I'M NOT AFRAID, an evening with Michelle Cheney - The TexARTS Cabaret Series, April 12-13, 2013

 presents

I'm Not Afraid
an evening with Michelle Cheney

April 12 and 13, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.
Tex-Arts Studios, Kam and James Morris Theatre, 2300 Loehmann's Spur at 620, Lakeway- click for map

 








 Singer, actress and comedienne Michelle Cheney brings her comedic and heartwarming show, I'm Not Afraid, to the intimate TexARTS Cabaret Series. This evening of parody and humor will feature timeless songs from some of Broadway's greatest composers including Kander and Ebb, Jason Robert Brown, Amanda McBroom and many more. David Blackburn music directs. April 12-13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kam and James Morris Theatre at TexARTS (2300 Lohman's Spur, Suite #160, Lakeway, TX). For all ages. Tickets: $20.00 - $30.00. http://www.tex-arts.org/michellecheney.html. Box Office: 512-852-9079 x101

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

NEW YEAR'S EVE at the Georgetown Palace, December 31, 2012

Featuring

"Michelle"
Performing her "One Woman Spectacular Cabaret Show"

Joining Michelle will be several of your favorite Palace performers!

Dinner starts at 7:30pm
Act 1
Adele Simms(Performed in "Annie" as Annie, "Evita", "Cinderella, "Christmas Carol, the Musical" and many more!)
will start performing at 7:35

Yvonne Love(from the Palace's "A Little Night Music, "Cinderella" and many more)
will perform at 8:15pm

Sara Burke(Performed as Mary Magdalene in "Jesus Christ Superstar," Audrey in "Little Shop of Horrors", Ulla in "The Producers" and many more!)will be up next at 9:00pm

Act II

Michelle Cheney
(Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls," Miss Mona in "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," Muriel in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and recently Woman#1 in "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change")

Will begin her Cabaret show to welcome the "New Year" at 10:00pm
(We promise much laughter, gasps, and insight with during this hilariously funny show)

Dinner Menu

First Course (7:30pm)Caprese Salad
Second Course (7:45pm)1. Beef Tenderloin & Lobster Tail
2. New Zealand Lamb Chops
Both served with:
Sauteed Red Pepper Asparagus in a Anaheim Cream Reduction
Goat Cheese infused Potatoes

3. Oak Flame Roasted vegetables over Garlic Potato Cakes
Marinara Sauce
Third Course (Intermission)
Triple Chocolate Cake Petite Fors Truffles
Red Velvet Butter Cream Cake Petite Fors Truffles
Complimentary Champagne Toast (Midnight)6oz Champagne
Breakfast Buffet (12:15am)White Chocolate - Raspberry Scones
Country Casserole
Potatoes, Sausage, Onion, Cheddar Cheese, Eggs
Black Eyed Peas
Coffee
Beverage Options
Complimentary Iced Tea, Coffee or Water served all evening
Complimentary glass of sparkling wine or cider served at midnight
Beer and Wine Bar (Cash and Credit Cards accepted)

For information or to reserve a seat, call the Palace Production Office at 512-591-7825 or e-mail gpalaceproductions@gmail.com

(Click to return to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, City Theatre, July 19 - August 12

City Theatre, Austin

presents

(image from Scot Friedman via Facebook)

by Oliver Goldsmith

directed by Bridget Farias

July 19 – August 12. Thursday - Saturday 8:00 p.m. Sunday 5:30 p.m.

The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd. Suite D. 78722 – east corner of Airport Blvd. and 38 ½ Street.

For reservations, call 512-524-2870 or e-mail info@citytheatreaustin.org . General seating $15. Front/2nd Row Reserved $25. Thursday all seats $10. Group and student discounts. www.citytheatreaustin.org

Romantic tomfoolery and mistaken identities abound in Oliver Goldsmith’s great classic comedy. When shy-with-the ladies Charles Marlow sets off to the country to meet his blind date, a practical joke convinces him that the manor is a luxury inn. Treating one’s prospective in-laws as hired help is hardly advisable, but when it appears that Charles is quite a charmer, misdemeanors multiply, mayhem ensues and love blossoms. A bawdy romp of chaos, courtship and the dysfunctional family.

With Michelle Cheney, Danielle Sawtelle, Scot Friedman, Heath Thompson, Ben McLemore, Katie Green, Anna Schatte, Kevin Cox, Circe Sturm, Alli Huston, Bethany Harbaugh, Clare Boyd and Nguyen Stanton. .

Images by Nadia Morales for Here's To You by A. John Boulanger, FronteraFest at the Blue Theatre, January 28 - February 5

Received directly or found at FaceBook, images by Nadia Morales for the

presentation of

Here's to You, an old comedy

by A. John Boulanger

FronteraFest 2012 at at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road

Saturday, January 28 @ 9:15 pm
Wednesday, February 1 @ 9:15 pm
Saturday, February 4 @ 7:15 pm
Sunday, February 5 @ 4:15 pm

Tickets are $8, available on-line through Hyde Park Theatre

Newlyweds Steven and Ellen Gellar pop into a psychic parlor to see what lies ahead for them as husband and wife. Skeptical Steven fears the worst, as eager Ellen awaits the arrival of Madame Orida Mozelle, psychic extraordinaire (and stage star of yesteryear). With each c...ard (and after a few cocktails) Madame O reveals devastating predictions for a marriage that might not last its first night.

Here's to You stars Judd Farris, Kim Adams, and Michelle Cheney as Madame O.

Click to view more images from Imagine That Productions . . . .

Upcoming: Here's to You, Imagine That Productions at FronteraFest, January 28 - February 5

Received notice via Twitter and Facebook:

Here's to you, an old comedy

by A. John Boulanger

FronteraFest 2012 at at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road

Saturday, January 28 @ 9:15 pm
Wednesday, February 1 @ 9:15 pm
Saturday, February 4 @ 7:15 pm
Sunday, February 5 @ 4:15 pm

Tickets are $8, available on-line through Hyde Park Theatre

Newlyweds Steven and Ellen Gellar pop into a psychic parlor to see what lies ahead for them as husband and wife. Skeptical Steven fears the worst, as eager Ellen awaits the arrival of Madame Orida Mozelle, psychic extraordinaire (and stage star of yesteryear). With each c...ard (and after a few cocktails) Madame O reveals devastating predictions for a marriage that might not last its first night.

Here's to You stars Judd Farris, Kim Adams, and Michelle Cheney as Madame O.

Rumors by Neil Simon, City Theatre, September 29 - October 23

The greater Austin area hasn't lacked for productions of this 1988 farce by Neil Simon. A search of AustinLiveTheatre brings back announcements of stagings by the Wimberley Players in September, 2009, by the Renaissance Guild in San Antonio in July, 2010, by Leander's Way Off Broadway Community Players in January of this year and even by UT's student-run Broccoli Project last March. That sequence resembles the systematic trial-and-error of artillery ranging, back and forth, close and far, until once all the coordinates are set, BAM! the shot goes home. Home, in this case, being the City Theatre, one of Austin's liveliest and most entertaining theatre venues.

Simon was one of the twentieth century's most prolific writers for stage, big screen and small screen. The Internet Movie Data Base lists 83 titles associated with him and its short title for his entry tabs him as the writer of The Odd Couple (1968). Rumors is nowhere in that list, probably because its premise, timing and humor are pure stagecraft. The audience witnesses the arrival of various couples in evening dress, one after another, all invited to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their friend and associate, Charlie Brock, Deputy Mayor of New York, and his wife Myra. Problem: the kitchen staff is missing, the food hasn't been prepared, Myra has disappeared, and their friend Charlie is in a daze, having fired a pistol shot that took off his own earlobe.

They're trapped in a situation that surpasses their understanding. Equally baffled by these circumstances and equally confined in this box set, we watch each couple squirm, panic, bicker and try to cover up as others arrive. Simon paces the arrivals and discoveries, and all we learn of Charlie is third hand -- he's confused, he's crying, he's taking Valium, he's sleeping, he's unavailable to answer when the police come calling to inquire about a car accident, a car theft, and the reports of two shots in the night.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, State Theatre, August 17 - 28

Found on-line:

Georgetown Palace Theatre

remounts

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

at the State Theatre, 719 Congress Avenue (click for map)

August 17 - 28, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.

Following its hit run in Georgetown, the Georgetown Palace Theatre will remount its production of the Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels for a two weekend staging at Austin's newly reopened State Theatre. The production runs August 18th through 28th.

Click to read the ALT review of the original production, April, 2011, at the Georgetown Palace.

Based on the 1988 movie of the same name and written by Dale Launer, Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning, the Broadway musical features music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Jeffrey Lane. The story follows two competing con men living on the French Riviera.

After meeting on a train, they attempt to work together - only to find that the small French town isn't big enough for both of them. The duo settle on a winner-take-all wager over the fortunes of a naïve American soap heiress - the first one to "clean her out" can make the other clear out and keep the Riviera and its unsuspecting tourists to himself.

Palace Theatre production stars Joe Penrod, Andrew Cannata, Patty Rowell, Michelle Cheney and Rick Felkins will recreate their roles for the remounted production. Mary Ellen Butler will again direct, with musical direction by Cliff Butler and choreographed by Danny

Herman and Rocker Verastique.

Performances will run Thursday and Friday evenings at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. A discounted preview will be offered on Thursday, August 17th.

Tickets will be available online, beginning the middle of July, by phone at (512) 474-1221, online at www.AustinTheatre.org, and in person at the State Theater box office. The State Theatre is located at 713 Congress Avenue, next door to the Paramount Theatre in downtown Austin.

(Photos courtesy Palace Theatre, from top:

- Michelle Cheney

- Joe Penrod and Andrew Cannata)

Images by Aleks Ortynski: The Little Dog Laughed, City Theatre, June 9 - July 3

Images by Aleks Ortynski for

The City Theatre's

The Little Dog Laughed

June 9 - July 3

Austin premiere of the hilarious Broadway comedy hit. A fast-paced look at the world of celebrity, Little Dog tells the story of a hot Hollywood actor out to win the role of a lifetime, if he can keep his sexuality under wraps. Add a rent-boy looking for love, his girlfriend looking for a home, and a scheming talent agent out to make the ultimate deal, this wild and steamy comedy is the perfect way to enjoy an Austin summer night.

The comedy stars Victor Trevino and Michelle Cheney and features Micah Sudduth and Keylee Koop. Directed by Andy Berkovsky and Bridget Farias.

June 9 - July 3. Thurs - Sat 8:00 p.m. Sun 5:30 p.m. The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd. Suite D. 78722 – east corner of Airport Blvd. and 38 ½ Street. For reservations, call 512-524-2870 or e-mail info@citytheatreaustin.org. $15 - $20. Front Row Reserved $25. Thursday all seats $10. Group and student discounts. www.citytheatreaustin.org

Click to view additional images by Aleks Ortynski at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Upcoming: The Little Dog Laughed, City Theatre, June 9 - July 3

Received directly:

presents

The Little Dog Laughed

by Douglas Carter Beane

June 9 - July 3, Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 p.m.

The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd. – east corner of Airport Blvd. and 38 ½ Street (click for map)

Tickets $15 - $20. Guaranteed Front/2^nd Row Reserved $25.

Students $12. Thursday all seats $10. Group discounts are available.

Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org

www.citytheatreaustin.org

“Hell hath no fury like an agent scorned” seems to be the enduring message of Douglas Carter Beane’s The Little Dog Laughed, a sharp comedy that fiercely satirizes Hollywood wheeling and dealing and probes issues of gay identity in the popular media. The Tony-nominated play makes its Austin premier at the City Theatre, starring power-house actors Michelle Cheney and Victor Trevino, directed by Andy Berkovsky and Bridget Farias and running June 9 – July 3.

Yes, we love the cinema for its great film makers, its beautiful faces and its daring images. But in this tabloid age where big stars go on Oprah and jump around like heartsick schoolboys, what we really love is all that dish! The players here include a hard-driving Hollywood agent, her budding screen idol client, a sexy young drifter, and the drifter's naive, needy girlfriend. The Little Dog Laughed follows the adventures of Mitchell Green (Victor Trevino), a movie star who could hit big if it weren't for one teensy-weensy problem. His agent, Diane (Michelle Cheney), can't seem to keep him in the closet. Trying to help him navigate Hollywood's choppy waters, the devilish Diane is doing all she can to keep Mitchell away from the cute rent boy (Micah Sudduth) who's caught his eye and the rent boy's girlfriend (Keylee Koop)… wait, the rent boy has a girlfriend? Will there be a happy ending as the final credits roll?

Douglas Carter Beane is considered one of the best new American playwrights writing for the stage today. His works include the screenplay of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, and several plays and musicals including As Bees in Honey Drown, Sister Act, the musical, Xanada and Little Dog which was nominated for the 2007 Tony Award for Best Play. The City Theatre is very excited to have two phenomenal performers lead the cast of the show. Victor Trevino has been working professionally as an actor for over twenty years with performances in major theatres across the U.S. and with roles in films and television including American Me, Big City, The X-Files, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and General Hospital. And enough can’t be said about Michelle Cheney, a veteran of the CTC stage and countless Austin theatre companies. She has starred in Into the Woods, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Guys and Dolls, Noises Off and is a recent Austin B. Iden Payne theatre award winner. Rounding out the cast are two young and talented actors Keylee Koop (City Theatre’s Buried Child) and Micah Sudduth (Zach Scott’s Take Me Out). The production is directed by Bridget Farias, Artistic Director of the EmilyAnn Theatre and Andy Berkovsky, City Theatre Artistic Director and three-time B. Iden Payne theatre award nominee for outstanding director.

The City Theatre Company is a non-profit arts organization and is sponsored in part by the Greater Austin Creative Alliance, the Austin Cultural Arts Division and the AMD Foundation. CTC is dedicated in providing quality theatre experience and entertainment for Austin artists and its community.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Georgetown Palace, April 1 - May 1

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is set in a mythic French Riviera, a delirious paradise that seems to be populated only by rich Americans, a couple of rival American con artists, and one charmingly corrupt French police chief. It's a concept that would make the French laugh out loud. Not that they don't have their own share of nutty cinematic visions, including le vieux Far West, but because this is Cannes as the returned GIs imagined it. Or Monte Carlo as described by Ian Fleming.

This story started out as the 1964 film Bedtime Story with David Niven as Lawrence, the urbane seducer who fooled American heiresses with his false identity as a displaced royal from eastern Europe, and with Marlon Brando as a younger hustler. Brando was willing to take Niven's tutelage, then competed with him in a bet to seduce a vulnerable looking sweet thing. The 1988 remake by Frank Oz Dirty Rotten Scoundrels featured Michael Caine and Steve Martin and followed the same lines. In 2005 Lane and Yazbek turned it into a musical with John Lithgow as the more sophisticated seducer. Oh, and that's not all -- back in 2008, Hollywood actor-writer-director Steve Pink announced that he was developing a treatment with MGM for a new version. That one may come out in 2012. The scoundrels will presumably be using i-Phones, tweeting and all that.

Why keep running this tale again and again?

Because it's an American male fantasy, for one thing -- living without a care, adored for one's sophistication, looks and title, enjoying wine, women and song, the decadent best of exotic Old Europe. Plus the fact that we enjoy seeing lightweight cons succeed, thanks to their wits, and we like it even more when the pair of rascals duel with one anonther.

The publicity and the poster label Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as being "for MATURE audiences," but those are code words for the fact that there will be some sexual innuendos and bathroom jokes that will make you giggle. The music keeps it lively and there's a movie-style twist and comeuppance at the end.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lepine, City Theatre, August 19 - September 17

This energetic and clever staging of Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods confirms for me once again my belief that Austin's City Theatre offers the best entertainment value for money available in the area today.

Ours is an age of disclaimers, so let me be explicit, with a "claimer": I have been a fan of the City Theatre for more than two years. Andy Berkovsky and the artists working with him at the tidy little 85-seat theatre behind the Shell station at Airport Road and 38 1/2 street offer a season that is unmatched for its scope, variety and prices. The City Theatre offers a nine-play season ticket for two for only $150. You couldn't go to the movies for that.

I had acquired the CD of the 1987 original Broadway cast recording of Into The Woods, but this past weekend at the City Theatre I realized that only through performance can one appreciate the richness and complexity of the piece. The City's space gives Into The Woods the cozy intimacy appropriate for a work written as a chamber musical. Come early, so as to secure your seat in the closer rows, or pay a couple of dollars extra to reserve at second-row, center. You will be delighted by the proximity and vivid action.

The 18-member cast features both faces well known in regional musical theatre and newcomers. In Act I they weave for us a tapestry drawn from the familiar tales of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Little Red Ridinghood. Librettist James Lapine uses the additional characters of a childless baker and his wife, figures drawn directly from the tradition of German folktales or Märchen, to bring all those stories together in the magic space of "the woods," where each is bent on an individual quest. They carom off one another in unexpected ways but by the end of Act I they've all achieved their Happily Ever Afters.

In Act II Sondheim and Lapine turn that tapestry over. Life goes on, to the characters' consternation. They face discoveries, unexpected consequences, delights, ennui, losses and disappointments. Fairy tale outcomes are undone, dissolved or turned rich and strange.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Excuse Me While I Change!, Michelle Cheney at the City Theatre, April 22 - 25

Received directly:

City Theatre presents

Michelle Cheney’s encore performance of

Excuse Me While I Change!

After a sold out February premiere, the Austin musical performer and comedienne brings her hit cabaret show back to the City Theatre stage for one weekend only, April 22 – 25.

Michelle Cheney, singer, actress, comedienne, and Austin original (we like to think so) brings her “musical take” on life and its changes back to The City Theatre April 22 - 25 for the presentation of her one-woman show Excuse Me While I Change. Revamped for the April performance, Michelle’s comedic, yet heart-warming show about living, loving and laughing, features music from some of Broadway’s greatest composers and with special material and direction by Austin Cabaret Theater director Stuart Moulton.

You wanted expanded wardrobe changes? You got ‘em. More music, more fun?? Accompanied by musical director Kevin Oliver, Michelle will spend an entertaining evening looking at changes in her life, her relationships, growing up in conservative Utah, along with humorous encounters in the Lone Star State.

She commiserates with the wife of Tiger Woods in the hilarious “My Husband is Playing Around” as well revealing new pieces about the secret fantasy world of the married woman and a medley of surprising thoughts on a variety of men and their unique attributes. Well-known pieces are featured including “Moon River” and “Keep My Love Alive” and a little fun on trying to stay beautiful with “Send in the Clowns.”

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Excuse Me While I Change, Michelle Cheney's one-woman cabaret at the City Theatre, February 6-7

Michelle Cheney has a lot of fans and friends in this town -- enough to fill up the 85-seat City Theatre in direct competition with the Superbowl. Mind you, the feminine persuasion was visibly in the majority, probably having abandoned their men friends to the Nachos, beer and television as they went off to enjoy Michelle's patter, song, wit and costume changes.

Michelle Cheney has often appeared on Austin stages, but she made an early confession: she is not/NOT a native Texan. She comes from Utah, and she emphasized her non-Texanity with her deliberately goofy choice of hat for the very funny, Austin-specific parody of Evita ("Don't cry for me/I've gone to Texas. . .").

You may have seen her as Sister Mary Amnesia in City's Nunsense last summer. She pops on a wimple over her evening frock to reprise that character's Loretta Lynn moment in "I Could've Gone to Nashville."

She's not just a voice, as you know well if you saw portray dramatic roles in Talking With and The Shadow Box, both done last year by NxNW Theatre Company.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Excuse Me While I Change, Michelle Cheney at the City Theatre, February 6 - 7

Click for ALT review, February 11


Received directly:

Austin musical comedienne Michelle Cheney takes to the stage for her premier cabaret show

Excuse Me While I Change

February 6 and 7. Saturday and Sunday, 8 p.m.
City Theatre, Airport Rd at 38 1/2 Street

Michelle Cheney, singer, actress, comedienne, and Austin original (we like to think so) brings her “musical take” on life and its changes to The City Theatre February 6 and 7 at 8 p.m. for the premier presentation of her one-woman show Excuse Me While I Change.

Her comedic, yet heart-warming show features music from some of Broadway’s greatest composers. Accompanied by musical director Kevin Oliver, Michelle will spend a fun and entertaining evening taking a look at changes in herself, relationships, growing up in conservative Salt Lake City, along with a humorous take on challenges a “non-native born Texan” encounters in the Lone Star State.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

What Was I Thinking? with Michelle Rundgren, Hyde Park Theatre, October 22 - 31

What Was I Thinking Of? is Michele Rundgren’s clever transformation of a book of women's tales of woe into a tipsy party of girlfriends who can laugh – now – at the world’s worst boyfriends and the world’s worst dates.

The show ran for two weekends at the Hyde Park Theatre, and its sassy attitude brightened up that often foreboding space. I got there only at the closing show, on Halloween, which ran from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. that Saturday afternoon. Rundgren was hosting the party in place for the following two hours -- it appeared that the ladies were not planning to go out for their own tricks and treats until they'd fortified the presumably non-alcoholic stage beverages with something more serious.

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

Talking With by Jane Martin, North by Northwest Theatre Company at the City Theatre, October 9 - 18

The solo monologue is one of the purest demonstrations of the art. These six women come individually to you in the intimacy and immediacy of the City Theatre's small house. In each scene the actress takes that text with your complicity and, before your eyes, becomes the character.

"Jane Martin" is probably a pseudonym for Jon Jory, who has directed all of her ten plays. The mysterious Jane has never been seen. She twice won the American Theatre Critics' award for a new play and was nominated for a Pulitzer prize. Jory simply declines to discuss the matter -- perhaps a ploy, perhaps an artist's staking out the liberty to explore his feminine side.

Because each of these characters is vividly, irrevocably female. Michelle Cheney as the actress finishing her makeup as "fifteen minutes!" to curtain time is called; Renee Brown as the housewife who escapes daily reality; Wendy Zavaleta as a daughter grieving the death of her otherwise indomitable mother; Jennifer Coy as a brash auditioner perfectly willing to use blackmail; B.J. Machalicek as a dreamer at McDonald's; and Marsha Sray as a girl explaining the meaning of baton twirling.

That's just the first act.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Talking With, North by Northwest Theatre Company at City Theatre, October 9 - 18

Click for ALT review, October 13

From NxNW Theatre Company:

Talking With

by Jane Martin
directed by Joni McClain
October 9 - 18

A young woman tests her faith by handling poisonous snakes. A destitute woman longs to live in McDonald’s where the sick are cured by Big Macs. A housewife makes a daily escape to the magical land of Oz. Pulitzer nominated playwright Jane Martin gives us the provocative and heartfelt stories of these and other women who are ostracized by the American dream. Talking With is a powerful show, both funny and sad, that examines courage, awaking from complacency and the value of eccentricity. Starring Renee Brown, Michelle Cheney, Jennifer Coy, BJ Machalicek, Marsha Sray and Wendy Zavaleta.

October 9 - 18
Eight Performances Only!
Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat at 8:00, Sun at 2:00
Tickets $20, $18 students/seniors
The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd

Nunsense, City Theatre, June 11 - July 5

This saucy, sparkling production of a popular favorite plays merrily with its basic premise: even if you're very, very good, you can laugh and dance to the joy of life.

Dan Goggin's idea is so simple that it started out as a line of greeting cards. Their immediate popularity prompted him to put his mischievous nuns on stage. He reworked a warmly received trial run (of 38 weeks!) into a longer piece that opened off Broadway in 1984 and then moved uptown for a ten-year run and 3.672 performances. Nunsense is the second-longest running Broadway musical -- surpassed only by The Fantasticks, also playing currently in Austin. Nunsense has played in 26 languages and 6000 productions worldwide, with a combined cast of about 25,000 women.

The Georgetown Palace did the show last August. That production was perky, fun and well applauded. The City Theatre version now on stage has the same energy and good humor, in the up-close intimacy of a playing space seating only a quarter the size of the Palace. Andy Berkovsky's version borrows virtually nothing from the Palace, other than the most important feature of all: its leading Reverend Mother, Mary Regina, created by Melissa McAtee.

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

Upcoming: Nunsense, City Theatre, June 11 - July 5

UPDATE: Click for ALT review, June 16



From City Theatre Austin:

NUNS OF FUN!
Madcap Musical
Nunsense
Comes to Austin This Summer
June 11 - July 5

The early summer forecast for City Theatre calls for giggles, guffaws, chortles, and good old fashioned belly laughs…and it’s all thanks to the famed Little Sisters of Hoboken. The City Theatre Company is preparing to get thee to a nunnery with Nunsense, the hit musical comedy celebrating its 25th anniversary and filled with so much sisterly love and good cheer that it has had audiences around the world rolling in the aisles. The nuns strut their stuff June 11 - July 5.

Produced by The City Theatre Company, the musical comedy will be directed by Artistic Director Andy Berkovsky (The Boys Next Door, Alice in Wonderland, Glengarry Glen Ross) with choreography by Jessica Kelpsch.

It will feature the all-star cast of Melita McAtee (Reverend Mother), Michelle Cheney (Sister Mary Amnesia), Jen Coy (Sister Robert Anne), Glenna Bowman (Sister Mary Leo), and Dorothy Mays Clark (Sister Mary Hubert).

Thursday – Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Sunday 5:30 p.m.
*Last Weekend - No show July 3 & 4. July 5 – two shows 2:30 & 5:30. Added show Wed., July 1 8:00 p.m.
General Seating $20, Seniors $18, Guaranteed Reserved Seating $25, Students $15 Thursday all seats $15, Group discounts available.

Website: www.citytheatreaustin.org

The City Theatre
3823 Airport Blvd. – east between Manor Road and 38 ½ St.
Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

The Shadow Box, North by Northwest Theatre Company at City Theatre, February 6 - 22

Now, here is a very frightening place -- a hospice somewhere in California, in which a disembodied therapist with a warm but neutral voice projects himself into your cottage once a day. "How are you feeling? Would you like to tell me about it?" That voice is kind, as calmly reflective and enigmatic as a mirror, and it offers not the slightest shred of hope or counsel.

You look good, you might have a few physical twinges but you're not bed-ridden, everything is provided for your comfort. And you're left to get on with your dying. Reconciling yourself with the end of the road and with anger, consternation, or despair.

Michael Christofer's 1977 play is three in one, cutting together stories of Joe the middle class family man (David Dunlap), Brian the wordy, distracted professor (Robert Salas) and Felicity, an ancient woman who refuses to die because she imagines that a dead daughter will be returning soon (Anne Putnam). This choice of characters by Christofer might seem formulaic, a sort of diversity in a platoon on its way to an encounter with Death the enemy, but the impressive quality of the acting by this cast gives life and substance to them.

Director Kyle Evans and the North by Northwest cast move the action smoothly through an abstract set. We accept the eerie situation of small but well-furnished cottages wired up for surveillance, the inexplicable absence of concern about the justification, administration or finances of it all, and the inhabitants' complete blindness to one another. This is death by stare-down in a bare arena, with each inhabitant and companions face to face with the void.

For Christofer it is indeed the void, or at least the unknown. None of these characters has the help or crutch of faith or philosophy. Middle class Joe is fretful about the failure of wife Maggie (Aleta Garcia) to inform son Steve (Kenton Miscoe) of the unnamed disease, and he obsessively relives lost family life. Professor Brian churns out poetry and novels that he cheerfully acknowledges as completely without merit, and he embraces both his visiting wanton ex-wife (Michelle Cheney) and his attendant friend Mark, a male hustler whom he befriended in San Francisco (David Butts). Ancient Felicity is sour and angry when coherent but asleep or in a dream world most of the time, accompanied by her despairing daughter Agnes (Miriam Rubin).

The women companions of this piece are even more striking than the dying principals. Aleta Garcia as Joe's wife Maggie vibrates with anxiety and naked concern for him. Michelle Cheney is raucously self-dismissive, an unapologetic, bejewelled and bespangled devotee of impulse.








As Agnes, the dutiful daughter, Miriam Rubin (right) delivers a devastating performance, one of range and subtle intensity. Though she is largely silent in the early scenes, Agnes is the pivot of the play. She is the only family member to dialogue with the ghostly administration of this padded hell. For the first and only time the Interviewer (Philip Cole) appears, seated with her, courteous and attentive. He pulls out of Agnes a confession: in response to her mother's dementia, Agnes has for almost two years been trying to make Felicity happy by fabricating letters from Clare, the dead daughter.

The Interviewer suggests that this charade has kept Felicity clinging to life when she might be expected to let death take its course. Rubin shows Agnes's struggle to understand. Her indecision and her pained emotion in this confrontation and subsequently with her distracted, strong willed mother are elements of a performance to tear your heart out.

The piece rises to an enigmatic finale, as characters situated across the stage transcend their identities, very like a Greek chorus, to speak of losses and of the pains of facing death.

The program says that this piece was "representative of a breakthrough in both matter and subject form" (sic), a comment substantiated to some extent by the Tony and Pulitzer prizes awarded to it. It is not an easy evening and it provides no reassuring answers. It's poignant, disturbing, and ultimately poetic.

Barry Pineo's review in the Austin Chronicle of February 12: "Rubin quietly and believably makes Agnes' agony palpable. Rubin made me feel her pain, and you can't ask for more from an actor than that."