The Ivy House by Chris Fontanes, Bottle Alley Theatre Company at the Eponymous Garden, February 25 - March 5, 2013

by Michael Meigs

The very venue is a dream catcher. This tidy wood-frame two-story house is situated on Garden Street -- hence its bed & breakfast title The Eponymous Garden -- and it's saturated with atmosphere. Owner Sterling Price-McKinney has written scripts for performance here in connection with the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, and this is the location for the SVT's annual fundraiser. 


This isn't the Austin of of the politicians and high rollers who used the Driskill Hotel just off Congress Avenue; it's the Willow-Spence historical district, built by respectable middle-class folk in the 1920's and 1930's, a time when that neighborhood south of First Street and a bit further east from East Avenue (now I-35) was a cordial middle-class community leafy with oaks and pecan trees. You sense that whole lives were lived here in simplicity and virtue.


The Bottle Alley Theatre Company was pleased to be granted the use of this B&B, and they willingly scheduled their performances of Chris Fontanes' The Ivy House on Mondays and Tuesdays, weeknights usually just as idle for theatrical performance as they are for quaint but well-situated little inns.


The cozy spaces of the ground floor don't permit much of a crowd. The company limits attendance to between 12 and 15 spectators each evening. With an acting company of 7, that's theatre up close and personal, and unless you're already an intimate of at least one of the actors, you won't know which of those present will be presenting the connected stories.


The monologues, dialogues and action shift from sitting room to bedroom to stairway to kitchen-dining room and even out to the rear porch. Playwright-director Fontanes lingers nearby and from time to time may direct your attention with a helpful gesture. At times the intimacy of the setting undercut the actors' craft, leading them to deliver lines with a quietness more appropriate to controlled video production than to a situation where a dispersed and moving audience had to be attracted and informed.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . 

THE IVY HOUSE by Chris Fontanes, Bottle Alley Theatre Company at the Eponymous Garden, February 25 - March 5

presents

The Ivy House
by Chris Fontanes

Produced by Brian Crabb, Joan Bryson, Tom De La Garza & Eponymous Garden

Starring Tim Olivares, Kimberly Gifford, Kate Jones, Ariel Gilman, Rachael Shaw, Taylor Whitmire and Steven Cruser

@ Eponymous Garden, 1202 Garden Street, Austin, TX (click for map)

Monday-Tuesday February 25th and 26th and Monday-Tuesday March 4th and 5th

House opens at 7 pm

Limited seating; tickets available via

The Ivy House is a tale of love, love lost, memories and escape. Seven characters' stories intertwine through the past, present and future and fall safely into the confines of the Ivy House, an imaginary place where they go to re-live their memories.

The Ivy House shall be performed at the Austin landmark - Victorian house, Eponymous Garden. Rather than a conventional theatre performance, the play takes place in different rooms within the house. The audience is encouraged to move through the house to fully experience the play.

Notice: The Ivy House is for mature audiences only

* Bottle Alley Theatre Company and Eponymous Garden would like to ask all audience members to park along the street on Waller St in regards to Garden St. Thank you.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Bottle Alley Theatre Company Seeking ONE actress IMMEDIATELY for 'The Ivy House'

A strange series of events have left us without the last member of our cast. We are seeking one open-minded actress to join our production IMMEDIATELY. This is a first come-first-serve kind of thing, so please email your resume and headshot to writer/director Chris Fontanes ASAP. If selected, you will have an audition as soon as possible consisting of cold readings from the script.



The Ivy House, written and directed by Chris Fontanes, will be performed at the Eponymous Garden. The play weaves a bittersweet and melancholy story of love and love lost - how memories remain the same, no matter how much you wish they would change. A group of people, all connected somehow, re-live their joint memories over and over again, using a central place as an escape hatch of sorts. This place becomes known as the ivy house.



The part to be filled is Gwendolyn (mid-to late twenties), the love interest of the main character. She has moved on, but still exists within the realm of the main character's memories and thus becomes trapped, in a sense, in the ivy house. Iinterested? Email writer/director Chris Fontanes at cmfontanes@gmail.com Performances take place at the end of February and the beginning of March at a beautiful Victorian house called Eponymous Garden on Garden St, near Ceasar Chavez. Actors shall be compensated! As soon as the role is filled, this announcement willl be taken down

Second Call: Bottle Alley Theatre Company Seeking Four Actors for The Ivy House, Auditions Saturday, January 13, 2013

Bottle Alley Theatre Company, following their two-show stand at The Broken Neck, is returning with a new, experimental drama entitled The Ivy House written and directed by Chris Fontanes lto be performed the Eponymous Garden.

Auditions shall take place this Sunday, January 13th with one call at 3 p.m. and another beginning at 5 pm – or by appointment if those times do not work for you. The audition shall take place at the Austin Java on Barton Springs (click for map). These auditions are closed and by appointment only! Basically, this is how it is going to work: If interested, please email your resume and headshot to writer/director Chris Fontanes ASAP. If you are selected, you’ll be given an audition appointment as well as the script with certain scenes highlighted. These scenes shall be “warm read” (meaning that you won’t memorize them, but shall be familiar with them) during the appointment opposite a pre-cast actor.

The Ivy House is non-linear and interpretive. It weaves a bittersweet melancholy story of love and love lost – how memories remain the same, no matter how much you wish they would change. A group of people, all connected somehow, re-live their joint memories over and over again, using a central place as an escape hatch of sorts. This place is known as the Ivy House.

Bottle Alley is seeking four open-minded actors to join this cast of seven (all parts aged in their twenties). One male and three females are needed for the parts outlined below:

Dante (male): The best friend of the play’s central figure. Dante sleeps with his best friend’s girlfriend, holding it as a secret all the while consoling him

Zoe (female): A quirky, off-beat main supporting role. An aspiring painter and waitress, Zoe desires to disappear into the wilds of New York. She also has an imaginary friend.

Gwendolyn (female): The love interest of the central character. She appears through his memories, though she has now moved on. She is distant now, and shadowy.

Erin (female): The love interest of another female character. Erin is recently dead, and appears to multiple characters in a series of memories, manipulating their emotions. 

Email writer/director Chris Fontanes at cmfontanes@gmail.com

Performance dates shall be at the end of February/beginning of March at a beautiful Victorian house called the Eponymous Garden on Garden Street, just south of E. Cesar Chavez.

Actors shall be compensated!

Kickstarter campaign for Bottle Alley Theatre Company's The Ivy House by Chris Fontanes, January, 2013

Kickstarter campaign for Bottle Alley Theatre's The Ivy House by Chris Fontanes with the goal of $750 in 30 days:

CLICK LOGO to go to Kickstarter page

The third production from Bottle Alley Theatre Company - a play of love and love lost, escape, and memories.

• Launched: Jan 8, 2013
• Funding ends: Feb 7, 2013

About The Ivy House: The Ivy House is the third independent production from the Bottle Alley Theatre Company following their two-show stand at the notorious Broken Neck, Stage and most recently, Autumn. For Ivy House Bottle Alley ventures out into new and unexplored territory, settling into the eventual unknown. The Ivy House is hard to describe as so much of it is interpretive. The best description of it is a story of love and love lost, but also that of memories and escape. Seven character's stories intertwine through the past, present and future and fall safely into the confines of the Ivy House, an imaginary place where they go to re-live their memories. The play is written and directed by Chris Fontanes and features Bottle Alley alumnus actors Tim Olivares, Ariel Gilman, and Steven Cruser.

About Bottle Alley Theatre Company: Bottle Alley Theatre Company is a collection of creative minds, theatrical rebels, and college friends. We strive to push the limits of theatre and to create new and exciting collaborative works from both within the company as well as outside members. In order to have the most successful chance at presenting the play we need your support to promote, produce and fund this play. We operate outside the realm of conventional theater and as a wholly independent theater company we rely on the generosity of the public to keep us going. Every donation made to this show goes directly into the production and we know how to make every dollar go far.

Why we need your money: We are a poor theatre company trying to do big things - you can already see the problem. We are just like you - we live paycheck-to-paycheck and cannot afford that dental procedure or blown tire. We would like to own nicer clothes and new shoes. We would also like major grants to be able to drop ten thousand dollars on a single show. However, this is not yet to be. We don't want all of your hard-earned money. Spare what you can, and know that it shall go to the very grateful, who shall use it for what is absolutely needed.

Risks and challenges Learn about accountability on Kickstarter

With creation, comes conflict. We are a fledgling theatre company amongst a vast city littered with many amazing theatre companies. Some are massive, building huge multi-million dollar facilities. They will never have to wonder where their next show will be. Or how they'll have to scrape up a hundred bucks for seventy chairs. Other companies are like us - living show-by-show, chasing dreams, ambitious as hell. We live paycheck-to-paycheck too - our money is going into lights, chairs, programs, and promoting the hell out of this thing that we are proud to be creating.

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Bottle Alley Theatre Company Seeking Four Actors in Closed Audition, January 13, 2013

Bottle Alley Theatre Company, following their two-show stand at The Broken Neck, is returning with a new, experimental drama entitled The Ivy House written and directed by Chris Fontanes located at the Eponymous Garden.

Auditions shall take place this Sunday, January 13th with one call at 3pm and another beginning at 5 pm – or by appointment if those times do not work for you. The audition shall take place at the Austin Java on Barton Springs (click for map). These auditions are closed and by appointment only! Basically, this is how it is going to work: If interested, please email your resume and headshot to writer/director Chris Fontanes ASAP. If you are selected, you’ll be given an audition appointment as well as the script with certain scenes highlighted. These scenes shall be “warm read” (meaning that you won’t memorize them, but shall be familiar with them) during the appointment opposite a pre-cast actor.

The Ivy House is, quite frankly, difficult to describe as so much of the text, plot, and narrative is non-linear and interpretive. It weaves a bittersweet melancholy story of love and love lost – how memories remain the same, no matter how much you wish they would change. A group of people, all connected somehow, re-live their joint memories over and over again, using a central place as an escape hatch of sorts. This place is known as the Ivy House.

Bottle Alley is seeking four open-minded actors to join this cast of seven (all parts aged in their twenties). One male and three females are needed for the parts outlined below:

1. Dante (male): The best friend of the play’s central figure. Dante sleeps with his best friend’s girlfriend, holding it as a secret all the while consoling him
2. Zoe (female): A quirky, off-beat main supporting role. An aspiring painter and waitress, Zoe desires to disappear into the wilds of New York. She also has an imaginary friend.
3. Gwendolyn (female): The love interest of the central character. She appears through his memories, though she has now moved on. She is distant now, and shadowy.
4. Erin (female): The love interest of another female character. Erin is recently dead, and appears to multiple characters in a series of memories, manipulating their emotions.

Still interested? Email writer/director Chris Fontanes at cmfontanes@gmail.com

Performance dates shall be at the end of February/beginning of March at a beautiful Victorian house called the Eponymous Garden, south of east Cesar Chavez.    Actors shall be compensated!