Ryan Manning provided a lot of the energy for the Austin Community College Experimental Student Performance Lab. This summer 2009 enterprise put on four pieces, all student-written and student-directed, all performed by ACC students. Manning wrote three of them and performed in three. Whatever ESPL show was up there, Manning was part of it, somehow.
Bravo for that energy and engagement.
Austin Live Theatre published a review of Manning's "Beckett" piece An Empty Stage on July 25. The Manning canon is filled out with this double bill of his goofy-but-fun The Men from Mars and his "Pinter/Sam Shephard" work Careful as Mice.
Austin Community College students can whoop it up as well as anyone, and the intimate Gallery Theatre on the third floor of the Rio Grande campus was a fine place to do so. Think of every space opera you've ever seen, from Star Wars to Star Trek to Battlestar Galactica, put them in a blender and dress up your actors with intentionally campy outfits and attitudes. That was The Men from Mars. We whooped right along with them in the electronic music as those creepy Martians with stockings over their faces came attacking our noble troops, who were Good Guy Macho stereotypes from every war movie you've ever seen.
Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
