(*) RAGTIME, musical, Playhouse San Antonio, July 26 - August 18, 2013

(Playhouse San Antonio, 800 West Ashby at San Pedro Avenue, San Antonio)

presents

(poster: Playhouse San Antonio)

Ragtime musically weaves together the stories of three extraordinary families, who confront history's timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair and what it means to live in America.
Click to purchase tickets online

CAST

Mother    Stephanie Bumgarner
Coalhouse Walker, Jr.    Edward Burkley
Tateh   David Nanny-Isban
Father   Jason Mosher
Younger Brother   Trevor Chauvin
Sarah   Regina Burpo
Emma Goldman    Rebecca Trinidad
Evelyn Nesbit   Sara Brookes
Willie Conklin    Rob Shaver
Sarah's Friend   Rebekah Williams
Grandfather   Michael Duggan
Henry Ford   Mark Hicks
Houdini  Rick Sanchez
Immigrants  Anthony Castro, Daniel Quintero, Irene Miller, Sarah Munroe, Allison Newsom
People of New Rochelle   Matthew Cook, Renee Garvens, Sarah L. Hedrick, Chris L. Johnson, Chris Miller, Thad S. Payne, Sharon Newhardt
People of Harlem    Michele Crowder. Lindsay Nicole Ewell, Danielle King, Kenny Patterson, Angela Patterson

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIRE DE LUNE by Terrence McNally, City Theatre, February 1 - 16

(3823 Airport Rd. at 38 1/2 St., behind the Shell station)

presents

Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune

by Terrence McNally

directed by Ronnie Dobell Prior
featuring Summer Lyn Bryant and Ben Weaver

February 1 - 16, Thursdays- Sundays at 8 p.m.

Click to purchase tickets ($16.52 including fees) at

"Do you take requests, Marlon?

There's a man and a woman. No great beauties, either one. They meet where they work: a restaurant and it's not the ritz. She'e a waitress. He's a cook. Right off. They both knew tonight was going to happen.

Would you play something for Frankie and Johnny on the eve of something that ought to last, not self-destruct?"

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Corpus Christi by Terrence McNally, Austin Theatre Project at MC Church, May 25 - June 10

presents

 

 

Corpus Christi

by Terrence McNally
directed by Jeff Hinkle
MCC Austin at Freedom Oaks, 8601 S. First Street (click for map)

May 25 - June 10, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m.
Saturday matinee on June 2 at 2 p.m.

Tickets from $26.87 for students/seniors to $37.22 for premium seating

available now via

Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi is perhaps his most moving and controversial play, telling the story of Joshua, a young gay boy in 1950's Corpus Christi, TX. He is ridiculed, bullied, and hated by most of the people in his hometown and after he finishes high school, he flees... seeking people to share his message of tolerance and unconditional love. During his travels he finds a group of followers who help to spread his message. The time comes for him to return home and when he does so, he is betrayed by his high school boyfriend, Judas... with tragic results. Written in 1997, the themes of unconditional love and tolerance are honestly presented alongside the themes of bullying and hate crime, all of which make this work even more relevant today than it was fifteen years ago.

New Company, Upcoming Auditions: Austin Theatre Project and Corpus Christi by Terrence McNally, April 21 - 22

The newly-established Austin Theatre Project of producing director Barbara Schuler and musical director David Blackburn will hold auditions for Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi, to be directed by Jeff Hinkle, on Monday, April 23 and on Tuesday, April 24, 6 - 9 p.m. at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd. (click for map)

Performances are scheduled for Fridays - Sundays, May 25 - June 10 at the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC Church), 8601 S. First Street (click for map).

On March 28 ATP organizers announced their season through 2013, featuring The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, the musical Baby, Love Letters, Avenue Q, Edges - A Song Cycle, The House of Yes, Falsettos, and the 2013 Austin Holiday Project. They also discussed with Lisa Scheps the origins of their new initiative. Click below to listen to them on KOOP-FM's 'Off Stage and On the Air.' (9 minutes)

Arts Reporting: Lt. Gov. Dewhurst Intimidates Tarleton U. into Cancelling Play

UPDATE: Touring production of Corpus Christi will present in Dallas, June 4-6, for Corpus Christi weekend, from KERA Art&Seek Blog, via Jeanne Claire van Ryzin of the Austin Statesman, April 19

UPDATE: Report by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz in Austin Statesman blog, March 27, and lots of comments by readers

Richard Whittaker reports in an Austin Chronicle blog that Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst used a press conference to intimidate Tarleton State University in Stephenville into cancelling a scheduled invitation-only performance of Terence McNally's Corpus Christi:

Dewhurst the Critic

by Richard Whittaker, March 27

How is Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst like a radical Muslim leader? Because he's decided to get all condemnatory about the play Corpus Christi, thus drawing unwelcome and extraordinary attention to a student production and causing four plays to be canceled over safety concerns.

The play by Texas-raised and Tony-nominated playwright Terrence McNally, about a gay Christ-like figure called Joshua, was to be part of a performance of one-act plays performed by students at Tarleton State University today, March 27. It is not a minor work (Time's Richard Zoglin called it "witty but not patronizing, as sober and cleansing as a dip in baptismal water") nor is it new (it was first performed in 1998.) Dewhurst, for no readily apparent reason (hey, isn't it an election year?) decided to weigh in on a student performance through a full-blown press release on Friday afternoon.

Read more at Austin Chronicle blogs. . . .

Op-Ed: Where Art Meets Religion, New York Times, November

The New York Times' Public Editor Clark Hoyt muses about the reactions to Terrence McNally's homosexual interpretation of the Gospel "Corpus Christi," ten years ago and today. And especially the outrage of some, including Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, at the NYT's sympathetic review of the current production. Excerpts:

Ben Brantley, the Times theater critic, was not impressed in 1998, calling “Corpus Christi” about as “threatening, and stimulating, as a glass of chocolate milk” and a “lazy” piece of writing. Donohue did not object to that review.

Jason Zinoman, who reviewed the revival for The Times, seemed to find it a bit more appealing, saying “there are moments of hard-won sentiment that will win over the biggest skeptic.” Zinoman called the play “an earnest and reverent spin on the Jesus story, with some soft-spoken, gay-friendly politics thrown in.” Donohue was infuriated because he said no play that depicted Jesus as sexually active, whether with men or women, could be “reverent.” Zinoman defended his description. He said the play was “very faithful” to the plot of the New Testament. But he said it had a “point of view. It’s certainly pro-gay-marriage and it’s intolerant of prejudice against gay people.”. . . .

I found Donohue’s language overheated, but I wound up thinking that he had put his finger on an interesting issue: how a newspaper like The Times, which devotes great space and energy to covering the arts, should deal with the frequent collisions between art and religion. The argument, as it did with “Corpus Christi” 10 years ago, often gets framed as a First Amendment fight between those championing freedom of speech and those seeking to stifle speech they object to. But lost in all of that can be the deeper story of the spiritual and religious tensions that gave rise to the art in the first place and the sensibilities of religious readers who may be struggling with aspects of their own faith. . . .

In a different context recently, Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, told me that he believes The Times is a liberal newspaper “in the sense that a liberal arts college is liberal — generally secular in outlook, disinclined to take things on faith, nondogmatic, tolerant of and curious about a wide range of views and behaviors.” I think that is a good definition — and that editors need to be sure that the wide range includes the views of the religious."

[Click for full text of op-ed piece]