Upcoming: University of Texas New Theatre (UTNT), February 27 - March 9, 2014

UTNT (UT New Theatre), the annual showcase of new plays from The University of Texas at Austin M.F.A. Playwriting Program, returns this spring with five dynamic works by emerging playwrights. 

Now in its seventh iteration, UTNT 2014 presents the following:

 

 Preview Productions

Annie Jump
Written by Reina Hardy
Directed by Natalie Novacek

February 27, March 1, 7 at 8:00 p.m.
March 9 at 5:00 p.m.

Annie Jump is a 13-year-old science genius whose alien-obsessed father is the laughingstock of Strawberry, Kansas. One night in August, a meteor falls, and Annie meets Althea, an intergalactic supercomputer that manifests itself in the form of a mean girl with really nice hair. Althea’s here to help Annie take humanity from the earth to the stars, but being the Chosen One isn't all glory. What is Althea hiding? And what will Annie have to sacrifice to fulfill her destiny?

 Advance Man
Written by Abe Koogler
Directed by Will Davis

February 28, March 6, 8 at 8:00 p.m.
March 2 at 5:00 p.m.

Bear Creek is a small town. So when rumor spreads of an impending visit from the President himself, everyone gets very excited. There's just one problem – no one knows when he's coming, or why. And who's that mysterious man in a dark suit, asking all those questions? A dark comedy about the way we live now.

Individual tickets and ticket packages for these preview productions go on sale early January 2014.

Enhanced Readings/Presentations

‘ratio Visual Narrative by William Anderson
Text Narrative by David Turkel
Directed by Jess Hutchinson

March 1 at 11:00 a.m.
March 8 at 2:00 p.m.

In the weeks following Hamlet’s death, Horatio navigates a harrowing regime change at Elsinore under the rule of bloody-minded prince Fortinbras.

Still Now Written by Katie Bender
Directed by Rudy Ramirez

March 2, 9 at 2:00 p.m.

After witnessing the fall of the twin towers, Annie heads to Japan to study Butoh, looking for a dance form that expresses the destruction she can’t comprehend.  Ten years later, Annie is diagnosed with stage four cancer and returns to Butoh to prepare for her final dance. Still Now confronts us with the accelerated motion of a woman learning and losing her body, accompanied by the doctors, teachers, friends and lovers that become her partners in movement, to ask the question: what can our bodies teach us that our minds cannot fathom?

Or, “The One with the Dogs” Written by Briandaniel Oglesby
Directed by Jeremy Lee Cudd

March 1 at 2:00 p.m.
March 8 at 11:00 a.m.

In a crappy house surrounded by a dead walnut orchard, brothers Boomer and Dirt struggle with each other, with themselves, and with their dog-breeding business. As their prized pregnant pooch swells, they seem on the way to strike it big. Their dreams are disrupted when Boomer brings home Marisol, who should be a one-night stand, and Dirt finds a boy who will never grow up.

 UTNT (UT New Theatre) is curated by Steven Dietz and Gia Marotta. Performances are February 27 through March 9 in the Lab Theatre. Ticketing information will be available in December 2013.

Stars and Barmen by Reina Hardy, Vortex Repertory, October 26 - November 16, 2013

(www.vortexrep.org)

by Michael Meigs

I was in the mood for a a feel-good experience on Halloween, something without fangs or fishnets or pumpkins, and the Vortex's blurb 'a romantic comedy about getting lucky in space time' enticed me to their staging of Reina Hardy's script. She is semi-local, after all, as a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas, and the Shrewds staged her piece Glassheart not too long ago.

The Vortex, bless Bonnie's heart, has succeeded in transforming itself from a make-do neighborhood theatre to a social center. The Butterfly Bar appears to keep the place hopping most nights of the week, and there were plenty of folks there for the BYOP pumpkin-carving contest later on. Only twelve of us elected to go to the play that Thursday evening.

Trey Deason (photo: Kimberley Mead)

In the enigmatically titled Stars and Barmen Trey Deason plays Rupert, a grad student in astronomy so hapless and clumsy that his only intimate companion is the computer program scanning the skies for anomalies -- not the big, blow-out anomalies, but others more modest, perhaps closer to his level of ability. The playwright's not particularly kind to him, setting him up in the opening scene as a lonely party crasher who fails miserably three times in a row to initiate conversations with unseen women. Deason, himself a capable playwright, singer and thespian, swallows the bait and director Rudy Ramirez's instruction, and he turns Rupert into such a mass of inferiority complexes and tics that he's ridiculous and almost painful to watch.


Rupert encounters Bridget Farr as the dreamily disappointed Claire, a self-pronounced poet who's trying to avoid someone at the party. He thinks he's getting through to her in his ungainly way, but that computer program Mandy interrupts via telephone, yanking his chain and obliging him to leave to attend to his late night duties in the lab. He forgets to ask for Claire's number or to get some way to contact her again.

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

Photos by Kenny Gall for Glassheart by Reina Hardy, Shrewd Productions at the Salvage Vanguard, August 30 - September 14, 2013

Beauty and the Beast? Photos by Kenny Gall for the









presentation of the World Premiere of

 

August 30th through September 14th  

Week 1 - Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 6 pm
Week 2 - Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 6 pm
Week 2 - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm

Tickets: $15-25 sliding scale - Click here for Tickets

Salvage Vanguard Theatre: 2803 Manor Rd., Austin, TX 78722 - click for map

Beauty never showed up. After centuries under the curse, the Beast and his one remaining magical servant have moved into a shabby apartment near a 7-11, hoping for a lower cost of living and better luck with girls. In the threatening, impossible, completely ordinary world of paying rent and taking public transportation, is a happy ending even possible? Are there witches in Chicago? Is this hat sufficient? And can a good story and a little light save the day?

Michael Miller (photo: Kenny Gall)

Shannon Grounds (photo: Kenny Gall)

Lana Dieterich (photo: Kenny Gall)

Carolyn Faye Kramer (photo: Kenny Gall)

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

GLASSHEART by Reina Hardy, Shrewd Productions at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, August 30 - September 14, 2013

presents the World Premiere of 

GLASSHEART

by Reina Hardy
August 30th through September 14th
Week 1 - Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 6 pm
Week 2 - Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 6 pm
Week 3 - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm

Tickets: $15-25 sliding scale

Click here for Tickets

Salvage Vanguard Theatre: 2803 Manor Rd., Austin, TX 78722 - click for map

Beauty never showed up. After centuries under the curse, the Beast and his one remaining magical servant have moved into a shabby apartment near a 7-11, hoping for a lower cost of living and better luck with girls. In the threatening, impossible, completely ordinary world of paying rent and taking public transportation, is a happy ending even possible? Are there witches in Chicago? Is this hat sufficient? And can a good story and a little light save the day?
A romantic comedy about facing the witch in your head, and finding the wish in your heart.

About the Playwright Reina Hardy is from Chicago and recently fetched up in Texas. She is a Michener Fellow at UT Austin, a 2013 finalist for the Terrence McNally Prize, the recipient of the 2012 Interact 20/20 Commission, and a National New Play Network Playwright. Her plays,which usually contain magic, have most recently been seen at Capital Stage Sacramento, Las Vegas Little Theatre, Orlando Shakespeare, and the Great Plains Theatre Conference, where Reina was awarded the Holland New Voices Award. She spent part of this summer at the Kennedy Center, workshopping her as-yet untitled script about the universe and hangovers. Glassheart is one of two productions that Reina is enjoying in Austin this season, with Stars & Barmen to be produced at the Vortex in the fall.

About the Cast & Crew Kyle Zamcheck directs an all-star ensemble in this modern re-telling of a classic story including Lana Dieterich,*Carolyn Faye Kramer, Shannon Grounds and Michael Miller as the Beast. Award-winning designers Pam Friday (costumes), Anne-Marie Gordon (set design), Patrick Anthony (lighting design), and Buzz Moran (sound design) create Hardy's magical world of a fairytale down-sized to a one-bedroom apartment.

* Carolyn Faye Kramer appears courtesy of Actors Equity 

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)