PINKOLANDIA by Andrea Thome, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, October 17 - November 2, 2013

presents


 
by Andrea Thome
directed by Jenny Larson

Performances run October 17th through November 2nd, 2013 at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd, Austin TX 78722 -- click for map

October 17th-18th 8pm
October 20th 6pm
October 24th-26th at 8pm
October 30th 8pm
November 1st-2nd at 8pm

Tickets $10 online, and $15 at the door. All tickets are BY DONATION for STUDENTS (at the door only, or email jenny@salvagevanguard.org for group/class reservations). www.salvagevanguard.org
“I always thought it was solid, the ground I walked on.”

When two young sisters are exiled with their family from Chile to a bizarre Reagan-era Wisconsin, they are forced to retreat to an imaginary world to help uncover their family’s past.

To guard herself from the unknown, 8-year old Gaby uses imagination and innocence to create her own identity in a fantasyland of talking polar bears and melting ice caps. While her 12-year old sister Beny desperately seeks answers from her parents about who she is and what happened in their past. But she is met with icy silence and growing distance as her parents arm themselves with anger and the will to forget. When Uncle Ignacio arrives, the entire family starts to feel the ice cracking beneath their feet and the truth bubbling to the top.

Traversing through a fantasy world of glaciers, talking bears and Nazi-fighting revolutionaries, Pinkolandia shows us that when you lose your country and your past, you have to invent your own.

“I want to keep my soul.
I want to remember how to run
I want to remember that I am a bear.”

“Ambitious and often beautiful new play. With a script by Andrea Thome that’s both dreamlike and dramatic… The payoffs are abundant here; the excitements and confusions of youth are palpable” –The New York Times


COMMUNITY TALK BACK EVENTS (following the performances): October 18th– Featuring playwright Andrea Thome and Paloma Diaz, from the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies. October 25th – Speakers to be announced.

CAST Gricelda Silva, Elizabeth Bigger, Jude Hickey, Martinique Duchene-Phillips, Rupert Reyes, and Robert Pierson

DESIGN TEAM Graham Reynolds- Original Score, Erin Meyer– Shadow and Video, Leilah Stewart- Set, Steven Shirey- Lights, Jessica Gilzow- Costumes

About Andrea Thome Andrea Thome's plays, theatrical translations and multimedia satires have been presented both nationally and abroad. A Chilean-Costa Rican, Wisconsin-born mutt, Andrea grew up navigating the multiple landscapes and languages that inhabit her plays. She became a playwright by necessity in San Francisco, where her Red Rocket Theater Company paid their theater's rent by creating and producing a new play each month. Andrea also co-directs FULANA, a New York-based satire collective that creates cutting-edge political & cultural parodies (www.fulana.org). She has received fellowships from NYFA, New Voices/New York (Lark), the City of Oakland, INTAR, New York University (MFA Fellow), and the Women’s Project. Andrea has taught at various universities, schools and cultural centers nationwide. She helped create the Lark’s U.S.-México Playwright Exchange, which she has directed since 2006. Andrea has been a resident playwright at New Dramatists since 2009.

PINKOLANDIA is part of the Lark Play Development Center’s Launching New Plays into the Repertoire Fellowship. As part of the LNP initiative the piece premiered at INTAR in NY and will have productions at Two River Theatre, NJ and 16th Street Theater, Chicago. This initiative is made possible with leadership support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information visit www.larktheatre.org.

MADE IN THE SVT are theater works created, produced, or presented by Salvage Vanguard Theater company members.

Salvage Vanguard Theater (SVT) is a theater company and performance hub located in East Austin. SVT creates and presents transformative high-quality artistic experiences that foster experimentation and conversation.

Visit www.salvagevanguard.org or contact Jenny Larson for more information: 512-474-7886 or jenny@salvagevanguard.org

Salvage Vanguard Theater is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Economic Growth & Redevelopment Services Office/Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: The Becomings, Popworks at the Golden Apple, June 27 - 29

Popworks is excited to present a workshop production of

THE BECOMINGS

with

Cyndi Williams, Jeffery Mills, Adriene Mishler, Rosalyn Mandola, Jennymarie Jemison, Kelli Bland and Robert Pierson as The Bear

Step Inside The Golden Apple: JUNE 27th-JUNE 29th, 8PM
LATE NIGHT JUNE 29TH, 10PM
*limited seating*
RESERVE YOUR TICKETS HERE! Free advance tickets via Brown Paper Tickets.

ARRIVE EARLY TO CLAIM YOUR TICKET.
TICKETS THAT ARE NOT CLAIMED BY 7:45 WILL BE SOLD TO PRESENT PARTIES ON THE WAIT LIST.
TICKETS $8 at the door
CASH OR CHECK ONLY PLEASE

* * free parking in lot! * *

"Do you feel bad for a mom who turns into a monster and is destroyed? It seems like fate to me, and fate's got no pity. But man, you gotta feel bad for those kids. Because Matricide is pure Curse-Starter, for sure.

Maybe though tonight, things might change. There's a ritual for that. But it's gotta be just right. "

Trapped under a terrible curse, a deeply troubled family and minor showbiz clan withers away. Convinced their long dead mother is haunting them, they are paralyzed with fear, ashamed of her death, and stuck at their last gig, The Golden Apple. But a secret coiled as tight as theirs is bound to spring. An outsider crashes thru their careful silence and the spring is tripped. The truth can open a door, but it can also kill a man. What remains after the falsehoods - tiny and tragic - come crumbling? And what happened that fateful night to send the family reeling?


From some of the people that brought you THE ASSUMPTION comes the story of a troubled and ridiculous family. Part greek tragedy, part 60's girl group musical, part Grey Gardens, THE BECOMINGS is the next venture for the fledgling collaborative experiment that is POPWORKS. This stellar company of performers shares the stage with a live-band with Justin "The Judge" Bankston (formerly of Winslow) playing original music from Sally Crewe, The Bandana Splits, Sonnet Blanton, Alejandro Rose-Garcia of Shakey Graves, and house band, Fast Moustache.

Direction Sonnet Blanton
Music Direction & Arrangement Justin Bankston and Alejandro Rose-Garcia
Production Management Sam Webber
Words: Blanton, Mills, Williams
Movement: Adriene Mishler

"People who have survived the cruel fate of tragedy do not make sweet stories well. They come across all funny. Hollow. Crooked. Like a smile hides the dark words you struggle to keep trapped behind your teeth. Our stories - Our story holds so much dark. But there is power in the dark. There is unsuspected depth."

poster design by Gabe Vaughn

Upcoming: Hill Country Underbelly, a musical by Elizabeth Doss and Mark Stewart, Paper Chairs at the Vortex Yard, August 5 - 21

Received directly:

Paper Chairs Announces Production of an Original Musical –

Hillcountry Underbelly: A Pilgrimage on the Outskirts

Book and Lyrics by Elizabeth Doss, Music by Mark Stewart

Thursdays – Sundays from August 5 to August 21 nightly at 8:30 p.m. (please note later start time) in The VORTEX yard (2307 Manor Rd. - click for map).

Tickets: Pay-What-You-Want Thursdays; Fridays-Sundays after that - $15.00 - $25.00 general seating. Advanced ticket purchase will be available through our website as of July 18, 2011 (www.paperchairs.com).

Paper Chairs excitedly announces its third production, Hillcountry Underbelly: A Pilgrimage on the Outskirts, written by Elizabeth Doss, with original music by Mark Stewart, directed by Dustin Wills and Keri Boyd.

Pa’s fall down a deathtrap rattles through the land like thunder. His ghost appears in limestone, prophesying a great flood will take the hillcountry by storm. His six surviving orphans must head to higher ground to elude their demise. Watch the pack aim to outrun and outsmart every obstacle on the outskirts in the fierce pursuit of life. How do you survive a flood when you’ve lost your roots? Paper Chairs will flood the VORTEX Yard and wash away a scorching August in an environmental production of this torrential tale. Holes, floods, tunes, dogs and buzzards abound. Prepare for a soaking.

Featuring performances by Robert Pierson as Pa (2011 Critic’s Table and 2010 B. Iden Payne Best Supporting Actor), Caroline Reck as the Theotokos, and Jacob Trussell, Emily Tindall, Noel Gaulin, Kelli Bland, Jenn Hartmann, and Mark Stewart as the orphans – oh, and musicians too.

Scenic design by Lisa Laratta (2010 Critic’s Table Best Scenic Design), costume design by Dustin Wills, projection design by Noel Gaulin and lighting design by Natalie George (2011 Critic’s Table Best Lighting Design).

Hillcountry Underbelly runs Thursdays – Sundays from August 5 to August 21 nightly at 8:30 p.m. (please note later start time) in The VORTEX yard (2307 Manor Rd.; Austin, Texas 78722). Tickets: Pay-What-You-Want Thursdays; Fridays-Sundays after that - $15.00 - $25.00 general seating. Advanced ticket purchase will be available through our website as of July 18, 2011 (www.paperchairs.com).

Hillcountry Underbelly will be presented in the VORTEX yard – we encourage folks to dress down! The Butterfly Bar will sell cooling refreshments and Paper Chairs will offer bug spray (if needed), fans, mist, general comfort and an outhouse – you can even bring your own chair if you don’t like ours.

Paper Chairs creates sensorially dynamic theatre combining fractured subjectivity, music, unconventional audience situation, surrealism and labor-intensive mechanics. We favor challenging texts that allow for a fusion of various performance styles, music genres, and historical periods to excite modern sensibilities and educate by suggesting past and present cultural connections. The work is outrageous, well-researched, and a little bit dangerous.

OUR KICKSTARTER SITE: www.kickstarter.com/projects/paperchairs/hillcountry-underbelly

Heddatron, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, February 11 - March 5

Central Texas is about to be knee-deep in Heddas. Dustin Wills and friends down at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre start that unplanned festival with this "back to the future" version. The promising, term-limited Palindrome Theatre opens a "world premiere" (!) adaptation by Nigel O'Hearn at the Blue Theate, beginning next week. And then in May Tony Ciaravino will do another, presumably more classic, with the Classic Theatre in San Antonio.

SVT's jangly, mystifying absurdist staging of Heddatron runs riot with Ibsen's play. To tell the truth, you don't need to be familiar with the original in order to appreciate this funhouse madness. Precocious young Ava Johns plays a smug-beyond-her-years sixth grader giving a book report on the play.

A sixth grader assigned to read Ibsen's subtle portrait of the destructive, self-destuctive young Norwegian bride? That should give you a hint and a warning.to fasten your seatbelts for a theatre ride that outdoes Honey, I Shrunk The Kids for weirdness, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly for menace, and The Iron Giant for cybernetics. The script riffs explicitly on the first two. And on Ibsen -- both on Hedda Gabler and the mutton-chopped, sometimes oblivious incarnation of the Norwegian writer himself.

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

Baal by Bertolt Brecht, Paper Chairs at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, November 11 - 28

Baal was Brecht's first play, written in 1918 at the age of twenty. He had avoided the draft by taking a medical course and he was called up to staff a venereal disease clinic only a month before the war ended, and much of that time he was studying theatre.

Brecht did not articulate his doctrine of theatrical alienation until 1935, but this text and the production of it by Dustin Wills and the Paper Chairs company suggest strongly that he was on his way in that direction from the very first of his career. Playwright and company achieve the Verfremdungseffekt by using plot devices and staging techniques that remind spectators that they are witnessing a theatrical enactment, not real life -- the intent is didactic, pressing viewers to question and to rouse themselves from the comfort of their passivity. It is a tidy justification for a presentational (not representational) stage technique. Many readers and theatre practitioners consider that Brecht's stories and characters gripped his audiences despite of the V-effekt instead of because of it.

I wanted to like this production because I appreciate Wills' exploration of early 20th century theatre and I enjoy the brash ensemble techniques he encourages. You enter the Salvage Vanguard to find a square central stage oriented in proscenium fashion, even though there's no proscenium. Instead, on either side, you see "backstage" dressing and costuming areas, with cast members boisterously preparing for the show. They wear baggy underclothes of tan-colored muslin, they pay little attention to the gathering spectators, they josh, they fret, they give the impression of a circus troupe preparing for one more day on the boards. Some will wander by to greet spectators; others do vocal or physical exercises. The energy is attractive and invigorating.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Baal by Bertolt Brecht, Paper Chairs at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, November 11 - 28

Received directly:

Paper Chairs excitedly announces its sophomore production

Baal

by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Peter Tegel from the 1922 edition

directed by Dustin Wills.

Ba·al [bey-uhl, beyl]

1. any of numerous local deities among the ancient Semitic peoples, typifying the productive forces of nature and worshiped with much sensuality.

2. (sometimes lowercase) a false god.

The slightly intoxicated, morally bankrupt patrons of “The Night Cloud” are putting on a play about their idol, Baal. Baal is a mysterious figure said to have roamed the forests, inns and bars leaving nothing but poetry, destruction and a hefty bar tab in his wake. The perfect – though some may disagree – idol for a band of hooligans in a seedy cabaret.

Bertolt Brecht’s first play, Baal, drags its audience deep into a body of youthful desires and complete moral abandon. Written in 1918, when Brecht was 20 years old – before the Epic Theatre and the overtly political work for which he is lauded – Baal unfolds in fragments; like a piecemeal of the nearly forgotten events of a drunken evening. It tells the story of our poet-musician and title character, Baal, fleeing the civilized world to live the extreme life somewhere in the forest finding plenty of people and pursuits to indulge his insatiable appetite for experience. The themes coursing through this text are especially pressing today: emerging adulthood, substance abuse, nature’s destruction, homosexuality, and exploration of the body. This performance of Baal also features original score and 8 songs written to Brecht’s verse performed live by the bar patrons and composed and directed by boozers Andy Tindall and Rob Greenfield. We also invite 12 audience members to buy priority seats at tables on stage – free refreshments included!

Featuring bar patrons Joey Hood (2010 Critic’s Table Best Actor), Robert Pierson, Jacob Trussell, Noel Gaulin, Michael Amendola (2010 Critic’s Table Best Supporting Actor), Rob Greenfield, Kelli Bland, Adriene Mishler, Elizabeth Doss, Kimberly Adams, Chase Crossno, Sonnet Blanton, and Gabriel Luna (2010 Critic’s Table Best Actor) in the title role, Baal. The Night Cloud Cabaret is designed by Lisa Laratta (2010 Critic’s Table Best Scenic Design), the costumes by bar regular Benjamin Taylor Ridgeway, and the lovely Natalie George hanging lights from the trees.

Baal runs Wednesdays – Sundays from November 11 to November 28 nightly at 8:00 p.m. (three weekends in total) at The Salvage Vanguard Theater (2803 Manor Rd.; Austin, Texas 78722). Tickets: Pay-What-You-Want Wednesdays and Thursdays; Fridays-Sundays - $15.00 general seating, $30.00 table seating. Advanced Purchase ticket pricing ($15 each) will be available through our website as of October 18, 2010 (www.paperchairs.com). There will be no performance Thanksgiving, November 25.

Paper Chairs creates sensorially dynamic theatre combining fractured subjectivity, music, unconventional audience situation, surrealism, provocative design and labor-intensive mechanics. We favor challenging texts that allow for a fusion of various performance styles, music genres, and historical periods to excite modern sensibilities and educate by suggesting past and present cultural connections. The work is outrageous, well-researched, and a little bit dangerous.

Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, Paper Chairs at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, May 28 - June 13

This production of Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, currently playing at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, is a memorable staging of a 1928 shocker -- which in 21st century terms means that it is endearingly two dimensional.

Back in the 1920's,most American theatre art was unexciting, conventional or cast in moral platitudes. At the same time, newspaper reporting of crimes were sensationalistic and very big business. In a time when both radio and cinema were still new,big city newspapers' accounts of accounts of murders and of murder trials sold a lot of papers.

Those days have been memorialized in cinema and in theatre since then. For example, Chicago journalist Maurine Dallas Watkins scored a big hit in the theatre with a thinly fictionalized account of the 1924 exploits of two murderesses, both of whom were acquitted. That 1926 play ran for 171 performances and was the basis for Kander and Ebb's 1975 musical Chicago, featuring the oh-so-innocent but oh-so-guilty Roxy Hart -- a musical revived successfully in New York in 1990 and made into an Academy- award-winning film in 2002.

Journalist SophieTreadwell scored a similar succès de scandale with Machinal, a poetic, expressionistic imagining based on the crime and execution at Sing Sing prison of Ruth Snyder. Treadwell had covered the 1927 murder trial. The state execution of Snyder in January, 1928 was a huge sensation, both because this was New York's first execution of a woman since 1899 and because the New York Daily News published the next day a photo of the execution, taken with a hidden camera strapped to the ankle of one of its journalists.

Machinal opened in New York in fall, 1928, featuring the relatively unknown actor Clark Gable in the pivotal role of a relaxed seducer whose casual attitude (Quien sabe? Who knows what might happen?) eventually opened the way for the Young Woman to undertake murderous action.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Over the Garden Wall by Ruth Margraff, staged reading at the Salvage Vanguard, January 8 and 9

UPDATE: GACA A-Team review by Ross Scarano, January 11

Found on-line:

Salvage Vanguard Theater Puts Artists to Work with "Works Progress Austin 2010," including

Over The Garden Wall

by Ruth Margraff
a staged reading of the new parlor play
directed by Jenny Larson

The production features actors Robert Pierson, Mark Stewart, Jamie Rhodes, La Tasha Stephens, and Jason Hays.

Nationally acclaimed playwright Ruth Margraff's band Café Anastarsia will perform before the play.Tickets are $10 at the door.

The Salvage Vanguard's annual Works Progress Austin (WPA) - the development project that gives artists a playground to develop new works - returns on January 8th through 24th. During the course of three weeks, a variety of actors, writers, directors, dramaturges, and musicians are given the opportunity to incubate and experiment. Inspired by Roosevelt's Works Projects Administration, Salvage Vanguard's program aims to put artists to work.

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery, Tutto Theatre at Vortex Repertory, October 23 - November 7

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery is imagined and delivered as a clown show balanced precariously on deep and true traditional ballads.

Those ballads are deep, because stories of passion, violence and murder are rooted somewhere pretty close to our shared DNA; true, because they contain archetypes of our culture. The restless husband; the innocent and defenseless girl-child; the rapscallion, the rapist, and the rowdy. Including, of course, musicians and theatre folk.

Playwright Elizabeth Doss, who appears here as the female half of a Bonnie-and-Clyde type duo, began this piece while living in Spain, perhaps spurred to re-examine her own cultural traditions.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .