Photos by Bret Brookshire for The Language Archive by Julia Cho, Different Stages at City Theatre, January 10 - February 1, 2014

Photos by Brett Brookshire:

(CLICK for INFO and TICKETS)

Trevor Bissell (photo by Bret Brookshire)

Norman Blumensaadt, Trevor Bissell, Jennifer Underwood (photo: Bret Brookshire)

Eva McQuade, Circe Storm (photo: Bret Brookshire)

Click to view additional images by Bret Brookshire at CTXLT.com

Auditions for Arsenic and Old Lace, Different Stages at the Vortex Repertory, August 24 and 31, 2013

AUDITIONS AUDITIONS AUDITIONS

for Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring, directed by Norman Blumensaadt
Saturday, August 24 and Saturday, August 31, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day at the Vortex Repertory Company, 2307 Manor Rd. - click for map
Martha and Abby Brewster, spinster sisters, are the kindest, sweetest ladies in the neighborhood. They give out presents to children, they care for the sick and their poor brother Teddy, and they open their house to any lonely soul in need of a place to stay. And their famous homemade elderberry wine ensures a steady stream of visitors, some of whom never leave. Jennifer Underwood and Karen Jambon are playing the roles of Abby and Martha Brewster. Playing November 22 - December 14 at the Vortex.

Casting for 1 woman , age 25 - 35 and 9 men, ages 27 - 70. To make an appointment, call Carol Ginn at 444-3303. Actors are strongly urged to read the script before the auditions.

Video: Director Norman Blumensaadt on Emlyn Williams's Night Must Fall, Different Stages, June 21 - July 13, 2013

In Tom Chamberlain's three-minute video director Norman Blumensaadt outlines the origins and the tensions of the 1930's mystery by Emlyn Williams, presented by

 

Night Must Fall

directed by Norman Blumensaadt

June 21 – July 13

The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd - click for map

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.

No performance on Thursday July 4; added performance on Wednesday July 10.

“Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30

For reservations call 478-5282

Different Stages continues its 2012-2013 season with Emlyn William’s classic mystery Night Must Fall. In a bungalow in a forest in Essex lives Mrs. Bramson, a fussy hypochondriac. She pays her niece Olivia a small salary to act as her companion and the household also includes her cook, Mrs. Terence, and her maid Dora.


When Dora gets pregnant, Mrs. Bramson is determined to get the boyfriend to marry her. At the same time, a woman disappears from a nearby hotel. The police begin investigations and, when Dora brings home her boyfriend Dan, Olivia immediately notices that his behavior is not quite normal. He is perpetually putting on an act and soon he worms his way into the affections of Mrs. Bramson, leaves his job as pageboy at the hotel and moves in. Then the woman’s body is found – headless.....


Directed by Norman Blumensaadt, Night Must Fall features Ben McLemore as Dan, Mary Kennelly as Mrs. Bramson and Bethany Harbaugh as Olivia. The cook is Played by Paula Gilbert and the maid by Laura Artesi . Daniel Norton plays the police inspector and Jonathon Urso plays Olivia’s boyfriend

.

NIGHT MUST FALL by Emlyn Williams, Different Stages at the Vortex Repertory, June 21 - July 13, 2013

presents

 Emlyn Williams’s

 Night Must Fall

(image: www.ilkleyplayhouse.co.uk)

directed by Norman Blumensaadt

June 21 – July 13

The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd - click for map

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.

No performance on Thursday July 4; added performance on Wednesday July 10.

“Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30

For reservations call 478-5282

Different Stages continues its 2012-2013 season with Emlyn William’s classic mystery Night Must Fall. In a bungalow in a forest in Essex lives Mrs. Bramson, a fussy hypochondriac. She pays her niece Olivia a small salary to act as her companion and the household also includes her cook, Mrs. Terence, and her maid Dora.

When Dora gets pregnant, Mrs. Bramson is determined to get the boyfriend to marry her. At the same time, a woman disappears from a nearby hotel. The police begin investigations and, when Dora brings home her boyfriend Dan, Olivia immediately notices that his behavior is not quite normal. He is perpetually putting on an act and soon he worms his way into the affections of Mrs. Bramson, leaves his job as pageboy at the hotel and moves in. Then the woman’s body is found – headless.....

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (Quills), Night Must Fall features Ben McLemore (Dr Faustus) as Dan, Mary Kennelly (You Can’t Take it with You) as Mrs. Bramson and Bethany Harbaugh (Plus meets Minus) as Olivia. The cook is Played by Paula Gilbert (Too Many Husbands) and the maid by Laura Artesi (Two Gentlemen of Verona). Daniel Norton (A Skull in Connemara) plays the police inspector and Jonathon Urso (Is Life Worth Living?) plays Olivia’s boyfriend
.
Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m.

For tickets and information call 478-5282

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Auditions for Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams, Different Stages, April 1 and 2, 2013

AUDITIONS AUDITIONS AUDITIONS
Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams, directed by Norman Blumensaadt
MONDAY APRIL 1 and TUESDAY APRIL 2, 7-9 PM BOTH DAYS a DOUGHERTY ARTS CENTER, 1110 BARTON SPRINGS (click for map) . TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT OR FOR INFORMATION CALL CAROL GINN at 444-3303

In a bungalow in a forest in Essex lives Mrs Bramson, a fussy hypochondriac. She pays her niece Olivia a small salary to act as her companion and the household also includes her cook, Mrs Terence, and her maid Dora. When Dora gets pregnant, Mrs Bramson is determined to get the boyfriend to marry her. At the same time, a woman disappears from a nearby hotel. The police begin investigations and, when Dora brings home her boyfriend Dan, Olivia immediately notices that his behaviour is not quite normal. He is perpetually putting on an act and soon he worms his way into the affections of Mrs Bramson, leaves his job as page boy at the hotel and moves in. Then the woman’s body is found – headless.....

ROLES: 5 WOMEN AGES 25-65; 3 MEN AGES 27- 65. PRODUCTION DATES JUNE 21 – JULY 13, 2013 at THE VORTEX, 2307 MANOR RD
THE SCRIPT CAN BE READ ON-LINE via this link. ACTORS ARE STRONGLY URGED TO READ THE SCRIPT BEFORE THE AUDITIONS

Upcoming: Quills by Doug Wright, Different Stages at the City Theatre, January 4 - 26

presents

Quills

by Doug Wright

City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd, Ste D map
January 4 – 26, 2013
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8pm
Sundays at 5:30pm

Purchase Advance Tickets: https://secure.buyplaytix.com/diffstages/

Pick-Your-Price Tickets: $15, $20, $25, or $30
Tickets purchased by credit card online or at the theatre may be subject to a small service charge.

Different Stages continues its 2011-2012 season with Doug Wright's Quills. Sex. Perversion. Violence. These are the themes of the tales that drip from the ink-laden quills of the notoriously irreverent Marquis de Sade in this Obie Award winning play. Confined to the Charenton Asylum for the Insane for the outlandish escapades he'd committed during the Napoleonic Era, the Marquis continues to pen his stories to the delight of the young seamstress, Madeleine, and to the scorn of Charenton's devout Abbe de Coulmeir. When the Abbe attempts to silence the Marquis by taking his quills, his ink, and his paper, something intriguing occurs: the Marquis still finds a way to voice his scandalous yarns. As the Abbe's religious devotion clashes with the Marquis's dedication to freedom of expression, the audience is treated to a tale of wit, irony, blasphemy, philosophy, and the struggle for power told partly as a blend of comedy of manners and Grand Guignol with a dash of grotesque exaggeration and a soupcon of gore.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (Is Life Worth Living?) Quills features Craig Kanne (You Can't Take it with You) as the Marquis de Sade and Jean Budney (Is Life Worth Living?) as his wife Renee Pelagie. Travis Bedard (Doctor Faustus) plays the director of Charenton Asylum. Joe Hartman (Vampire Lesbians of Sodom) plays the Abbe de Coulmier, a priest at the asylum. Melissa Vogt-Patterson (Humpty) plays the seamstress, Madeleine. Tony Salinas (You Can't Take it with You) plays the architect.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Auditions for Quills by Doug Wright, Different Stages, September 10 - 11

Different Stages is auditioning for Quills by Doug Wright, Monday September 10 and Tuesday, September 11, 7 - 9 p.m. at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd (click for map). 

Norman Blumensaadt directs. To be presented January 4 - 26, 2013 at the City Theatre, 3823 Airport Rd.

Perversion. Violence. These are the themes of the tales that drip from the ink-laden quills of the notoriously irreverent Marquis de Sade in this Obie Award winning play. 

Confined to the Charenton Asylum for the Insane for the outlandish escapades he’d committed during the Napoleonic Era, the Marquis continues to pen his stories to the delight of the young seamstress, Madeleine, and to the scorn of Charenton’s devout Abbot DuCoulmeir. When the Abbot attempts to silence the Marquis by taking his quills, his ink, and his paper, something intriguing occurs: the Marquis still finds a way to voice his scandalous yarns. As the Abbot’s religious devotion clashes with the Marquis’s dedication to freedom of expression, the audience is treated to a tale of wit, irony, blasphemy, philosophy, and the struggle for power told partly as a blend of comedy of manners and Grand Guignol with a dash of grotesque exaggeration and a soupcon of gore.

Roles: 2 women, ages 25-45, 4 men, ages 25-65. To make an appointment, call Carol Ginn at 444-3303. 

THE SCRIPT CAN BE CHECKED OUT AT THE GREATER AUSTIN CREATIVE ALLIANCE OFFICE. ACTORS ARE STRONGLY URGED TO READ THE SCRIPT BEFORE THE AUDITIONS

presents

Is Life Worth Living?

by Lennox Robinson

directed by Norman Blumensaadt

June 29 – July 21, 2012

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.

The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd ^map

Tickets are Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, and $30.

For tickets call 478-5282. For information go to http://www.main.org/diffstages

Different Stages continues its 2011 - 2012 season with Is Life Worth Living? by Lennox Robinson. A traveling repertory troupe comes to a small village in Ireland and after a week or so of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg, the town is driven mad. Is Life Worth Living? is a gloriously goofy comedy that imagines the undesirable effects a steady diet of serious drama might have on the amiable residents of the provincial seaside town of Inish.

The leading actors of the traveling troupe are played by Mick Darcy (Humpty) and Lorella Loftus (Elizabeth, the Heart of a King). The hotelier, his sister, and his wife are played by Andy Brown (Inherit the Wind), and newcomers to Austin Mary Kennelly and Jean Budney. Playing the romantic leads are Gabriel Pena (The 21 Would be Lives of Phinea Hamm) and Alexandra Russo (Antarctica). The other cast members include, Bethany Harbaugh (The Children’s Hour), Jonathan Urso (Mornings at Seven), Steven Fay (Murder on the Nile) and Ben Weaver (The Last Days of Judas Iscariot), Freddy Carnes (The Hamlet Project) and Ryan Chody.

Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m.

Different Stages Announces Its 2012-2013 Season

announces its 2012-2013 season:

You Can’t Take It With You

by George Kaufman and Moss Hart

November - December 2012

The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd

Director-Mick Darcy

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this comedy introduces us to the Sycamores, a family that delights in eccentricity.  They may seem mad, but they show us that those who pursue convention for its own sake and who need to conform to society’s conventions are the maddest of us all.  This play about living life to the fullest, following your own dreams, and daring to be unconventional has been a perennial since its debut in 1936. 

Quills

by Douglas Wright

January 2013,

City Theater, 3823 Airport, Suite D

Director-Norman Blumensaadt 

Sex. Perversion. Violence.  These are the themes of the tales that drip from the ink-laden quills of the notoriously irreverent Marquis de Sade in this Obie Award winning play. Confined to the Charneton Asylum for the Insane for the outlandish escapades he’d committed during the Napoleonic Era, the Marquis continues to pen his stories to the delight of the young seamstress, Madeleine, and to the scorn of Charenton’s devout Abbe DuCoulmeir.  When the Abbe attempts to silence the Marquis by taking his quills, his ink, and his paper, something intriguing occurs: the Marquis still finds a way to voice his scandalous yarns.  As the Abbe’s religious devotion clashes with the Marquis’s dedication to freedom of expression, the audience is treated to a tale of wit, irony, blasphemy, philosophy, and the struggle for power told partly as a blend of comedy of manners and Grand Guignol with a dash of grotesque exaggeration and a soupcon of gore.

Good People

by David Lindsay-Abaire

April – May; City Theate

3823 Airport, Suite D

Director-Karen Jambon 

With humor and pathos, Good People, explores the struggles, shifting loyalties, and unshakeable hopes that come with having next to nothing in America.  Set in Boston’s Southie neighborhood, where a night on the town means a rousing night of bingo, where this month’s paycheck barely covers last month’s bills, we meet Margaret Walsh.  Margaret has lost her job, is facing eviction, and scrambling to catch a break.  When she re-acquaints with a friend from the old neighborhood, someone who is now a very successful doctor, she attempts to use their childhood acquaintance as a ticket to turning her life around.  Good People is tough and tender and explores the tension of class in America.  Pending availability of performance rights.

Child’s Play

by  Robert Marasco

June – July

The Vortex,  2307 Manor Rd

Director-Bob Tolaro 

Something is amiss in a Catholic boys’ boarding school.  The students have become sinister, furtive, and conspiratorial as they steal up and down staircases after hours.  The menace erupts in savagery as the students torture one of their members and then another and then….  What is the disease that has settled in their souls?  Who is torturing the crotchety classics professor by sending obscene photographs to his dying mother?  And why? - The answer is hate in its devilish forms of pride, envy, and jealousy- a hate so perverse that is has infested the students and the staff.  The New York Times called this play “a powerful melodrama the will thrill audiences for a long time to come.” Pending availability of performance rights. 

 

ALL PLAYS, LOCATIONS AND DATES SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

Auditions for Is Life Worth Living?, Different Stages, April 23 and 24

Different Stages is auditioning for Is Life Worth Living? by Lennox Robinson on Monday, April 23 and Tuesday, April 24, 7 - 9 p.m. at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd. (click for map) Directed by Norman Blumensaadt.

A traveling repertory troupe comes to a small village in Ireland and after a week or so of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg, the town is driven mad. Is Life Worth Living? is a gloriously goofy comedy that imagines the undesirable effects a steady diet of serious drama might have on the amiable residents of the provincial seaside town of Inish. Lennox Robinson's pointed and charming comedy was originally produced in 1933 and successfully revived in 2009 by New York's Mint Theatre Company and by The Shaw Festival in 2012.

Roles: 5 women, ages 25 - 65, 8 men ages 25 - 65, Irish accent required. Production dates June 29 - July 21 at the Vortex Repertory Theatre.

To make an appointment, call Carol Ginn at 444-3303. The script can be checked out at the office of the Austin Creative Alliance, 701 Tillery Street (click for map). Actors are strongly urged to read the script before the auditions.

Well by Lisa Kron, Different Stages at the Vortex Repertory, November 11 -December 3

This mischievous comedy deserves a better title. By calling it Well, Lisa Kron implies that it's about exactly the opposite: about illness. That subliminal message is reinforced in Different Stages' press releases.

Even an impish twist of punctuation would have done it. Call it Well? so as to capture the mother-daughter dialogue at the heart of the play, in which monologist Lisa Kron pushes beyond the strictures of stand-up comedy and tale-telling, confiding to the audience that she's going to bring her very own mother onstage to illustrate her stories. Jennifer Underwood is in fact right there on stage as you enter the theatre, snoozing in her La-Z-Boy armchair in a nest of newspapers, files, kitsch and collections, and she doesn't wake up until Sarah Seaton as narrator/monologist has confided this approach to you.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images by Bret Brookshire: Well by Lisa Kron, Different Stages, November 11 - December 3

Images by Bret Brookshire provided by

for Lisa Kron's

WELL

directed by Norman Blumensaadt

November 11- December 3

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m. No Performance on Thanksgiving, Thursday Nov 24 Added performance on Wednesday Nov 30

The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd (click for map)

“Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30

For tickets and information call 478-5282

Different Stages opens its 2011 - 2012 season with Lisa Kron’s comedy Well. The acclaimed writer and performer Lisa Kron’s newest work is all about her mom. It explores the dynamics of health, family and community with the story of her mother’s extraordinary ability to heal a changing neighborhood, despite her inability to heal herself.

Click to view additional images by Bret Brookshire at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Upcoming: Well by Lisa Kron, Different Stages, November 11 - December 3

Received directly:

presents

Lisa Kron’s

WELL

directed by Norman Blumensaadt

November 11- December 3

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m. No Performance on Thanksgiving, Thursday Nov 24 Added performance on Wednesday Nov 30

The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd (click for map)

“Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30

For tickets and information call 478-5282

Different Stages opens its 2011 - 2012 season with Lisa Kron’s comedy Well. The acclaimed writer and performer Lisa Kron’s newest work is all about her mom. It explores the dynamics of health, family and community with the story of her mother’s extraordinary ability to heal a changing neighborhood, despite her inability to heal herself. In this show, Kron asks the provocative question: Are we responsible for our own illness? But the answers she gets are much more complicated than she bargained for when the play spins dangerously out of control into riotously funny and unexpected territory.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (Too Many Husbands), Well features Sarah Seaton (Something Unspoken) as Lisa Kron and Jennifer Underwood (Lear) as her mother, Ann Kron. The four actors Lisa Kron has hired for this “solo show with other people in it” are Chelsea Manasseri (For Colored Girls), Phil Cole (Too Many Husbands), Jan Phillips (The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later) and Ronnie Williams (Pericles).

Auditions: Well by Lisa Krom, Different Stages

Received directly from

announces

Auditions for

Well by Lisa Kron

directed by Norman Blumensaadt

3 women, ages 25 - 65

1 man, age 25-45

1 African-American actor

1 African-American actress

In Well, Kron creates a complex exploration of our assumptions about whether or not we are responsible for our own illnesses. She draws on stories of her family's history of chronic illness, her own stay in an "environmental ecology clinic," and her subsequent transition to health. Woven into this are stories of her childhood in a racially integrated neighborhood which was "healed" from decline by her mother's community work. Kron places herself on stage with the character of her mother along with a chorus of four actors. These characters continually undermine Kron's plans for the play - a meta-theatrical conceit that has proven exceedingly delightful to audiences as it subverts the autobiographical form by removing the narrator's assumption of omniscience and forcing her to react as her intentions are derailed and her motives are questioned.

Production to be staged November 11 - December 3 at the Vortex Repertory Theatre, 2307 Manor Road

Actors are strongly urged to read the script before auditions. It can be checked out at the office of the Austin Creative Alliance, 701 Tillery Street (click for map)

To make an appointment or for further information call Carol Ginn at 444-3303

[image from www.theatre.msu.edu]

Images by Bret Brookshire: Too Many Husbands by W. Somerset Maugham, Different Stages at the Vortex Repertory, June 24 - July 16

Images by Bret Brookshire for

presentation of

W. Somerset Maugham’s

Too Many Husbands

June 24 – July 16
The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd (click for map)
Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.
“Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30
Call 478-5282

Different Stages closes its 2010–2011 season with W. Somerset Maugham’s comedy Too Many Husbands. A fast, frivolous, comedy the plot focuses on Victoria, a delectably pretty but ruthlessly self-centered young woman whose husband; William was reported killed three years earlier in World War I. But William is not dead; he is on his way to London for a reunion with his wife, unaware that she is now married to his best friend, Freddie.

The situation is complicated further by the discovery that the avaricious Victoria already has a third husband in view, a rich entrepreneur, for who she plans to dump both Freddie and William, feeling she has made sacrifice enough for the war effort. Through their ingenuity the two friends finally win their freedom and Victoria her wealthy third husband.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (The Night of the Iguana), Too Many Husbands features Martina Ohlhauser (Hay Fever) as Victoria, Joe Hartman (MilkMilkLeomnade) as Freddie and Brian Villalobos (The Crucible) as William. Tony Salinas (The Night of the Iguana) plays the rich entrepreneur. Paula Gilbert (An Inspector Calls) plays the cook and Phoebe Greene plays the parlor maid and Ashley McNerney plays the nanny. Phil Cole (The Skin of Our Teeth) and Julie Winston-Thomas (Spider’s Web) play the divorce lawyer and his assistant.

Click to view additional images by Bret Brookshire at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Upcoming: Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams, Different Stages at the City Theatre, March 18 - April 9

Found on-line:

presents

Tennessee Williams'

Night of the Iguana

March 18 – April 9
City Theater, 3823 Airport Suite D ( ^map)
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
Pick your Price Tickets: $15, $20, $25, $30
Reservations: 474–8497

Different Stages continues its 2010 – 2011 season with The Night of the Iguana. This Tony-Award-winning play by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Tennessee Williams is a provocative exploration of human struggle and passion — full of intense drama, biting wit, and sexual tension. Defrocked priest T. Lawrence Shannon now scrapes out a living as a tour guide in Mexico. On the verge of a collapse, he abducts his tour group to a crumbling seaside hotel on the edge of the jungle. As a fierce tropical storm rolls in, Shannon must wrestle with the passions of the women around him – the wrath of a Texas school teacher, the advances of a lustful teenager and the jealousies of the widowed hotel owner – as he seeks solace with a new arrival, a gentle spinster traveling with her grandfather – the world's oldest living poet.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (The Carpetbagger's Children), The Night of the Iguana features Tom Chamberlain (The Goat or Who is Sylvia?) as the Rev. Shannon, Content Love Knowles (Murder Mystery Ballad) as the hotel proprietor Maxine and Rebecca Robinson (Circle, Mirror, Transformation) as the artist Hannah Jelkes. Also In the cast are Donald Bayne (The Duck Variations) as the poet Jonathan Coffin, Karen Jambon (Mary Stuart) as the Music Teacher Judith Fellowes and Chloe Edmundson (The Skin of Our Teeth) as her music student Charlotte Goodall. Rounding out the cast are Brian Brown, Ben McLemore, Scott Friedman, Phoebe Greene, Carrie Stephens, Justin Smith, Tony Salinas, Carlos Saenz and Ashley McNerney.

On Saturday March 26 join the cast for a Tennessee Williams Birthday Party, in honor of the Williams centennial.

Humble Boy, Different Stages at the City Theatre, January 7 - 29

Tom Stephan is a revelation in Different Stages' Humble Boy by Charlotte Jones, playing through the end of the month at the City Theatre.

In Austin Shakespeare's production of The Tempest last September he was a dismayed and battered King Alonso of Naples, cast ashore in the opening scene and awkwardly penitent in Act V. Here, as Felix Humble, the title character of Jones' sardonic social comedy, Stephan is vividly alive, so inventive and subtle of gesture and emotion that one can hardly take one's eyes from him. That's a greater achievement that you might at first suppose, for he plays against the redoubtable Jennifer Underwood, one of Austin's most sharply etched character actresses.

The opening scene, played motionless in the half dark for what seemed an eternity, gave us a bulky figure standing like a great lump in the back yard, next to the stacked supers of a beehive gone mad. An erratic flickering emanated from the hive as the audience was battered with the Trans Siberian Orchestra's manic version of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee.

Only after the last discordant rock 'n' roll flourish did the lights rise to introduce into some semblance of stage reality. Stephan stood there, revealed as Felix Humble.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images by Brett Brookshire: Morning's at Seven by Paul Osborne, Different Stages at the Vortex, November 19 - December 11

Images by Bret Brookshire found at the website for Different Stages:

Different Stages opens its 2010–2011 season with Paul Osborn’s comedy

Morning’s at Seven

November 19 - December 11
at the Vortex Repertory, 2307 Manor Road

This story is about the intertwined relationships and long standing sibling rivalries of the four aging Gibbs sisters. Three of them have lived next door to one another for fifty years and the eldest sister lives only a few blocks away. Living so close has taken its toll. The quiet lives these women share with their husbands start to come unhinged when some of them begin to question what to do with their remaining years. Tensions rise when Ida’s 40–year–old son brings his fiancé of 12 years to the house for the first time. A story about growing old, growing up, and letting go.

Directed by Karen Jambon (Eurydice), Morning’s at Seven features Jennifer Underwood (The Carpetbagger’s Children), Lana Dieterich (Vigil), Bobbie Oliver (Spider’s Web) and Kathleen Lawson (On Golden Pond) as the four Gibb sisters. Playing the three husbands are Michael Hankin (The Skin of Our Teeth), Richard Craig (Lettice and Lovage), and San Damon (Spider’s Web). Playing Ida’s son and his fiancé are Jonathan Urso (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and Anne Hulsman (The Carpetbagger’ss Children).

Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. There is no performance on Thanksgiving, Thursday November 25. Added performance on Wednesday December 8 at 8 p.m. Tickets are Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, and $30. For tickets and information call 478-5282.

Click to view additional images by Bret Brookshire at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Video Profile: Dfferent Stages, by Lowell Bartholomee

A promotional video by Lowell Bartholomee and a history of the company, found on-line at the Different Stages website:

Different Stages was founded in 1980 as Small Potatoes Theatrical Company. Lucy Lister, Angero Holt, and Norman E. Blumensaadt incorporated it as a nonprofit organization under its present name in 1984.

From its inception, the theatre has been committed to the performance not only of famous plays but also of lesser-known works. Plays by Shakespeare, Molière, Shaw, and O'Neill have been recurring favorites; but Different Stages has also introduced Austin audiences to the works of Caryl Churchill, Jane Martin, Keith Reddin, Charles Ludlum, Constance Congdon, Marlane Meyer, Pierre Marivaux, and Edit Villarreal.

The company has produced almost 80 plays, ranging from romantic to neo-classic to realistic to surrealistic. It has staged several world premieres--four translations by Austin scholars, including one by Professor Douglass Parker, and original scripts by Austin playwrights Tom White and Ann Ciccolella.

Norman Blumensaadt has been the Producing Artistic Director since the beginning of the company and continues in that role. However, in 1993 an Operational Board (separate from the Board of Directors) was formed to share the day-to-day operations of the company. It includes Norman Blumensaadt, Paula Gilbert, Royce Gehrels, and Michael Growblewski. The Operational Board has been involved with Different Stages for many years; but there are also numerous other noteworthy Austin directors, designers, and actors who continue to enrich its productions.

Different Stages does not own a theatre building. For the past five years we have performed at the Auditorium on Waller Creek 710 East 41st Street on the grounds of The KPM Institute, Griffin School and the Perry Mansion. We has also performed recently at The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd, Austin Texas 78722 and The Off-Center (Home of the Rude Mechanicals) 2211 Hidalgo St, off 7th St in East Austin.

The Carpetbagger's Children by Horton Foote, Different Stages, March 19 - April 10

The Carpetbagger's Children, staged in 2005, was the penultimate of the Texas playwright's dramas, the next-to-the-last of from 40 (according to Wikipedia) to more than 60 (according to the New York Times). Like many of his dramas, it is set in the mythical town of Harrison, Texas, based on his birthplace Wharton, a crossroads southwest of Houston. Foote's final play was, aptly enough, a reworking of his earlier Dividing The Estate. He died last year at the age of 92. With Foote's previous consent, the Austin-based Marchbanks Foundation has established a $30,000 prize to recognize new American plays of exceptional quality, to be awarded every other year.

Well and good, one might say, and it's appropriate that Norman Blumensaadt and Different Stages should honor the playwright. Robert Faires pointed out last January in the Austin Chronicle the incongruity that this staging is only the fourth time in the past 20 years that Austin has seen a production of Foote's work.

That means I've seen half of them. As it happened, while traveling through Austin in 1998, well before imagining our own migration to this town, my daughter and I attended Don Toner's production of The Young Man from Atlanta at the State Theatre. That work, and the fact that a mainstream Austin theatre would do an elegant and deeply felt production of it, lingered in my memory. They shaped my perception of Central Texas and of Austin.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . .