A WALK IN THE WOODS by Lee Blessing, Street Corner Arts, July 19 - August 4, 2013

STREET CORNER ARTS

presents

(poster: Street Corner Arts)

 A WALK IN THE WOODS
by Lee Blessing
directed by A. Skola Summers
July 19 - August 4, 2013

click for map to Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd.

Opening Friday, 7/19; running Friday & Saturday nights at 8 pm; Sundays at 5 pm, through 8/4 General: $20

*Austin Playhouse subscribers receive a $5 discount

“A work of passion and power with the ring of political truth. It is not only the best of the few dramas to reach Broadway this season, it is also the funniest comedy.” – Time Magazine


“...man has the potential to become a whole new animal. One that trusts instead of fears. One that agrees when it makes sense to agree. That finds the way to live, because life has become for him - has finally become - a sacred thing.”

Nearing the end of the Cold War, two men – a clever, yet cynical Russian and an idealistic young American – discuss and debate politics, life, and the future of the free world on the outskirts of Geneva. As arms negotiators, they explore the obstacles their countries face on the path toward peace. Can personal bonds bridge political chasms?

Starring Michael Stuart (August: Osage County, Dead Presidents Club) & Benjamin Summers (Importance of Being Earnest, 39 Steps)
Directed by A. Skola Summers (Gruesome Playground Injuries, Men of Tortuga)

www.streetcornerarts.org // (512) 298-9776

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Independence by Lee Blessing, Paradox Palyers, June 3 - 19

Independence, first staged in 1983, is one of the earliest of Lee Blessing's theatre works. It's a tidy, well constructed box-set play that announces its theme open-faced with the very title.

The fact that the setting is Independence, Iowa, misleads no one. That speck on the map, population of about 5,500, stands for AnyTown, USA, or at least, AnySmallTown, USA.

Blessing probably started with a schematic diagram: small town, an intermittently crazy mother, three daughters born ten years apart; in the forced circumstances of a reunion, he has the opportunity to portray the Stages of Womankind. Evelyn Briggs is the mom, a tenuous survivor of life in Independence; Kess, the oldest, is the Mature Woman who escaped, now a university professor in Minneapolis and only incidentally a lesbian; Jo the Stay-at-home Daughter sees the prospect of dutiful daughterdom and, probably, spilnsterhood before her; and Sherry is a Luscious Good-time Girl in high school, itching to hit adulthood and the road that leads the hell out of Independence, Iowa.

The little world of women created here by Blessing, director Lisa Foster, and the well chosen Paradox Players cast is one of warmth, humor and jousting for personal space.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Independence by Lee Blessing, Paradox Players at the Unitarian Universalist Church, June 3 - 19

Found on-line:

present

Independence
by Lee Blessing

directed by Lisa Foster

June 3-19

Howson Hall, First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4700 Grover (click for map)

It's 1983 in Independence, Iowa - a town that's hard to stay in, but even harder to leave behind. This gripping, often humorous rollarcoaster ride looks unflinchingly at the lives of three grown daughters and their offbeat mother.

Chesapeake by Lee Blessing with Charles Stites, Paladin Theatre, April 7 - 23

Sometimes the miracle happens.

Theatre is a collusion between actors and the audiences: You pretend to be somebody and I'll pretend to believe you. In the subtitle to his 2010 book-length essay The Necessity of Theatre, UT philosophy professor Paul Woodroof calls it "the art of watching and being watching." Writing for a rationalist public in 1817 Coleridge defended the use of the fantastical in poetry by invoking "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

"I love the collusion. My suspension is just about as elastic as they come, and I'll watch just about any offering of narrative theatre.

In his few short sentences on the back of the program card for Chespeake Charles P. Stites, solo player in this piece and director of himself, precisely captures that feeling: "My will to suspend my disbelief is on a hair trigger. As soon as the lights go down in a theatre, I will immediately go anywhere the actors and playwright want to take me."

And sometimes, so very rarely, a text and a performance so transcend that common transaction that you find yourself living from word to word, from gesture to gesture, in a trance of belief that's almost an out-of-body experience. You see through the actor into a succession of images, shaped by language and unexpected turns of plot and character, to a point that when the experience ends, when the lights fade out and you've finished with your convulsion of applause for this suddenly unfamiliar individual in front of you, you linger in that world of imagination for long minutes. As you make your way out of the theatre, navigate downtown streets, locate your car and drive home, you're still out there, somewhere.

Stites' delivery of Lee Blessing's Chesapeake was the most gripping act of theatre imagination I've ever seen in Austin. Take that with as many grains of salt as you like. I've been assiduously attending narrative theatre events here since mid-2008 when I instituted Austin Live Theatre as a blog, and I've written more than 400 reviews in that time.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Auditions for Independence by Lee Blessing, Paradox Players, April 4 & 5

Received directly:

Paradox Players are holding auditions for Independence by Lee Blessing on April 4 & 5, 7-9 pm at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Road (click for map). Lisa Foster will direct the production, to be staged June 3-19. Independence offers roles available for 4 actresses to play 4 well-written, completely developed characters that consist of a mother and 3 daughters:

Evelyn -- 50's-60's, mother of three grown daughters, needy, off-the-wall, controlling, comic timing absolutely necessary

Kess -- mid to late 30's, independent, intellectual, professor of english literature, hard shell w/ vulnerable inside, transforms within the play

Jo -- late 20's or early to mid 30's, pregnant, kind, dutiful, caretaker of Mom, low self-esteem, makes a transformation within the play

Sherry -- 19, graduating from high school in a few weeks, selfish by necessity, snarky, has great comic lines so comic timing necessary

Setting is Independence, Iowa in 1984, when the oldest daughter, English professor Kess, is called home to tend to her unstable mother and desperate sisters.

Auditionees are requested to read the script, which is available for check-out at the mailroom at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4700 Grover and at the Austin Creative Alliance office (formerly ACOT), at 701 Tillery. For more information, email info@paradoxplayers.org or call (512) 673-7753.

Upcoming: Chesapeake by Lee Blessing, Charles P. Stites and Paladin Theatre Company at the Hideout Theatre, April 7 -23

Received directly:

The Paladin Theatre Company proudly presents
the Austin, Texas Premiere of

CHESAPEAKE

a one-character comedy by Pulitzer prize finalist Lee Blessing

directed and performed by B. Iden Payne award winner Charles P. Stites

“It’s a dog’s life...and the next one is, too.”

Thursday,April 7 - 23, Thursdays-Sundays
8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and 5:30 p.m. on Sundays.
TICKETS: $10.00 on Thursdays, $12.00 on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays

Performances will be held at The Hideout Theatre, 617 Congress Avenue (click for map)

For tickets and information: Call AusTIX at (512) 474 - TIXS or order online at: http://www.NowPlayingAustin.com/Austix .

Tickets purchased at the door are cash only.
Email: info@paladintheatrecompany.com

When Kerr, a gay performance artist in New York, is publicly attacked by an ultra-conservative southern senate candidate named Therm Pooley, Kerr seeks revenge on both the politician and his political mascot, a Chesapeake Bay retriever named Lucky. When the plan goes haywire, Kerr is doomed to spend the next life as his worst enemy’s dog. Chesapeake is an uproarious, rousing comedy about passion, art, vengeance, forgiveness, and eternity.