adroit strokes as he dissects the bland, blind conceits of this all-American family.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: The Pain and the Itch by Bruce Norris, Capital T Theatre, October 25 - November 17

The Pain and the Itch

by Bruce Norris

Directed by Mark Pickell

October 25 – November 17

Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m.

Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St at Guadalupe (click for map)

Worst. Thanksgiving. Ever.

Clay and Kelly share a perfect suburban house with two perfect daughters and have a perfect life. That is until Clay’s mother, Carol, and his brother Cash, with his young Eastern European girlfriend come to have Thanksgiving dinner together.

When a mysterious intruder disrupts Thanksgiving dinner, the gloves come off and an already nervous situation takes a turbulent turn for the worse. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Bruce Norris’ wickedly funny comedy of desire, deceit and family values is guaranteed to get under your skin.

Capital T is proud to present Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Bruce Norris’ scathing satire directed by 2 time Austin Critics Table Award Winning Director Mark Pickell (Killer Joe, Hunter Gatherers). The all star cast includes Austin favorites Kenneth Wayne Bradley (Killer Joe), Lana Dietrich, Liz Fisher (Hunter Gatherers), Indigo Rael (Exit Pursued by a Bear), and Ben Wolfe (I Heart Walmart).

Cast

Mr Hadid – Ben Wolfe

Kelly - Liz Fisher

Cash - Kenneth Wayne Bradley

Kalina - Indigo Rael

Carol – Lana Dieterich

Click to read about playwright Bruce Norris at www.capitalt.org


 (Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Men of Tortuga, Steet Corner Arts at the Hyde Park Theatre, December 1 - 17

Where is Tortuga and whom are these conspirators targeting?

Tortuga is Spanish for "turtle" and there are Tortugas all over the place. Lots of islands, for example -- a former pirates' haven off the northern coast of Haiti, an island off Venezuela, others off Costa Rica, in the Gallapagos and down in the Florida Keys. There's an unincorporated community in California close to the border with Mexico. My brother, in town for a visit, misremembered the title as Men of Tortuga Street, since the ancient reptile is honored in many another California community.

I had no difficulty imagining that these conservative suits and their hired expert in kinetic kills might be studying someone like charismatic ideologue Hugo Chávez, elected president of Venezuela in 1998. Chávez is still in office today despite economic mismanagement, audacious grandstanding and the hammering that he has given the wealthy elites and middle class. In another life I was the State Department officer waiting at the bottom of the ramp to welcome him upon his first visit to Washington.

The timing corresponds, as well. This script was one of about a thousand unsolicited manuscripts mailed to the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in 2004. They produced it as part of their new plays series in the converted space in the parking garage. Cast member in this production Rommel Sulit saw it during that first run.

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

Images for Upcoming: Men of Tortuga, Street Corner Arts at Hyde Park Theatre, December 1 - 18

Images and information found on-line:

Street Corner Arts presents

Men of Tortuga

by Jason Wells

December 1 - 17, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m.

Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd Street at Guadalupe (click for map)

Tickets are $15; Thursdays are 'pay what you can' nights. For reservations please contact Hyde Park Theatre at 479-PLAY.

A group of powerful men formulate plans to assassinate a member of the opposition (cannonballs or missiles?). They could be corporate titans, intelligence agents or perhaps even politicians. As the scheme spins wildly into complication, the plotters descend into suspicion, bloodlust and raucous infighting. This pitch dark & provocative, gut-check comedy by Jason Wells demands: Do the ends justify the means?

The Men of Tortuga cast includes Kenneth Wayne Bradley, Garry Peters, Joe Penrod, Rommel Sulit and Benjamin Summers.

Word on the street:

"If ever a play demonstrated that most men conduct business the way they once plotted schoolyard warfare, it’s Men of Tortuga...once the laughter has died away one recognizes with chilling clarity how close our culture has really come to such madness."
– Leigh Kennicott, StageHappenings.com

Click to view additional images from Street Corner Arts at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Images by Ryan Joy: A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard, Capital T Theatre, May 12 - June 4

Images by Ryan Joy, posted at www.capitalt.org:

Capital T

presents

A Lie of the Mind

by Sam Shepard

directed by Mark Pickell

May 12-June 4

Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Rd. (click for map)

Jake has brutally beaten his wife Beth and left her for dead. Her brain damage is significant. His guilt is crippling. Jake’s brother, Frankie, searches for the truth of Beth’s condition, while Jake’s father haunts him from the urn beneath his childhood bed.

A Lie of the Mind is both a chilling indictment of true love and an affirmation of its abiding ties. Capital T is proud to present this gritty, darkly humorous American drama by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Sam Shepard.

Click to view additional performance images by Ryan Joy at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Images by Alan Trammel: Hunter Gatherers, Capital T Theatre, October 14 - November 6

Images by Alan Trammel received directly from Capital T Theatre:

Capital T presents

Directed by Mark Pickell

Sound Design by Adam Hilton

Costume Design by Cheryl Painter

October 14th – November 6th 2010

Thursday-Saturday at 8pm

Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St

“Outrageously libidinous knockabout farce meets penetrating social satire in Peter Nachtrieb’s hilariously revelatory comedy, an almost two-hour laugh riot.”—San Francisco Chronicle

"Like a mash-up of the most brutal episode of Wild Kingdom and any episode of South Park" —San Francisco Bay Guardian

Pam and Richard are hosting their best friends, Wendy and Tom, for their annual dinner get-together. An animal sacrifice kicks off the evening, followed by a little more sex, violence, deception, revelations, wrestling and dancing than previous years. A darkly comic evening where the line between civilized and primal man is blurred, and where not everyone will survive long enough to enjoy the brownies for dessert.

The show features an all star cast including B Iden Payne and Austin Critics Table nominees and winners Kenneth Wayne Bradley (KILLER JOE, BUG), Rebecca Robinson (SICK), and Liz Fisher (DYING CITY) and introduces recent award winning actor and LA transplant Brad Price to Austin. The show will be directed by Mark Pickell who won both the B Iden Payne award and Austin Critics Table award for the last dark comedy he directed...

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

Bug by Tracy Letts, Capital T Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, May 27 - June 26

Tracy Letts is hard to take. Any playwright is something of a god, sitting before that first blank page with the power to create and mold character and situation. Letts gives us the polarization of that Genesis -- evidently fascinated by the dark and the desperate, he crafts characters beaten down by one another, trapped in poverty, deprived of education and understanding, aching for meaning. He endows them with life, vivid relations and back stories

His Killer Joe, done here last year by essentially the same company of actors, was a powerful but despicable work resembling a vicious dogfight among human beings.

Bug is a different voyage from roughly the same origins. Director Mark Pickell and the cast set the rhythms, the characters, the relationships in the first half as if they were knowledgeable deepsea anglers hooking the great fish of the audience. In the second half they play us with determined cruelty and we have no choice but to follow. Bug reveals itself in Act II to be a trip into paranoia, fantasy and psychosis.

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

Body Awareness by Annie Baker , Hyde Park Theatre, April 8 - May 8

Annie Baker's Body Awareness is a well crafted, attractive little comedy with lots of heart. I hadn't really expected that, for the Hyde Park style is more often sardonic, grimly humorous or menacing. After all, director Ken Webster had been using a publicity shot of the cast in which they looked as if they'd been arrested by the Austin Police Department at a wild party.

Because of a trip out of town, my first chance to attend was a Thursday night. That's usually a quiet night at any theatre here, but Body Awareness boarded like an airliner, accommodating wait-listed passengers. Word had gotten around.

The theatre's promo video sets the characters vividly, so I knew that Stephen Mercantel as Jared was an in-your-face young man frustrated with the world, not in small part because everyone insists that he has Asperger's syndrome -- an inability to empathize or adapt to social conventions, so that he's always asking difficult questions and making observations that come across as unfeeling or cruel. The video captures some of Baker's cleverest turns exploiting that social inability, when Jared is trying to get information about sex and sexuality from adults who are acutely uncomfortable with his questions.

But Baker's play doesn get stuck there, as a TV situation comedy might get stuck exploiting a single character trait or situation. Instead, she succeeds in giving Jared an unlikely appeal and depth. He's enchanted with words and their etymologies; he is reading the Oxford English Dictionary line by line in hopes that someday, despite his lack of formal education, he might become a lexicographer. His unkind, probing questions about human relations and sex arise not from indifferent observation but because he has a deep need to be liked and appreciated.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Video Trailer: Body Awareness, Hyde Park Theatre, April 8 - May 8

Received directly from Hyde Park Theatre:

"Body Awareness" - a comedy by Annie Baker, starring Katherine Catmull, Stephen Mercantel, Emily Erington and Kenneth Wayne Bradley, directed by Ken Webster - at Hyde Park Theatre in Austin, TX.

The show runs April 8 - May 8, 2010 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (Thursdays are "pay-what-you-can").

Promotional trailer directed/shot/edited by Eric Graham for IC Pictures.

Upcoming: Body Awareness, Hyde Park Theatre, April 8 - May 8

UPDATE: Mention by San Francisco playwright Tim Bauer in his blog "Direct Address," April 22

UPDATE: Review by Ryan E. Johnson at examiner.com, April 13

UPDATE: Review by Jeane Claire van Ryzin on Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, April 12

UPDATE: Audio with Mike Lee on KUT's "Arts Eclectic," April 12

Received directly:

presents the Southwest premiere of

Body Awareness

a comedy by Annie Baker

directed by Ken Webster

April 8 - May 8, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $19 and $17 for students, seniors, and ACOT members on Fridays and Saturdays. Thursdays are pay-what-you-can. Hyde Park Theatre is located at 511 W. 43rd. Tickets can be charged online at www.hydeparktheatre.org, or by phone at 479-PLAY.

Featuring: Kenneth Wayne Bradley,Katherine Catmull,Emily Erington, Stephen Mercantel, Ken Webster

It's "Body Awareness Week" at a very-liberal-indeed liberal arts college in Shirley, Vermont, and tensions are coming to a head. Phyllis, one of the organizers, can't get people to stop calling it "Eating Disorders Week" ("if we could just correct that on all the posters, that would be great.") Her partner Joyce is trying to persuade her socially awkward son ("I'm actually 21. I'm old enough to have sex with an adult woman.") that he may have Asperger's Syndrome. Frank,the guest artist staying at their home, photographs nude women of all ages...all ages.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

FronteraFest Best of the Week: Women in Search of Love, January 30

Last Saturday's FronteraFest "Best of Week 3" brought us a lot of yin and very little yang. Of the five pieces brought forward, four were solos by actresses.

Yang did hold its own. The six "Confidence Guys" who did improvised Mamet gave us that playwright's expletives, elisions, incomplete understoods and macho pushiness to the life. After a quick poll of the audience they played it as salesmen in a failing car dealership. Maybe it was a set-up, but they had the edgy macho attitudes down pat. It could have been City Theatre's 2008 Glengarry Glen Ross if they'd substituted real estate for the automobiles.

Ah, though, the women! They captured my heart.

Melanie Dean was there as Lo, the seamstress from small town Texas, as I had predicted in an ALT review earlier in the week. It was a pleasure to hear the story of Kenneth Wayne Bradley's Seamstress a second time and to appreciate Dean's interpretation of that woman of simple heart and serene confidence.

Seattle performance artist Keira McDonald ended the evening with a wild, wild piece sending up the female astronaut who went nuts back in 2007 and drove across the country to pepper spray a love rival. I did a February 1 review of McDonald's Astronaughty for Austinist.com, part of ALT's outreach for new readers.

The two other solo monologues were meditations on the search for love. Brash Krissi Reeves and thoughtful Joy Loveall were single women looking at that subject at different ages, from different life stations and with different expectations. Women at different points along the Tao.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Seamstress by Kenneth Wayne Bradley featuring Melanie Dean, FronteraFest at Hyde Park Theatre, January 27

Is it ethical for a theatre journalist to accept a cookie from an actress in mid-performance?

How about if everyone in the audience has a chance at the home baked goods, because Melanie Dean has handed front-row spectators two big plastic bowls filled with cookies?

There were lots left when the bowl came along the third row. I dipped in without compunction, happy to trust in Melanie's persona as the garrulous small-town Texas widow who has been making wedding gowns since she was a young teenager.

Ken Bradley with his direct stare and imposing assurance is one of Austin's most distinctive actors. This piece, "Seamstress," shows again that he's a deft hand at writing character sketches. Last year Travis Dean rode Bradley's short script "Windchimes and Varicose Veins" in Capital T's I ♥ Walmart to a B. Iden Payne award as Austin's most outstanding featured actor in a comedy for the 2008-2009 season.

That script was a rant; this one's a ramble. Melanie Dean's in her workshop, addressing a new client, probably an awestruck young woman overwhelmed with our culture's bridal rituals. The seamstress is charming and reassuring, as she's fretting with notions both visible and invisible. As she fusses about the shop she chats to the spectators, stand-ins the apparently silent client. We hear how she wound up in this business because she was an assistant to her grandmother; how she fell in love with her slow-talking, courteous and methodically drinking husband; how her remarkable designs came to the attention of some big city designers, just at the wrong time.

Hers is a steady flow of reminiscence and counsel, a dreamy movement like a tubing trip down the Guadalupe of her memories. She's an artisan with a good heart, sharing good moments and regrets, putting her unseen client at ease. Melanie Dean makes this woman lively, friendly and entirely credible.

Bradley's Seamstress under Ellie McBride's direction is a neatly done cameo, a professional piece of work turned out with an eye to the cut, to the presentation, the detail and the tradition. Just like those imaginary bridal gowns that have sustained our seamstress over the years.

Judging from the length of the applause for Dean and for Bradley's script, I'm expecting to see this piece again tomorrow night at FronteraFest's Best of the Week, and probably again at the Best of Fest in February.

I'll be accepting a cookie then, too.


[illustration tweaked from Felicia Bond's cover for "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" by Laura Joffe Numeroff, © 1985, a Laura Geringer book published by HarperCollins]

Frost/Nixon, Austin Playhouse, September 11 - October 11

Almost thirty years had gone by when British dramatist Peter Morgan wrote this piece. The Gielgud Theatre picked it up from an "off-West-End" theatre in 2006. It moved to Broadway for 137 performances in 2007. Frank Langella won both a Tony Award for best actor, as well as the corresponding Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.

Thirty years is about the right lapse of time before one exorcises demons and rehabilitates felons. Pain is remembered but no longer throbs, and different issues occupy the public mind.

The audience members at the Austin Playhouse were almost without exception of an age to have vivid memories of Watergate, Nixon's resignation, and David Frost's 1977 interviews, watched by some 45 million persons. That is reportedly still the record viewership for a televised political interview.

The play is structured as a hunt, a negotiation, and a verbal contest. Don Toner and his cast keep the suspense tight, almost convincing us that we don't know how this will turn out. The pull of the piece, however, is in the acting.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Frost/Nixon, Austin Playhouse, September 11 - October 11

Click for ALT review of October 4

UPDATE: Review by Olin Meadows at AustinOnStage.com, October 1

Received directly:

Austin Playhouse presents

Frost/Nixon
by Peter Morgan
September 11 - October 11, 2009

Austin Playhouse proudly opens their 10th anniversary season with the Austin premiere of Peter Morgan’s Tony Award-winning play, Frost/Nixon.

Frost/Nixon is set three years after Richard Nixon resigned from the Presidency in disgrace. Throughout those three years Nixon remained silent. But in the summer of 1977 the former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for an interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency.

Nixon selected David Frost as his interviewer, confident that he would outwit the lightweight British talk show host. But as cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted. Would Nixon evade questions of his role in one of the nation's greatest disgraces? Or would Frost confound critics and elicit a confession from the man who'd built a career out of stonewalling?

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Brought Back: Killer Joe, Capital T at Hyde Park Theatre, July 23 - August 8

Received directly:

Capital T presents
the Austin Premiere EXTENDED RUN of

Killer Joe
by Tracy Letts
Directed by Mark Pickell
July 23-August 8
Thursday-Saturday at 8pm
Hyde Park Theatre
511 W 43rd St. Autsin, Texas 78751
Tickets $15-$25 (Sliding Scale)
www.capitalT.org or 479-PLAY


After a Sold out 4 week run Killer Joe is back with the same amazing script and the same killer cast that thrilled audiences at Hyde Park Theatre in June. This ain't 'Greater Tuna'-- Killer Joe is not coming back. You have 9 more chances to see what Austin critics have been raving about.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .