Opening This Week in Austin, September 2 - 9

Opening This Week

September 3 - 10

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Click HERE for a list of productions continuing on stage

Upcoming: NOISES OFF, Center Stage on Real, September 7 - 16

NOISES OFF, Center Stage on Real, September 7 - 16, Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.

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An evening of slap-stick laughs and endless plates of sardines await with Center Stage Player's next production: Noises Off!

Props fly everywhere as one tiny theatre company tries their best to perform a play, but with every challenge a theatre company could ever envision. Broken love affairs, missing cast members, and one mysterious whiskey bottle create mayhem and madness for the poor actors, both on stage and off.

Noises off is one of the greatest farces ever written and you will not want to miss these talented students tackling this monster of a comedy!

Opening Night there will be a Champagne Reception and Benefit Performance.

Proceeds from all ticket sales will benefit Center Stage Texas programming.

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Auditions of Students 17 - 23 for Michael Frayn's Noises Off, Center Stage Texas, May 14 and 15

Center Stage Players are holding Auditions May 14 and 15, 6 - 8 p.m. for high school and college students ages 17 - 23 for Noises Off to be presented at Center Stage Texas, 2826 Real Street (click for map) Callbacks possible on May 20 during the day. Contact: chase.cool@gmail.com Please prepare a 1- to 2-minute comedic monologue demonstrating great range of character and comedic timing. Please contact Chase at chase.cool@gmail.com schedule an audition time. You need only come once (on either the 14th or 15th).


Center Stage Players will be producing one of the most critically acclaimed farces ever written: Michael Frayn’s Noises Off. High school and college students ages 17 to 23 are invited to audition for this hilarious three act comedy about a theatre company’s fraught-riddled attempt to produce a hilarious three act comedy.

The Center Stage Players are a student-run group founded in 2009, producing full scale productions at Center Stage Texas Theatre. We believe that young theatre professionals should be given the chance to grow and explore their talents with support from seasoned professionals in the field. The two productions that have been produced thus far (Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace) were smash successes.

The student director and currently UT undergraduate student Dylan Kittleman works with a professional director and production manager to develop a full production plan, budget and schedule to be submitted to the CST board for review. Once the show is approved, auditions and interviews begin to select the students who will be participating in the show both as actors and as technical staff. The rehearsals span over several months in which students will learn staging, memorize lines, and study character motivation. Theatre professionals support and mentor students through the process, but ultimately the students make all of the final decisions. It all comes together at Center Stage Texas with six final performances September 7 - 9 and 14 - 16 showcasing the talent of the cast and crew to the public.

Upcoming: Noises Off by Michael Frayne, Texas State University, February 15 - 20

Received directly:

presents

Noises Off

by Michael Frayn

directed by Richard Sodders

February 15^th – 19^th at 7:30 p.m. and February 20^th at 2 p.m.

Texas State University Mainstage Theatre, 430 Moon St., San Marcos

Tickets: $10 general admission and $7 for students with a valid Texas State ID.

For reservations, call the Texas State Box Office at (512) 245-2204.

Tickets will go on sale beginning Tuesday February 8^th at 10:00 a.m.

Noises Off presents the hilarious story of a hapless English acting troupe who are touring a production of a farce called Nothing On. This ever-popular British sex farce features mistaken identities, sexual dalliances, and many doors opening and shutting. We even get to see what happens backstage while the show is being performed. Called “the funniest farce ever written” by the New York Post, this play has kept audiences laughing since 1982. A night of side-splitting fun is promised!

Noises Off by Michael Frayn, Way Off Broadway Community Players, Leander, September 24 - October 16

The Way Off Broadway Community Players in Leander are celebrating their spacious new locale by turning the theatre inside out with laughter. Literally.

Michael Frayn's Noises Off is a lively amusement that pokes good-hearted fun at the conventions of the stage, starting with the most basic one: the agreement that we in the audience will accept you, the actors, as the characters that you are pretending to represent. You settle into your comfortable seat in the new WOBCP's wide and spacious new auditorium and accept the silly business of housekeeper Mrs. Clackett's exposition with the telephone and the newspapers and the sardines.

At that point, if you had studied the miniscule print in the rear pages of the program, you might have been puzzled by a whole second set of credits, ads, bios and thank-yous for the production Nothing On by Robin Housemonger. It becomes clear pretty quickly that that title covers, barely, one of those sweetly naughty brainless farces stereotypical of middle class English theatre circuits -- a play with disguises, mistaken identities, a burglar, slamming doors, and a sweet little bit of crumpet who scampers around in her scanties. Is that what we're seeing?

Yes, and no. Playwright Michael Frayne takes that concept and spins it. A patient, aggrieved voice from the house cuts Mrs. Clackett's chatter short. Lloyd Dallas strides up to the edge of the stage. He sets Dotty Ottley straight about the sequence of business on stage, heaves a sigh and asks her to do it again. Ottley has stage experience but appears never to have played anything but variations on the same character, according to the program (she played "Mrs. Hackett, Britain's most famous lollipop lady ('ooh, I can't 'ardly 'old me lolly up!")). This is a late night rehearsal of a fourth-rate play by a third-rate touring company. We meet other members of the cast as the action of this bit of froth shudders along, late at night, to the more and more comic exasperation of director Dallas.

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