Muses IV, Vestige Group at a private residence in 78704, August 29 - September 12

The Vestige Group's annual Muses performance in a private residence is a fun evening outing. It's a bit like supervised trick or treating, except that the ten encounters for your group of fewer than a dozen take place on the same property. And you're not in disguise; the actors are.

The experience is designed for about 30 persons each night. We gathered on that big old porch for check-in as the evening shadows were gathering. Refreshments were available for a donation and mosquito spray was available for free. Susie Gidseg and companions divided us into three groups and accompanied to us to different starting points on the circuit. The webmaster of TheatreAustin at Yahoo groups decided that ours with Susie would be the "banshees" (cf. Siouxsie and the same, the British rock group, fl. 1976-1988).

In previous years the collection of scriptwriters absorbed the vibes of the chosen house and let their imaginations run free. This year, experimenting with more structure, Vestige organizers gave the eight writers a family, ready-made, and asked for ten scenes to illustrate their lives. As in previous years, the scenes were sharp, well acted and complete in themselves.

What you don't know as you're going into the experience is that you are going to see some of the same characters embodied by different actors. The banshees went through the scenes in the order listed in the program. Not until a ten-minute break after scene four, necessary for traffic flow, did we study out the fact that in the first three vignettes we had viewed Denise the tippling therapist portrayed in turn, over the lapse of more than a year and in reverse chronological order, by Cathie Sheridan, Jen Brown and Kimberley Mead -- actresses of different shapes, styles and appearances.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Bash, three plays by Neil LaBute, Vestige Group at Creative Alliance Studio, May 6 - 22

The Vestige Group is a small band of purists in an unpure world. They believe that theatre, up close and personal, has something to teach about the human condition. Something that you won't get from video or even from books. They like extremes. Celebration, as in the goofily outrageous Gorilla Man or in Lonestar, A Popcorn Throwing Musical or examinations of the lost and extreme, as in Marisol, in Touch and in this grim trio of plays by Neil LaBute.

When presented off-Broadway in 2000, LaBute's Bash carried the title Bash, Latter-Day Plays, a transparent reference to the Mormon world of Utah and Brigham Young University, where he had studied and taught theatre for years. That was a cheap shot, I think, perhaps even a New York marketing ploy, for LaBute has drawn characters whose twisted lives could play out anywhere. He stresses his intent of universaility that with two of the titles: "Iphigenia in Orem" (Utah) and "Medea Redux." The middle piece, "A Gaggle of Saints," describes a high spirited overnight trip to New York, and none of the happenings have much to do with saints, sainthood or the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS).

He sets these events pretty solidly in the early 1980's, with passing references to flashbulbs, to the BeeGees and to daily viewing of Hogan's Heroes. That is, indeed, the period when he attended BYU as an undergraduate and accepted the Mormon faith. Bash put paid to that, however, for after the show played in New York, the LDS Church formally excluded him from fellowship, presumably because the play's portrait of dark, murderous individuals offended the elders of the church.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images by Kimberley Mead: Bash by Neil LaBute, Vestige Theatre Group at Creative Alliance studio, May 6 - 22

Click for ALT review, May 12

Images by Kimberley Mead for Bash, 3 plays by Neil LaBute, presented by Vestige Group at the Creative Alliance studio, 701 Tillery Street, May 6 - 22.

Aaron Black in "Iphigenia in Orem," directed by Susie Gidseg; Hunter Smith and Helyn Rain Messenger in "Gaggle of Saints," directed by Bastion Carboni; and Jen Brown in "Medea Redux," directed by Bastion Carboni. Original music by Ben Wright.

Click to view additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

ALT: From the Audience on World Theatre Day

FROM THE AUDIENCE

comments prepared by Michael Meigs, AustinLiveTheatre.com
at World Theatre Day observance, March 27, 2010
organized by the Exchange Artists
at the Greater Austin Creative Alliance

Thanks to Susie Gidseg, and to Ken Webster and Robert Faires, who have just spoken.

For this program I represent the audience. My comments are a late addition to the program, which is just fine with me. I was surprised and gratified when the Creative Alliance offered me the chance to speak tonight. I couldn’t resist the opportunity.

The Audience. Normally mute and appreciative, happy to applaud. And now facing the old vaudeville dilemma –how can I follow acts like those?

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Lonestar, A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical, Vestige Group at United States Art Authority, November 4 - 21

Wow, guys, this was a mess.

Melodrama meets country rock band and invites beer drinkers to interrupt the whole thing at will with popcorn, catcalls, and even, on one particularly wild night, someone's shoe thrown from the audience.

Dr. Dave my retired college professor friend and I paid for the Wednesday night VIP seats, only there weren't any. We were kindly removed from the high table next to the stage, which turned out to be the location for those long-legged cowgirls, but there was still time to nab our front row seats. We did get our complimentary beer glasses with logo and the two beer tickets each, so we had little cause to complain on that account.

Let's look at a couple of the key elements.

Melodrama: a theatrical art form performed in small towns, church halls, saloons and theatres across the country, particularly but not exclusively in the 19th century. Typically, a simple story with a beleaguered, right-thinking young hero, a virginal heroine with heart of gold regularly threatened by a black-hearted villain with loss of her maidenhead, loss of the family farm, and loss of everything else of value. The playing style is broad. The characters are stereotypes. Frequently, the actors turn to address the audience in character, exaggerating emotions with a complicit wink. Everyone knows that Virtue Will Triumph.

Country Rock: Amplified, very loud guitar-based up-tempo music, featuring a full and active drum set and perhaps an amplified fiddle. Thrumming base guitar is a must. Words and lyrics appear to be optional, because you cannot hear them over the roar of the music, anyway.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Lone Star, A Popcorn Throwin' Musical, Vestige Group at U.S. Art Authority, November 6 - 21

UPDATE: Review by Javier Sanchez at the Daily Texan online, November 12

UPDATE: Review by Dan Solomon at Austinist.com, November 12

UPDATE: Review by Ryan E. Johnson at examiner.com/Austin, November 12

UPDATE: Opening from Brian Paul Scipione's feature story in the November, 2009 edition of INSITE magazine:

Benjamin Wright had never written a play before so he took the world’s best advice on, well, the world’s best advice on just about everything, K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

He took on the world’s classic struggle: good versus evil and approached it from theater’s most classic format: the melodrama. He utilized classic haracterizations, the Snidely Whiplash and Dudley Do Right archetypes of cops and robbers and added some alluringcowgirls and thus Lonestar, Texas: A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical was born. It debuted at his alma mater, University of California at Los Angeles five years ago when he was still an undergrad.

“A lot of people came,” Wright tells us, “and threw a lot of popcorn.” Normally, projectiles are the last things a neophyte playwright wants hurled at his debut. Certainly praise is preferable but as anyone who’s read the title of this article can tell, this performance is designed for popcorn throwing. And yet, while the advent of castingfood pellets at the cast was considered a success for five years, Wright is upping the stakes. “For an audience in Austin, we needed higher standards.”

Strike the musical vamp, dim the lights, hold your breath, and cue the Vestige Group.

(click to download November, 2009 issue of INSITE magazine -- 5.75 MB)

UPDATE: Lisa Scheps of KOOP-FM interview Benjamin Wright, Susie Gidseg and Jonathan Terrel for her program "Off Stage and On The Air," October 26

UPDATE: A song from Lonestar: A Woman in Need, posted October 23

Received directly:

The Vestige Group presents

Lonestar, Texas: A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical

Book, Music and Lyrics by Vestige company member Benjamin Wright
Directed by Susie Gidseg and Jen Brown

Friday, November 6- Saturday, November 21
Runs Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8 pm at The United States Art Authority
Ages 21 and up only. Street parking only.

In a Snidely Whiplash/Dudley Do Right story that takes place in a Texan trailer park town, we meet a lecherous Texas Ranger who turns out not to be so rangerly. We meet a misunderstood youth just trying to escape his life in Lonestar. Let's not forget the damsel in distress and a whole mob of sexy cowgirls.

Lonestar, Texas: A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical is a whimsical tale about the dark and depraved places one will go when forced to survive in the confines of a decaying small town. We'll leave the judgments of good and evil up to the audience who will be fully armed with beer and popcorn. So, saddle up for a rockin' trip to Lonestar, Texas.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Muses III: Memories of a House, Vestige Group at private residence, August 20 - 30

Pocket theatre.

Home theatre; intimate theatre.

Theatre for no more of you than can fit comfortably into a 12x15 room with the actors.

Muses III by the Vestige Group puts you into a small group for this experience. They have concessions available on the lawn beforehand, under the tall and twisty live oaks. They suggest that you get to know the persons in your group.

You probably won't, because your guide is not going to push the touchy-feely approach among your dozen faces. You'll be up close and personal with the actors soon enough.

The evening reminded me very strongly of those odd national day receptions we attended in central Africa. For one thing, the proprietors have acquired an eclectic houseful of handicrafts, art, masks, textiles and textures from across the world. We strangers carefully tramped through the house, settled on sofas as directed, slipped along the corridors and lingered out by the pool. As in a diplomatic reception, our mission was to get to get acquainted -- in this case, not with one another but with this odd collection of characters dreamed up by the writers.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Arts Opportunity: ACOT's new "A" Team

Received directly from the Austin Circle of Theatre (ACOT), for dissemination:


The "A"-Team

Dear Austin Theatre Companies and Arts Enthusiasts,

ACoT is about to launch a unique program that not only will help fill seats in your house on opening weekend, but will provide an added stream of positive reviews to draw traffic both to your show, and your website.

This program is called the A-Team.

The "A"-Team will be made up of local arts enthusiasts who will be given tickets to attend events covering all disciplines of art and culture in Austin found on NowPlayingAustin.com. These folks will then report back on the shows they have seen by writing reviews on NowPlayingAustin.com. There will also be monthly happy hours in which The "A"-Team can network and discuss the different events they've attended throughout the month.

How can you help?

THEATRES

Please let me know if you would be interested in having these A-team members attend your show! If you agree to participate, I will send an email weekly to organizations that have a show opening. You will tell me how many tickets you are willing to donate. One ticket will be given to each A-team member. ( Hopefully they will bring a friend.) Feel free to donate as many or as few tickets as you can afford.

You will be notified with the information of the A-team member so that you can add that person to your database.


ARTS FOLK

Wanna be on the A-Team? All you need to do is join ACoT as an individual member at a reduced rate ( 36 instead of 48) and you are on a roll! The free tix will pay for the membership fees in no time.

Please let me know if you are interested in joining us to help promote the "A-team" and the arts in Austin.

Thanks!

Susie Gidseg (susie.vestige@gmail.com)

Touch, Vestige Group at Hot Mama's Espresso, June 18 - July 3

The Vestige Group starts Touch at 9 p.m., under a tall tree in a street-side courtyard by an empty coffee shop on east Sixth Street.

At night the neighborhood has a deceptive air of abandonment. Both the warehouse across the street and Hot Mama's Espresso sit within a tight triangle of railroad tracks near modest apartment buildings. Traffic is sporadic on Sixth Street, just behind the row of plywood partitions.

Touch is quiet but focused. Though there's a cast of four, this piece is principally a monologue by Andrew Varenhorst. He portrays Kyle, an already introspective man driven further inside himself by the loss of his Zoë, the wife whom he adored.

This staging is an eerie experience, as if the audience were posted somewhere deep within Kyle's head. He goes obsessively over their meeting, their life together, the blank catastrophe of her disappearance and his discovery of her six weeks later in the New Mexico desert.

"Zoë" or "Zoe" is Greek for "life." Kyle's relation makes clear that from the moment that she chose him in high school, the extravagant, attractive Zoë became his life, transforming his outcast existence, motivating him and animating him. We never see Zoë or directly hear her in this piece. That absence entirely shapes the narrative. Kyle's monologue is interrupted periodically by re-enactments, as if we were reliving with him other, non-Zoë episodes from his life.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Touch, Vestige Group at Hot Mama's Cafe, June 18 - July 3

UPDATE: Click for ALT review, June 21




Received May 10:

the vestige group
is proud to present
the Austin premiere of Toni Press-Coffman's

TOUCH

June 18th-20 and and 25th- 27th. July 2nd and 3rd at 9 pm.
Hot Mama's Coffee Shop
2401 E 6th St ,Austin

Kyle Kalke, an astronomer since childhood, a high school "science nerd," falls in love with flamboyant, outspoken, openhearted Zoe, who—astonishingly—loves him back. When she is kidnapped and murdered, Kyle barricades himself by devoting himself more feverishly to the cosmos and losing himself in loveless sex.

TOUCH is about a man in despair questioning whether there is any point to rediscovering passion, risking connection, groping toward the touch that will rekindle joy. Using fragments and memories, Kyle struggles to find out the truth about what has happened to his wife and to find a way to heal himself.



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



"I haven’t had a chance to write about about TOUCH, with all the madness associated with Faster! and its consequent demands on my time, but I so grateful to be in this production. We are already deep into the rehearsal process, and as we’re getting off-book, the achingly raw moments between the characters are taking my breath away. This is a beautiful, sad play."

Click for more June 3 blog comments by "Austin Actress," who is in the cast of Touch.

Upcoming: "Green Room" Acting Classes at City Theatre, from April 27

Received April 9:

On April 27 City Theatre Austin begins The Green Room, a series of classes to be held at City Theatre for Austin actors and performers.
Classes will include The Art of Auditioning, Actually Acting!, Creative Dramatics for Young Adults, Dramaturgy and Scriptwriting, Nia Techniques for Actor and Artist, and Yoga For Actors.

Taught by seasoned actors and licensed instructors, classes will be offered in two- to six-week sessions, as well as on-going sessions and will be given at a low cost for those participating. See “Classes” at the City Theatre website for descriptions, activities, and dates.

And get rolling with A FREE ACTING CLASS from the Austin Acting Workshop taught by Barry Pineo to be held, Saturday, April 11 from 9:00 to noon at The City Theatre. Workshop is open to the first six people to commit. If interested, call 512-636-5802 or bpineo@austin.rr.com.

Read More, with Full Class Descriptions, at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

The Heidi Chronicles, City Theatre, March 26 - April 19

Wendy Wasserstein, playwright of The Heidi Chronicles, died in 2005, cut down in full artistic activity by lymphoma. Her play Third, which premiered that year, was performed in Austin last September by the Paradox Players. The City Theatre has just opened The Heidi Chronicles for a four-week run, featuring a talented young cast, clever staging and some still unanswered big questions.

One of five children of a wealthy Jewish family in Brooklyn, Wasserstein graduated from Mount Holyoke, then obtained master's degrees from City College of New York in 1971 and from the Yale School of Drama in 1976. Her graduate thesis project at Yale was produced off-Broadway in 1977, featuring Glenn Close, and then on PBS with Meryl Streep. Wasserstein wrote three more plays and then in 1989 The Heidi Chronicles won the Drama Desk award, the New York Critics' award for best new play, a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The juries for those awards must have recognized this play for its comic, yet earnest take on the emotional plight of highly educated American women. Female thirty-somethings faced contradictions and were assailed by cognitive dissonance when choosing between aspirations for careers and the allure of the safe, mostly suburban world of motherhood. If intelligent women were -- or should be -- the equals of men, why did so many of them decline to compete? And how could capable, successful female professionals establish the comfort, intimacy and family ties that seemed to accrue naturally to mothers and housewives in their warm and fuzzy little worlds?

In her portrayal of Heidi Holland from high school through her young middle age as a respected university professor, Wasserstein deliberately does not answer that question.

Read More . . . .

Gorilla Man, Vestige Group at the Creekside Lounge, 606 E. 7th Street, Decembet 4 - 20

Gorilla Man plays in a hang-loose theatre space Thursdays through Saturdays. The guys at the Creekside Lounge are more used to your typical 6th & 7th street music scene than to the romping of thespians, but they were good natured about hosting the show.

I arrived right at the posted time of 7:30 a.m., and I went directly into the bar. They directed me to the apparently unheated space next door, where some twenty folding chairs were set up in front of a bandstand. Director Susie Gidseg welcomed me aboard, and I joined the mostly college age crowd gathering there. The bartender eventually showed up and amicably sold me a Real Ale for just $2.50, so I was ready to go. I even took off my wool cap and later in the evening I unzipped my leather jacket.

The 3-person band led by Henna Chou showed up promptly, wearing white shirts, suspenders and fedoras, along with narrator Spencer Driggers. They launched into the impossibly nutty musical story of Billy, the 14-year-old boy who discovers that puberty for him means waking up with abundant fur growing on his hands and other parts of his body. “Mom! What’s going on??”

Read More at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .