Zeus in Therapy by Douglass Stott Parker, Tutto Theatre at the Rollins Theatre, Long Center, August 16 - 25, 2013

(Tutto Theatre)

by Michael Meigs

Tutto Theatre's Zeus in Therapy by the late UT classics professor Douglass Stott Parker is dazzling, and at times, as his brilliant wordplay coincides with the gesturing and capering of the astonishing Greek chorus, it is simply stunning.

'Stunning' is a word thrown about lightly in the casual talk of our day. But I mean it literally. The brilliance, complexity and sheer entertainment value of this staging and this cast is sufficient to blow your circuits, if you're trying to absorb everything this production is offering you.

Perhaps only literature geeks and poetry lovers stand in danger of that. You may be happy simply to settle back in your seat in the Rollins Theatre and ride with this lengthy evening on any of its several levels.

Set design by Chris Cox

Most of us have at least a rudimentary recall of Greek mythology, perhaps from storybooks in middle school. You can enjoy the revelation of the stories of this quirky, cranky bunch of deities: Zeus himself, the all-powerful principal god with that rampant lust; Hera his demanding wife and sister ("wifster"); the Titans who pre-dated the Greek gods and old Cronus, Zeus's father; trident-brandishing Neptune and hammer-swinging Hephaestus; Dionysus, god of wine, born from the thigh of Zeus; cup-bearer Ganymede; the incarnations of all the lovely maidens who gave Zeus's life its zest; and a vast additional number of mortals and immortals.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

ZEUS IN THERAPY by Douglass Stott Parker, Tutto Theatre at Rollins Theatre, Long Center, August 18 - 25, 2013

presents
Zeus in Therapy
by Douglass Stott Parker
directed by Gary Jaffe
August 16 - 25, 2013
Rollins Theatre, Long Center, 701 Riverside at South First, Austin, TX - click for map

Tutto Theatre Company proudly announces the world premiere of Zeus in Therapy, an original theatrical experience adapted from the unpublished poetry of Douglass Stott Parker by the company, and directed by Gary Jaffe. 

When a god has questions, you know those really big questions…life or death…slave or free…savagery or civilization…fair or cloudy…her or her sister…, where does he go? And will there be cashews?

A long-time Austin resident, Parker was an improvisational jazz trombonist, a renowned translator of ancient comedy, an explorer of fictitious landscapes, and a profess of ancient languages and creativity at UT-Austin. He is best known for his work in Greek and Roman comedy, particularly his translations of Aristophanes’ plays Lysistrata (1964), The Wasps (1962), and The Congresswomen (1967). His Lysistrata has had over two hundred productions and is currently the translation published in the Signet Classics series. His The Congresswomen (Ecclesiazusae) was among the Finalists for The National Book Award in the category of Translation in 1968.

In 1979, he began writing Zeus in Therapy, a cycle of 52 poems which imagines Zeus on the therapist’s couch. Parker did not ‘finish’ it, though he stopped writing in about 1993, and left it unpublished during his lifetime. Every new poem in the cycle was shared both on his office door and with his classes on a weekly basis for some 25 years. Parker’s poetry is whimsical and profound, cosmic and quotidian, thoughtful and irreverent, but always heartfelt and true. Our translation of Zeus in Therapy into a theatrical experience will bring the power of his words to an even larger audience.

In our adaptation, a diverse ensemble of eleven performers play Zeus, giving Parker’s words a dynamic range of expression. Beginning with the classic binary image of therapy: therapist in chair, patient on couch, we expand as Zeus’s fracturing mind becomes a multitude of bodies and voices. As Parker’s words reverberate, and as actors scramble about the stage to perform the various travails of his life, we come to understand that Zeus, just like the rest of us, finds himself overwhelmed by expectations. 

The production features the award-winning acting talents of Aaron D. Alexander, Karen Alvarado, John Austin, Suzanne Balling, Joe Hartman, Court Hoang, Chris Humphrey, Annamarie Kasper, Julie Linnard, Nathan Osburn, and Justin Scalise; with Scenic Design by Justin Cox; Lighting Design by Natalie George; Costume and Hair & Make-Up Design by Austin M. Rausch; Choreography by Lynn Raridon; Video Design by Kakii Keenan; and Music by Chris Humphrey & Court Hoang.

Zeus in Therapy runs August 16th through 25th at the Rollins Studio Theater in The Long Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets available via The Long Center for the Performing Arts.

In the last six years, Tutto’s seven most recent productions: The Twelfth Labor (Summer 2012), The Alien Baby Play (Winter 2012), The Dudleys!: A Family Game (Spring 2011), I Witness (Summer 2010), Murder Ballad Murder Mystery (Fall 2009), Black Snow (Summer 2009), and Ophelia (Fall 2008) together have collected 64 nominations, garnered 27 awards, and appeared on 11 annual top listings from local media.


Founded in 2002, Tutto Theatre Company set out to elevate cross-disciplinary communication in the Austin artistic community. In 2008, we fused to our original purpose the artistic ambition to enhance, imaginatively, the expanding arts community in Austin. Imagination is the engine of the impossible, and ours is an Impossible Theatre. Embracing the theatre—a realm where impossibilities interpenetrate—we access the deeper meaning that lies beneath human experience. We create a space to carve into the unexpected, to dissect its viscera, and to lay bare its provocative sinews in ever more impossible ways. Ours is a theatre of dreams and of fantasies, of memory and of nostalgia, of desire and of disorientation, of imagination and of contradiction, an arena where the mundane grapples with the sublime. Thus, we commit tutto (everything) to the exploration of new forms and of new works that inscribe their fearful symmetries and incalculable geometries within our hearts, minds, and bodies.


We feel a profound responsibility both to new and timeless theatre. Our work, therefore, consists in: (1) producing experiences of high-quality both small and large; (2) developing new work and production opportunities for up-and-coming playwrights; and (3) helping our community to nurture its place as a world-class arts destination, providing local educational opportunities, and bringing artists from around the world to develop their work in our city. Thus we defy the grim reality of theatre making in the 21st century, declaring: Everything is possible in this our Impossible Theatre!

This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Auditions tomorrow, Saturday, February 16 for Zeus in Therapy, Tutto Theatre, Austin

Posted on Facebook by Tutto Theatre, Austin:

We're holding auditions tomorrow (Saturday, February 16) for our August production ZEUS IN THERAPY and have some slots available! If you're interested in auditioning and/or want more information, contact our artistic director at gary.s.jaffe@gmail.com.

We're holding auditions tomorrow for our August production ZEUS IN THERAPY and have some slots available! If you're interested in auditioning and/or want more information, contact our artistic director at gary.s.jaffe@gmail.com.

The Twelfth Labor by Leegrid Stevens, Tutto Theatre at MacTheatre black box, August 10 - September 1

(www.tuttotheatre.org)

by Michael Meigs

If you arrive at the MacTheatre Black Box with happy memories of Leegrid Stevens' The Dudleys as staged last year by Tutto Theatre -- winner of eight of Austin's B. Iden Payne theatre awards -- you may well be disconcerted. The Twelfth Labor, behind its enigmatic title, is as far from the hectic world of 8-bit video games as, say, Eugene O'Neil or William Faulkner.

Tutto has mounted a gorgeously moody, intellectually challenging piece, comprised of Steven's four-part suite in the stark isolation of a farmhouse somewhere out on an alien landscape of the mind. Designer Ia Ensterä again creates a wrap-around environment in weathered wood, a falling-down barn and a two-story farmhouse.

Erin Treadway, Rebecca Robinson (image: Kimberley Meade)

Stevens' script is densely conceptual, a virtual Cirque de Soleil of intellectual performance, but the story is much less complicated than his working and reworking of it. This Idaho farm family lives in harsh rural deprivation in 1949.

Rebecca Robinson plays Esther the grim matriarch, trying to hold together her own existence and those of the four variously handicapped or rebellious children of the family. The father of this beleaguered family disappeared into Japanese prisoner-of-war camps in the Pacific eight years before and has never returned.

The program lists the labors of Hercules, the last of which is his wrestling with Cerberus, the monster guarding the Underworld. But there's no obvious or easy parallel here -- in fact, pattern-makers might find that with the absent father, a couple of suitors, and the strong matriarch could track the late passages of the Odyssey just as well; the father does eventually return.

Cleo the oldest daughter is severely dyslexic and mentally handicapped -- an earnest, striving young woman old before her time, bewildered by language that twists and turns on her mind the way a live snake might. In this role Erin Treadway delivers a performance that will break your heart, first to last, certainly one of the year's most impressive dramatic performances.

(Click 'to read continuation and view performance photos at www.AustinLiveTheatre.com)

Leegrid Stevens Receives Alec Baldwin Fellowship for The Dudleys, Tutto Theatre

The Dudleys is awarded Alec Baldwin Fellowship

Tutto Theatre Company is proud to announce that The Dudleys!: A Family Game by Leegrid Stevens—premiered in Austin in May 2011—is among the first four recipients of The Alec Baldwin Fellowship at the Singers Forum. 

The award will provide for a year-long process of individualized development for the show culminating in a series of staged backer’s auditions with the ultimate goal of a full Broadway or Off-Broadway production. The recipients were announced on July 18th by Singers Forum (as reported on BroadwayWorld.com).

“On 20 October 2011, the U.S. Senate proposed a nearly $20 million cut to the National Endowment for the Arts—a loss of nearly 13% of its annual funding. This came as NYC continued to witness an unprecedented loss of 25% of its Off-Off-Broadway theater spaces (since 2007). With no economically-feasible ‘safe zone’ in which to gestate burgeoning work, fewer original theater pieces are being produced, resulting in a dwindling of opportunities for the next generation of talented performers.” The Alec Baldwin Fellowship at the Singers Forum was created as a partnership to combat this steep decline. As Mr. Baldwin puts it, “The pieces chosen for the Fellowship represent the future of theatre in New York. As we are inundated with ‘TV shows as musicals’ and a steady stream of revivals, these four pieces illustrate that original, character-based storytelling will always be the paradigm of theatre.” Providing community and support for this endangered population of artists, the fellowship will be a year-long program devoted to the development of these “groundbreaking and original Theatrical Works. With the assistance of Mr. Baldwin, [Singers Forum] will provide professional mentorship, fine-pointed dramaturgy, and a rigorous, individualized workshopping process for each show.”

Leegrid Stevens and his play have strong Austin connections. “Tutto was privileged to produce the U.S. full-stage premiere of The Dudleys!: A Family Game,” said Tutto’s Artistic Director Gary Jaffe (who also directed the play). During the production, the playwright worked closely and collaboratively with the cast and crew. Jaffe continues: “Leegrid Stevens is a powerful and unique new voice in American theatre. With profound respect for character as his foundation, he builds thrilling theatrical landscapes in which to tell achingly real stories of loss, guilt and redemption.” Tutto’s premiere production of The Dudleys!: A Family Game went eight-for-eight in last year’s B. Iden Payne Awards, winning Outstanding: Production of a Comedy, Direction of a Comedy, Original Script, Dance Choreography, Cast Performance, Original Score, Sound Design, and Media Design.

Click 'Read more' for additional information about Tutto's premiere of Stevens' The Twelfth Labor, opening August 10

Upcoming: The Twelfth Labor by Leegrid Stevens, Tutto Theatre and MacTheatre, August 10 - September 1

Tutto Theatre presents

in Co-Production with MACtheatre

The Full-Stage Premiere of

The Twelfth Labor

 

 

 

By Leegrid Stevens

(Click for AUTHOR BIO)

Directed by Gary Jaffe

10 August – 1 September 2012

WEEK 1—Friday and Saturday
WEEK 2—Thursday through Saturday
WEEKS 3 & 4—Wednesday through Saturday

All Performances are at 7:30 p.m.

The Laboratory Theater, McCallum Fine Arts Academy, 5600 Sunshine Drive, Austin, TX 78756

Thursdays – Saturdays: $15 General Admission
(GACA/Senior/Student: $12 & Priority Seating: $25)

LIMITED SEATING, Reserve Yours TODAY.

Wednesdays are Pay-What-You-CAN
Name Your Own Price w/ Donation
of Non-Perishable Canned Food Item(s) to benefit
Hope Food Pantry at Trinity United Methodist Church
[Price without donation is $12]

Featuring the award-winning artistic contributions of actors: Helen Allen, Wray Crawford, Trey Deason, Chris Humphrey, Skip Johnson, Content Love Knowles, Megan Minto, Rebecca Robinson, Erin Treadway, Fred Winkler, and introducing Annamarie Kasper; the set design of Ia Ensterä; the lighting design of Natalie George; the costume design of Benjamin Taylor Ridgway; and the hair and make up design of Austin M. Rausch.

Leegrid Stevens’ evocative new play, The Twelfth Labor, is epic, utilizing the myth of The Twelve Labors of Hercules to explore the inner workings of a hardscrabble World War II era family in Idaho. We follow a single day in the life of an Idaho farm family, October 15, 1949, as seen through the uniquely damaged mind of the family's eldest daughter, Cleo. Through her fragmented memories, often prophetic dreams, and swirling language, we come to understand the price she and her family have paid for a little dignity, as they await the return of their long absent father, lost somewhere in the war, half a world away.

In addition to the myth of Hercules, The Twelfth Labor draws upon the popular culture (music, literature, and film) of Cleo’s childhood, which frames and colors her experience of the real world—an outer shell of Realism surrounds an inner-shell of Surrealism, which together generate what The Des Moines Register (speaking of the second workshop production) called an “[…] elemental magnetism […]” which pulls the audience in and keeps them thinking of the play days and even weeks after.

McCallum Fine Arts Academy Announces 2012-2013 MacTheatre Season

We are very proud to announce our 2012-2013 season of shows.

In August: Our co-production with award-winning Tutto Theatre of The Twelfth Labor, a new play.

In September: Beauty and the Beast goes on tour across town, across the state and hopefully across the continent.

In October: Faculty Emeritus William Staples directs Harlequinade

In November: The Secret Garden takes the stage as our fall musical.

In December: Whatcrackah?! 2.0 leaps into your life with our fresh take on the classic ballet.

In February: 53 years ago the Royal Court Players produced the largest high school musical ever seen in Texas. This year we will remount Oklahoma! And it's going to be just as big!

In March: Shakespeare's immortal love story Romeo and Juliet comes to McCallum.

In April: Student directed 10-minute plays will take over the program.

In May: The boy who never grew up has an origin story all his own in Peter and the Starcatcher.

Keep an eye open for all these and so much more, season tickets, and a few extra surprises.

Upcoming: The Twelfth Labor by Leegrid Stephens, Tutto Theatre, August, 2012

Tutto Theatre Company & McCallum Fine Arts Academy are proud to announce

THE TWELFTH LABOR

written by Leegrid Stevens, directed by Gary Jaffe.

Featuring the acting talents of Helen Allen, Travis Dean, Chris Humphrey, Skip Johnson, Tyler Jones, Annamarie Kasper, Content Love Knowles, Megan Minto, Rebecca Robinson, Erin Treadway, and Frederic Winkler.

Also Featuring: Set Design of IA ENSTERÄ; the Lighting Design of Natalie George; the Costume Design of Benjamin Taylor Ridgway.

---COMING AUGUST 2012 ---

www.TuttoTheatre.org

— with Content Love Knowles, Skip Johnson, Tyler Jones and 17 others.

Reviews from Elsewhere: Phineas and Messenger No. 4, Cambiare & Paper Moon Productions, February 17 - March 4, reviewed by David Glen Robinson

Posted at the Tutto Theatre blog, February 26, by David Glen Robinson:

These full-length plays were presented as a double feature (although one could choose to buy a ticket for a single play only), and this arrangement gave Dr. Dave a huge theatre night. Fortunately, the productions were spectacular and well-matched and left their audiences energized and satisfied. Unfortunately, these shows will soon be competing head-to-head for numerous awards in the upcoming award nominating and granting season—Dr. Dave predicts.

The 27 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm is a full-production premiere of an original play by its director, Rachel Maginnis. The set, costumes and props have a nineteenth century European feel to them, inspecific as to place. Speaking accents were not used or attempted by the cast. The title character inherits a device from his inventor father, that, when used, kills him and reincarnates him in a new life. [. . .]

Messenger #4 hails from the classically obsessed imagination of Will Hollis Snider of Cambiare Productions. A literary agency has proprietary technology, which allows it to send the Messengers into every Classical and Elizabethan play—to manage their common literary devices of messengers coming on stage telling the characters and audiences what has just happened off stage. That way a playwright doesn’t actually have to stage the sea-battle of Actium or anything else enormous that wouldn’t fit onto the stage. Hilarity ensues. Messages to different plays get switched; technology goes haywire; and characters fall in love. Yes, this is farce comedy.

Read more at the Tutto Theatre blog . . . .

Reviews from Elsewhere: Jigglewatt Jubilee, February 24, reviewed by David Glen Robinson

Posted at the Tutto Theatre blog, February 26, by David Glen Robinson:

I have been wanting to write this blog for a long time. I have been a fan of members of the Jigglewatts burlesque troupe since before they were Jigglewatts. They tour nationally now, and occasionally overseas, So tonight’s show (actually two performances--at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.) was somewhat of a rarefying opportunity to see them in Austin. So I reserved a VIP table and showed up at the venue with time to spare.

OK, stop You. I didn’t go to a strip show or to a “gentlemen’s club.” The Jigglewatts perform a new and rising form of alternative performance that I call New Burlesque. It borrows from your grandmother’s vaudeville burlesque, yes, but it also adds to that certain new forms such as rock music, an emphasis on costuming, acting, dance and social networking. The short intro is that in New Burlesque they never fall out of their pasties and G-strings, although there have been legendary accidents. More on New Burlesque later. You’ll have to dig up the legendary accidents for yourself.

Looking around the 29^th St. Ballroom I saw an alternative crowd of hipsters, street people, artists, retired go-go- girls, industrial workers, a few Goths (getting old and gray now), the leather crowd, in short, the demimonde. Jigglewatts aficionados all. The acreage of tattooed flesh was so great that it truly became urban camouflage. This is not mine, OK, I’ve heard it before, but it is certainly true. These are the people who have unfettered imaginations and are ruled by their dreams, not the boss’s punch-clock. They pay for having minds and talents by working behind retail counters and in repair shops their entire lives. Management does not like or promote them, and they scrape together a living in one postindustrial slough or another. Altogether they form a vast underground tribe.

Read more at the Tutto Theatre website. . . .

Reviews from Elsewhere: Woodwork by Hank Schwemmer, Paper Chairs, February 17 - March 4,reviewed by David Glen Robinson

Posted at the Tutto Theatre website, February 26, by David Glen Robinson:

Woodwork is another production taking place in a warehouse, this time the huge Delta Millworks factory at 5^th St. and Springdale Road in east Austin. Again I say “Aah, east Austin.” The place by its very existence gives the theatre world extremely rich settings and imagery, seemingly without end. The setting could not be more apt for presenting this dense, colorful and fantastically textured collection of six one-acts by Austin playwright Hank Schwemmer. The place was well-designed and prepared when the seating (no paper chairs) was set out around the space. I complimented scenic designer and director Lisa Laratta (one of four directors of these plays) that she had even designed in the sweet, aromatic wood fragrance that permeates the place. She said, “Yeah, that and the popcorn smell—it can’t be all one thing, you know.”

Click to read more at www.tuttotheatre.blogspot.com . . . .

The Alien Baby Play by by Nicholas Walker Herbert, Tutto Theatre for Frontera Fest, January 20 - February 5

Bethany appeared first to the Austin public and to friends of Tutto Theatre in the warm and supporting setting of a private home in Westlake, last weekend. About twenty persons gathered in a living room comfortably furnished with artwork, masks and handicraft from across the world. Bethany was pleased to see all these friends at her "mom's house," hurried about, offered us cookies, disappeared momentarily and then came back, rubbing the arc of her belly from time to time and taking a moment to decorate it with a Post-It™ note: "Alien on board."

There was no fourth wall in this staging and in fact there were no walls at all, unless you count those enclosing the house. Kathleen Fletcher as the massively pregnant Bethany was hyped, self-hypnotized, eager to talk and to please. She told us that she was fifteen months pregnant with her alien baby, ready to deliver at any moment and confidently expecting the arrival of her lover at any moment. She invited questions, and one or another of us in the gathering hazarded a carefully neutral inquiry. Eventually someone asked how she knew, exactly, that the being in her womb was an alien, and Bethany eagerly shared her impressions of that late night alone when she found herself in the presence of the unknown, telepathically and corporally uniting with a being emanating an incomprehensible but perfectly understandable speech.

I thought momentarily of asking our hostess if this was an "illegal alien" but I refrained. That would have been rude, almost disbelieving, and Bethany was so eager to please us and to share her transformation. Kathleen the actress behind those owlish spectacles and beneath all that additional volume would certainly have responded with grace and probably with wit.

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

Auditions for The Twelfth Labor by Leegrid Stevens, Tutto Theatre, January 7 and 8

Invitation to Audition for The Twelfth Labor by Leegrid Stevens

directed by Gary Jaffe

(A World Premiere from the author of The Dudleys!: A Family Game)*

Scheduled for August, 2012

AUDITIONS are Saturday, January 7th & Sunday, January 8th by appointment only - Callbacks Saturday, January 14th. To set up a brief audition time email daniel@danielbrock.com.

We're looking for men and women between the ages of 18 and 50 for a multitude of roles.

The Twelfth Labor follows a single day, October 15, 1949, filtered through the warped and damaged mind of an Idaho farm girl. Through her memories, dreams, and swirling language, we come to understand the price she and her family have paid for a little dignity, as they await the return of their long absent father, lost somewhere in the war, half a world away.

The production will run 4 weeks at McCallum Fine Arts Academy, from August 9th – September 1st. Rehearsals will begin in June. The Twelfth Labor will be directed by Tutto Theatre Company's Artistic Director, Gary Jaffe.

WHAT TO PREPARE? We will provide you with scenes and monologues from the play at least one week prior to auditions. Please select your two favorites and prepare them. We may ask you to perform others, but we only expect two to be "prepared." Be ready to make choices and take direction.

Please also bring two copies of your headshot and resume, and--if available--send digital versions to daniel@danielbrock.com when scheduling your audition time slot.

*Tutto's May 2011 production garnered eight awards in the 37th Annual B. Iden Payne Awards this fall.

Tutto Theatre Company is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) arts organization in Austin, Texas, and is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

Upcoming: The Alien Baby Play, Tutto Theatre at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, January 20 - February 5

Found on-line:

presents the world premiere of

The Alien Baby Play

by Nicholas Walker Herbert

directed by Gary Jaffe

Preview Performances:

Friday, 20 January 2012, 8:00p.m.
Saturday, 21 January 2012, 8:00p.m.
Sunday, 22 January 2012, 8:00p.m.

A Private Residence in Westlake* Preview Performances: $10
SEATING is LIMITED, Reserve Your Seats TODAY.
*Location sent out upon ticket purchase/reservation.
Tickets Available via TuttoTheatre.org

FronteraFest Long Fringe Performances:

Tuesday, 24 January 2012, 7:00p.m.; Saturday, 28 January 2012, 1:00p.m.; Sunday, 29 January 2012, 8:45p.m.Sunday, 5 February 2012, 7:15p.m.; all at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road (click for map)

FronteraFest Long Fringe Performances: $10
Tickets Available via FronteraFest.org

Featuring the return of Austin's own, Kathleen Fletcher.

Bethany is 15 months pregnant with an alien baby, and she's invited you to the birth! Kathleen Fletcher returns to Austin for the world premiere of Nicholas Walker Herbert's The Alien Baby Play, an interactive theatrical experience which will leave you clutching your womb with joy and terror. Presented as part of the FronteraFest Long Fringe 2012.

Click to view bios of director Gary Jaffe, Pam Fletcher Friday, Daniel Brock, Matthew Ervin, and producers David Robinson and Pidge Smith

Upcoming: The Dudleys, Tutto Theatre at the Blue Theatre, May 6 - 22

Found on-line:

Tutto Theatre presents
The Full-Stage Premiere of
The Dudleys!: A Family Game

by Leegrid Stevens
directed by Gary Jaffe
6 – 22 May 2011
Wednesdays – Saturdays, 8:00 p.m., Sundays, 7:00 p.m.
The BLUE Theatre, 916 Springdale Road (click for map)
Fridays and Saturdays: $15 General Admission
(GACA/Senior/Student: $12 & Priority Seating: $20)
Wednesdays & Thursdays are Pay-What-You-CAN
Name Your Own Price w/ Donation of Non-Perishable Canned Food Item(s) to benefit Hope Food Pantry at Trinity United Methodist Church [Price without donation is $12]

Featuring the artistic contributions of Actors: Alex Cogburn, Katie Dahm, Robert Deike, Spencer Driggers, Braden Hunt, Jenny Keto, Rachel McGinnis, Blake Smith, David Meissner, and Erin Treadway; Set Designer: Chase Staggs; Lighting Designer: Natalie George

Original ChipTune Music Composed and Performed Live by: Steven Gridley.

This evocative, new play translates the adolescent memories of a young man into a malfunctioning 8-bit video game, the kind he used to play as a child. A life-size video game onstage provides the setting in which the characters must score points and overcome obstacles as they navigate their way through the dangers of their own family. The Dudleys! features original video and a live 8-bit band of Atari's, Gameboy's, and Commodore 64's performing original chiptune songs, a new genre of electronic music in which old video game consoles are hacked and reprogrammed as synthesizers. The Dudleys! pits the two dimensional side-scrolling world of fun and happy endings up against the confusion and aimlessness of real life.

Click to view the play's website

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery, Tutto Theatre at Vortex Repertory, October 23 - November 7

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery is imagined and delivered as a clown show balanced precariously on deep and true traditional ballads.

Those ballads are deep, because stories of passion, violence and murder are rooted somewhere pretty close to our shared DNA; true, because they contain archetypes of our culture. The restless husband; the innocent and defenseless girl-child; the rapscallion, the rapist, and the rowdy. Including, of course, musicians and theatre folk.

Playwright Elizabeth Doss, who appears here as the female half of a Bonnie-and-Clyde type duo, began this piece while living in Spain, perhaps spurred to re-examine her own cultural traditions.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Murder Ballad Murder Mystery, Vortex Repertory, October 23 - November 7

UPDATE: Click for ALT review, October 26

UPDATE: Lisa Scheps on KOOP-FM writes on the website for Offstage and On The Air: "Today my guests were all from Tutto Theatre Company's production, Murder Ballad Murder Mystery playing October 23 - November 7 at The Vortex (click here for tickets). We had Tutto Artistic Director and Director of the show, Dustin Wills; playwright, lyricist, and performer Elizabeth Doss; Composer and performer, Mark Stewart and performer Kelly Bland. It was a fun show and most of the music was played live in the studio." Click here to listen. (30 mins)

Found on-line:

Vortex Repertory Company and Tutto Theatre Company
present the world premiere production of

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery

by Elizabeth Doss
Directed by Dustin Wills
Oct.23-Nov.07, 2009

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery unearths a host of dank and dirty bayou bandits whose names once marauded headlines, wanted posters, and LP sleeves. Watch these corpses whittle out new murder tools to make mincemeat of fair maidens and turn your sweetest dream into your worst nightmare. This psychedelic bluegrass symphonic romp through the swamp spins infamous southern-gothic tales of torture and true crime into a circus massacre of whodunits. A blast from the past straight up from the grave. Get caught at the crossroads, October 23rd at The Vortex. Halloween Drink Specials. Costumes welcome.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Black Snow, Tutto Theatre at the Salvage Vanguard, June 26 - July 12

UPDATE: Review by Avimaan Syam in Austin Chronicle, July 9

UPDATE: Profile of Dustin Wills and Tutto Theatre's mid-July performances in Rome, by Nicola Ferlei Brown in "The Roman Forum," July 8

UPDATE: Review by Dan Solomon on austinist.com, July 8

UPDATE: Review by Javier Sanchez in the UT Daily Texan On-line, July 7

UPDATE: Review by Sean Fuentes at Austin Theatre Review, July 1

UPDATE: from interview of director Dustin Wills, published by UT June 13 at the alumni profiles section:

Q. What's next for you?

A. The show I'm working on right now is called Black Snow. It's adapted by Keith Reddin and it's based on a theatrical novel by Mikhail Bulgakov who was a writer at the Moscow Art Theatre during the Stanislavski era. I really liked it I think because this is going to be the first play I've ever directed that I didn't write or have a hand in writing or was able to work with a new writer to be able to rewrite. I cannot cut it, cannot change genders – so this feels more new to me than anything right now.

Black Snow, featuring: Gabriel Luna, Smaranda Ciceu (MFA in Acting candidate), Francisco Rodriguez (BA '05), Amy Downing, Maarouf Naboulsi, Ron Weisberg (BA '07), Verity Branco (MFA in Acting candidate), Diego Larrea–Puemape (BA '08), and Kyle Lagunas; with Scene Design by Lisa Laratta (MFA '08), Lighting Design by Megan M. Reilly (MFA '07), and Costume Design by Kim H. Ngo (BA '07), runs June 26 to July 12, at Salvage Vanguard Theater. Visit TUTTOtheatre.org for details.

Found on-line:

Black Snow
by Mikhail Bulgakov
Adapted by Keith Reddin
Directed by Dustin Wills

26 June – 12 July 2009
Thursday – Sundays 8:00 p.m.
[No Performance July 4th]
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
At the Door: $15 (Starving Artist Rate: $12 Starving Theatre Company Rate: $20)
Thursdays are Pay-What-You-CAN Name Your Own Price w/ Donation of Non-Perishable Canned Food Item(s) to benefit Hope Food Pantry at Trinity United Methodist Church [Price without donation is $12]

Featuring Gabriel Luna,Smaranda Ciceu, Francisco Rodriguez, Amy Downing, Maarouf Naboulsi, Ron Weisburg, Verity Branco, Diego Larrea-Puemape, & Kyle Lagunas. Scene Design by Lisa Laratta, Lighting Design by Megan Reilly, and Costume Design by Kim H. Ngo.

Sergei Maxudov, a proofreader for the Shipping Gazette, has written an awful palimpsest of a novel, entitled Black Snow, and decides to hang himself on account, that is until a strange visitor pounds on his door and offers to publish it. This is Sergei’s introduction to the outrageous world of publishing and from there, to the downward spiral of adapting one’s work for the stage.

Nine actors portray 54 characters, the often absurd, sometimes vicious employees of the famed Moscow Art Theatre, each poised to cut, slice, rip, edit, mutilate, and otherwise butcher his script in this tour-de-force performed at breakneck speed. See for yourself how hard it really is to develop a new play as Mikhail Bulgakov’s Black Snow savages the theatrical world of post-revolutionary Russia.

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Ophelia, Tutto Theatre Company at the Blue Theatre, November 7 - 23

The Ophelia – or Ophelias – of Tutto Theatre Company appearing currently at the Blue Theatre in east Austin is a puzzle and a frustration.

The more deceiv’d Ophelia of Shakespeare has deep resonance in our tradition. She is the enamoured, disappointed, dutiful daughter who returns her lover’s tokens per her father’s instructions and in complying with filial and social obligation becomes the pawn and victim of both sides.

Trapped in an impossible situation, powerless and then bereft of lover, father and brother, she departs from reality entirely. Ophelia sings, babbles of lost maidenhood, dispenses flowers redolent with symbolism and rebuke, then dies unseen, pulled to the depths of a pond as her garments absorb the dark water that pulls her down.

Ophelia was a favorite subject of late 19th and early 20th century painters and writers, including the pre-Raphelite brotherhood in England, a group of mostly male painters and writers given inter alia to swooning over the innocence and vulnerability of young girls. Take these visions, for example (click on image for larger version):

In our own day, psychologist Mary Piper employed the character in Ophelia Revived, a popularized 1994 study of social dilemmas and character changes of adolescent girls. A sample, implying her thesis: “Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence. Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves. They crash and burn in a social and developmental Bermuda Triangle. In early adolescence, studies show that girls’ IQ scores drop and their math and science scores plummet. They lose their resiliency and optimism and become less curious and inclined to take risks. They lose their assertive, energetic and “tomboyish” personalities and become more deferential, self-critical and depressed. They report great unhappiness with their own bodies.”

So there you are – the alluring character from Shakespeare, made eternal in plot, verse, and image, interpreted variously, including by gentle lechers and by concerned psychologists, fraught with possibilities for our own day.

No wonder director/author Dustin Wills selected Ophelia for his project – including a UT workshop with staged readings in 2005, and now, after his villeggiatura in Italy, for this first production of a rechristened theatre company.

It just didn’t work for me.

Wills chose to split Ophelia into five personae – Ophelias “in love,” “impassioned,” “on edge,” “undone,” and “in water.” Designer Lisa Laratta and lighting designer Megan M. Reilly create a haunting nowhere for them to co-exist. Upon entering the theatre we find a rectangular space defined by chalk-white rafters with a teardrop pond at the back of it. The five Ophelias gather dreamily around the water.

As a joint persona, these five Ophelias are musical, lively and giggly, with the mischievous mutual confidence of high schoolers – they are high on life and thick as thieves. I half-expected one or another to whip out a cell phone and start text messaging.

There’s much movement here. For example, they perch on the five ladders ranged like trellises against the framework. The choreography of these early scenes is novel and appealing, reinforcing the message of untouched innocence. Chanting, singing, and repetition are devices that emphasize the shared identity of the five.

The action of the piece consists of the sequential exploration of these five. Each steps forward to interact with father Polonius or with the hot Hamlet (both roles played by Gabriel Luna).

Ophelia in love (Sofia Ruiz) is the first on deck. After her unsuccessful interactions with the father/lover, she winds up dead on her back in the water, where she gets to stay for the next hour.

Ophelia impassioned (Chase Crossno) has the next go. She is strong, daring, flirtatious and determined, with an amusing “will she – won’t she – what does she want?” scene, but she gets no farther. Off to the pond.

Ophelia on edge (Lizzi Biggers) is more successful in seductive arts, but she betrays alarm and anguish at her deed. Hamlet just laughs; Polonius goes into righteous rage when he finds Hamlet’s discarded trousers in the playing space.

Off to the pond.

And then there were two.

At about that point I seriously lost interest.

Maybe because Wills’ script is a dog’s breakfast of texts, mixing contemporary adolescent slang (“Oh, shit!”) with pseudo-Elizabethan talk with Shakespeare’s 24-carat verse from other characters or other plays jammed unexpectedly into the mouths of the Ophelias.

I found the text tiresome and pretentious, like the quotes from Chaucer, Kafka and Peter Brook in the program and the “Hamlet, in brief” summary found there (c’mon – if some idiot doesn’t know the plot or Ophelia’s part in it, how can he possibly absorb it from a 26-line summary that includes everything, down to the kitchen sink of Fortinbras – who, by the way, did not “arrive from the conquest of England”).

This is not meant to take away from the zeal or attention of the actors in the piece. All five Ophelias, in their, oh, dear, pre-Raphelite stereotypical dresses, are earnest, vulnerable and convincing in their efforts to deliver that much afflicted child/woman. Gabriel Luna makes a good foil to them, though he speeds through some of the real Shakespeare bits without adequately parsing or delivering the meanings.

So -- good try, guys. Maybe next time the show would benefit from a dramaturg or a session with a script doctor.

Click for JustFo's approving review on Austinist.com

Click for Joey Seiler's review on Austin360, November 17

Click for Avimaan Syam's strongly positive review in the Austin Chronicle, November 19

Statesman "Best Bets" Clare Croft's brief interview with director Dustin Wills, November 4

Hannah Kenah's pre-production article in the Austin Chronicle of November 6