The North Plan by Jason Wells, Street Corner Arts at Hyde Park Theatre, December 5 - 21, 2013

Highly recommended

Rommel Sulit, Indigo Rael (poster: streetcornerarts.org)

by Michael Meigs

Howls of delight met the finale and curtain call of The North Plan at the Hyde Park Theatre last night, an ovation more ecstatic and spontaneous than any I’ve heard in my six years of theatre going in Central Texas.

Jason Wells’ black comedy about the chaotic breakdown of the United States sometime in the near future is a near perfect dramatic satire set in the jail and sheriff’s office in the mythical backwater town of Lodus, Missouri, deep in the Ozarks.

Street Corner Arts hit the crests two years ago their first time out, with The Men of Tortuga, another work by Wells, a Chicago-based actor awarded the 2010 Osborn award for an emerging playwright by the American Theatre Critics Association.

Rommel Sulit, Gary Peters and Joe Penrod from the Tortuga cast are back again for this production. Both Wells plays set up scenarios of conspiracy and mock them mercilessly: Tortuga depicts an intervention in Caribbean politics by a collection of suits with manicures and shiny shoes, and North Plan shows the downhome effects of a U.S. government breakdown and a fascist putsch attempt.

This wildly funny evening is manna for the crowd of cheerfully skeptical youngish theatre-lovers who constitute the primary audience at the Hyde Park Theatre, the sorts who enjoy over-the-edge programming by HPT’s Ken Webster, Mark Pickell’s Capital T Theatre, and the eponymous A Chick and a Dude Productions of Shanon Weaver and Melissa Livingston-Weaver. Street Corner Arts is right up there with them in Austin savvy and gleeful insouciance.

Indigo Rael (photo: Street Corner Arts)

The North Plan opens in the jail behind a sheriff’s office in the remote Ozarks, where Tanya, a bedraggled, loud and angry trailer-trash woman is trying to talk her way out of detention. Her rant directed toward Shona the studious female warden (Kristen Bennett) is lengthy, disconnected and extremely funny. Indigo Rael with her lean, slinky athletic body and controlled fury has played similar characters before, and she burns like an unsecured live wire throughout this show.

A noisy offstage argument erupts behind the audience during Tanya's energetic pleas and imprecations, and then the impertrubable Chief of Police Swenson (Gary Peters) marches in a rumpled mid-level former government official Carlton Berg (Rommel Sulit). Rapid fire dialogue from the urgently pleading Berg, interrupted by Tanya’s acid commentary, reveals that Berg has absconded with the enemies list of the repressive would-be government far away in the black hole of Washington, where the Army and Marine contingents are dug in at opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, getting ready for a clash.


Click to read more at Central Texas Live Theatre. . . .

Funding Campaign for The North Plan by Jason Wells, Street Corner Arts, Austin

The company's seeking to raise $4,000 for the production via

(Click to go to Indiegogo page)

The North Plan is Street Corner Arts' return to the fast-paced, politically-charged world of Jason Wells, writer of their 2011 hit Men of Tortuga. This pitch-black comedy will have its regional premiere at Hyde Park Theatre (511 W. 43rd St.) in Austin, Texas from December 6 to December 21, 2013.

The North Plan tells the story of Carlton Berg, a bureaucrat for the U.S. State Department, who runs off with the top secret enemies list of a ruthless faction that has seized power in Washington creating a state of martial law. Unfortunately for Carlton, the chase has come to an end in a police station in the Ozarks town of Lodus, Missouri. With a pair of Department of Homeland Security agents on the way, Carlton's last hope arrives in the form of fellow prisoner Tanya Shepke, a motor-mouthed redneck who's turned herself in for drunk driving and has a penchant for raising hell.

The revolution will not be televised but it will have a soundtrack: Lynyrd Skynyrd. And it starts right now!

Street Corner Arts began with an idea (over a glass of good whiskey as all good ideas do): what if theatre could exist as a conversation between audience and actors, addressing current topics that affect the average person in an accessible way. That is the challenge which we always place before ourselves. By helping us to fund this project, you are becoming an active participant in that conversation. You are allowing us to continue to present collaborative, relevant, and engaging theatre to the Austin community.

Click to go to the Indiegogo page for more information and to contribute.

Street Corner Arts Pig Roast fundraiser, October 27, 2013

PIG ROAST – FUNDRAISER FOR STREET CORNER ARTS

You haven't lived till you've had a slow-roasted pig, Filipino-style, on a bamboo spit over coals, the kind Anthony Bourdain says is the "best pork ever." Now's your chance! And it's for a good cause, too!

Help us celebrate Street Corner Arts' first full season of theatre and help us fund our upcoming show The North Plan by Jason Wells (the brilliant mind behind Men of Tortuga) at Hyde Park Theatre December 6 - 21, 2013.
 

Besides the roast pig, we’ll have smoked brisket and veggie options. We’ll have games for kids such as bobbing for apples and bubble wands; and games for grown-ups later in the evening. We’re giving away prizes such as Pollyanna Theatre family passes, passes to the Blanton Museum, a painting experience at Café Monet, a dinner at Chuy’s and more!

Sunday, October 27, 4 p.m. – 9 p.m.

9517 Bungalow Lane (private residence in the Circle C neighborhood)

(click for map)

ENTRY DONATION: $20 per single attendee,$30 per pair of attendees

KIDS under 18 years get in FREE!

Pay at the door or contact us at streetcornerarts@gmail.com or

by phone (512) 298-9776 to arrange for early purchase.

Go to our Street Corner Arts Facebook events page

“PIG ROAST – FUNDRAISER! for Street Corner Arts”

for more information.