Upcoming: Territory by Michael Carmensch, Transit Theatre Troupe, St. Edward's University, April 26 - 29

at St. Edward's University

presents

Territory

by Michael Camenisch

directed by Meredith Montgomery and Jessica Angima

April 26 - 29, 10 p.m.

Courtyard of the RCC, outside the swimming pool, St. Edward's University

This production and all productions by Transit are FREE to the public. Donations are accepted and all proceeds go to a local charity of the director's choice.

Two couples exist together, experiencing life together, though they are over one hundred years apart. Territory is a play about love and loss and how art can bring all types of people together, even centuries apart.

Gin: Lora Blackwell
Shan: Kenny Dolin
Amelia: Vanessa Guadiana
Henry: Mitch Harris

Transit Theatre Troupe is an on campus non for profit theatre group that produces student run, site specific theatre.

Auditions at St. Ed's for Transit Theatre Troupe's 'Territory,' March 4

Transit Theatre Troupe will be casting two men and two women for our upcoming production of local playwright Michael Camenisch's new work Territory. Auditions will consist of movement work, followed by cold readings. The show will run from April 25 - 29. Directed by Meredith Montgomery & Jessica Angima.

WHERE: St. Edward's Performance Studio (Fine Arts Building 141)
WHEN: THIS SUNDAY, March 4, 2012 from 12:00pm - 3:00pm. Please be available to audition the entire time.
Sign up on the Transit callboard near the MMNT Green Room! We look forward to seeing your work.

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 . . . .

Upcoming: Finding Yourself in America: A Hotdog Story, Avant-Garde Awareness Company at St. Edward's University, April 6 - 8

Received directly:

Finding Yourself in America: A Hotdog Story
by Avant-Garde Awareness Company
directed and produced by Meredith Montgomery
April 6 – 8, 6:30 pm
St Edward's University, 3001 South Congress Avenue campus map: http://www.stedwards.edu/map/

WHERE: April 6th: Mabee Ballroom A (3rd Floor, Ragsdale)
April 7th: Maloney Ballroom ( Main Building, 320)
April 8th: Ragsdale Lawn

Finding Yourself In America: A Hotdog Story is a production based around the idea of embracing your own individuality. It is a fun and interactive way to do personal soul searching. What is unique about this production is not only that it is completely for the betterment of the community, but the creation of the show being a collaborative process between all of the company members. Over the past eight months Meredith Montgomery and eight dedicated undergraduates have been working to create a new work to perform with the goal of community service and inspiration. After a long, evolutionary process of nontraditional writing and expression, the topic to be presented is personal individuality.

“The point is to bring awareness to our community in a new and innovative way.” says Montgomery, “Through our production we yearn to show others that it is not just okay to be happy with what makes you unique, but that it is actually the key to life success and happiness. We strive to do this while keeping the production under 25 minutes in order to allow constructive conversation between audience and company to take place immediately following the show”.

Come join the vivacious company of eight in finding and loving your own individuality.

About St. Edward's University Founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross, St. Edward's University is named among the top five "Up-and-Coming Universities" in the Western Region by its academic peers in a 2011 U.S. News & World Report survey. For eight consecutive years St. Edward's has been recognized as one of "America's Best Colleges" by U.S. News & World Report and this year by Forbes and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. St. Edward's is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university of more than 5,200 students located in Austin, Texas. For more information on St. Edward’s University, visit www.stedwards.edu.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, November 11 - 21

I knew that this was going to be intense. I had invited friends to see it with me, and we had seats in the middle of the front row, south side of the "theatre in the square" at the Mary Moody Northen Theatre. After Michelle Polgar had dedicated the opening night's performance to the memory of Oscar Brockett, that grand old man of Austin theatre, the lights began to fade and I had a feeling similar to that you get when you light the fuse on a fistful of firecrackers and throw them down.

My usual view is that a cinema version of the text is irrelevant to the stage performance, but here I have to admit that in any staging of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the ghost of Richard Burton and the presence of Elizabeth Taylor roil fitfully about the set. The movie rating code had just been instituted when Mike Nichols' film was released in 1966. The MPAA had relented after a couple of minor revisions of the dialogue and gave it a "suggested for mature audiences" rating. In my town meant that you had to be 18 years of age to get in, unless accompanied by a parent. My father, a secret movie buff, insisted that I see it and he stood behind me as my 17-year-old self bought my ticket.

Thirteen Academy award nominations, including for Nichols as director and all four in the cast, with five wins, including Taylor as the monstrous Martha and Sandy Dennis as an unforgettably inebriated bubble-blowing little wife. So how can a contemporary theatrical production stand up to that?

The answer in Austin is simple but three-fold: by playing to an audience predominantly of college students who do not know the film; by enlisting Babs George for the role of Martha and Ev Lunning Jr. for the role of George; and with Christie Moore's tight direction in Leilah Stewart's starkly effective, almost claustrophobic set.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

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 . . .