Nursery Crimes by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company at Dougherty Arts Center, November 8 - 24, 2013

by Michael Meigs

Sara Cormier, David Boss (photo: Will Hollis Snider)

David Boss with his resonant baritone and weary dead-pan styling makes a fine Philip Marlowe, or, in acknowledgment of the film noir inspiration for playwright Greg Klein and the company, a good Bogey. 

Klein's play is an homage to that very distinctive style, so much so that the first half of the Kickstarter promo video was a 1940s-style dramatization with first-person narration, video-recorded in stark black and white by director Will Hollis Snider.

You could write a straight film noir play script and make it work; you could even do a parody version that could amuse both film buffs and the casual public. 

Klein's choice is different. He's soberly respectful of the genre as he mines his Mother Goose for characters. The protagonist sleuth is Jack Horner, and he's certainly sitting in his corner while his good-natured seen-it-all secretary Donna (presumably Mother) Hubbard (Peggy Schott) laboriously types his reports and answers his phone.


Sara Cormier is the attractive bad news that comes his way, asking for help. She's Bo Peep, and her sheep have disappeared. Her father's the farmer Old MacDonald (Travs Bedard). We run across some baddies, Jack (D. Heath Thompson) and Jill (Elena Weinberg), who use the cheerful dolt Humphrey aka Humpty (Bobby DiPasquale) for some of their bad business. Peggy Schott checks in also as Marjorie Daw; Bedard as the gruff avuncular cop Guy Blue; DiPasquale as Peter Piper; and Mary quite contrary (Weinberg) is hopelessly dependent upon her drug dealer boyfriend King Cole (Thompson). While the sleuth's nosing around through the underworld he runs across the three blind mice (DiPasquale, Thompson and Bedard). Double crosses, bad temper, murder, the big shadowy metropolis. You know. The city that never sleeps and kept hick middle-class America on the edge of its cinema seats.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

NURSERY CRIMES by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company at the Dougherty Arts Center, November 8 - 24, 2013

presents

Nursery Crimes

Sara Cormier, David Boss (poster photo: Will Hollis Snider)

Written by Greg Klein

Directed by Will Hollis Snider

November 8 - 24

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8:00 p.m, Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

*Saturday, Nov. 9 and Friday, Nov. 15 are artist benefit nights. All ticket and concession sales go to the cast, crew and other artists who made this show possible.
*Thursday, Nov. 14 and Sunday, Nov. 17 are “pay what you can” shows.

Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Road, Austin, TX 78704

Tickets are $15. Student tickets are $12 with valid student ID. Tickets can be purchased online at https://secure.buyplaytix.com/lastacttheatre/reserve/nursery_crimes.html and at the door. Attendees can also reserve seats online and still pay at the door. Last Act Theatre Company accepts all major credit cards, cash and 

 checks.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and she doesn’t know where to find them. So, she turns to private eye Jack Horner to crack the case. But will it turn out to be more than he bargained for?

Quick dialogue moves this story full of childhood characters from what seems to be a humble beginning through a series of twists and turns, in a grown-up tale of murder, deceit and mystery.

Cast
David Boss - Jack Horner
Sara Cormier - Bo Peep
Peggy Schott - Donna Hubbard and Marjorie Daw
Elena Weinberg - Jill and Mary Contrary
Travis Bedard - Thomas McDonald, Guy Blue and Blind Mouse
Heath Thompson – Jack, Cole Kingsley and Blind Mouse
Bobby DiPasquale - Humpty Dumpty, Peter Piper and Blind Mouse

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Photos by Will Hollis Snider for Three, or the Sound of the Great Existential Nothingness by Timothy Braun, Breaking String Theatre at the Off Center, July 26 - August 17, 2013

A photo spread by Will Hollis Snider with costumes by Jamie Urban for the

presentation of

Three, or the Sound of the Great Existential Nothingness

by Timothy Braun

directed by Graham Schmidt

July 26, 27 - August 1, 2, 3, 5 - August 8, 9, 10 - August 14, 15, 16, 17 

at The Off-Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street, near E. 7th Street and Robert Martinez (behind Joe's Bakery) - click for map

In Timothy Braun's fantastical re-interpretation, five characters from Chekhov's 1901 masterpiece live highly circumscribed lives in a small town somewhere in present-day America. Breaking String presented an early draft at Hyde Park Theatre in December of 2012, and recruited an elite creative team comprising veterans of Austin's new works community, for a development process. The result is a highly playful and theatrical piece in which Mr. Braun explores themes central to Chekhov's work: loneliness, the yearning for a better life, and the struggle to connect.

Cami Alys, Dawn Youngs, Gricelda Silva, Jeff Mills (image: Will Hollis Snider)

Gricelda Silva (image: Will Hollis Snider)

David Higgins, Chris Gibson (photo: Will Hollis Snider)

Click to view additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Funding Appeal: Nursery Crimes by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company

Kickstarter funding appeal for $5000 to help fund






production of
Nursery Crimes
by Greg Klein

via





[click Kickstarter logo to go to info/donations page]

Last Act Theatre Company is a local Austin theatre company that aims to produce works promoting local and independent artists. Nursery Crimes, written by Greg Klein, will mark the final play of our third full season, and will be directed by the talented and handsome Will Hollis Snider. Last Act has continued to grow with each production, and Nursery Crimes will be no different, taking place at the Dougherty Arts Center, November 7–24.

Nursery Crimes is a stylized crime noir parody using nursery rhyme characters. Bo Peep has lost her sheep, and it's up to Private Eye Jack Horner to find them. Quick dialogue moves the story from what seems a humble and straightforward beginning to a series of twists and turns, as these childhood characters are all grown up in this tale of deceit, murder, and mystery.

Auditions for Nursery Crimes by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company, June 1 and 3 2013

Last Act Theatre Co. is seeking multiple actors of all ages and races for the premiere of their stylized crime noir, Nursery Crimes, and holding auditions over two days on Saturday, June 1, 10am – 2pm at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd (click for map )and on June 3, 6pm – 8:30pm at the Carver Library, 1165 Angelina (click for map ). Two audition times are available for actors that may have conflicts on either days. Callbacks will take place the following week, on June 8 and 10, same respective times.


Bo Peep has lost her sheep, and it’s up to Jack Horner to find them. While not his usual fare, Private Eye Jack Horner is a sucker for a damsel in distress. What seems like an open and shut case about a few missing sheep spirals into a world of deceit, murder, and mystery. Nursery Crimes features the gritty, underbelly versions of characters like Jack Horner, Bo Peep, and Humpty Dumpty that have no idea they are the subject of children’s poems.

Actors should bring a headshot and resume and come prepared with a one minute monologue.


Please email lastacttheatre@gmail.com to reserve an audition slot.


Rehearsals will begin in late September. Nursery Crimes is a brand new play, so the script will be workshopped between now and September. Actors will have the chance to help define their characters as well as help refine the pacing and dialogue of the script. Actors should ideally be available for one rehearsal a week between now and September.


Nursery Crimes runs November 7th - 24th at the Dougherty Arts Center, and is written by Greg Klein and will be directed by Will Hollis Snider. Compensation may be provided. Details to be determined.

Click to read a list of characters & descriptions at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Opinion: Dan Solomon's Top 10 Arts Events of 2012, Austin Chronicle

In today's weekly Austin Chronicle:

Top 10 Arts Events of 2012

Remembering the year onstage in dynamic acting, atmospheric design, and unexpected beauty

By Dan Solomon, Fri., Jan. 4, 2013

in no order:

Zac Crofford (Trouble Puppet Theatre Co.)

1) FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY FOR 'TOIL AND TROUBLE' (Trouble Puppet Theater Company) Trouble Puppet has proven itself good at everything, and when it pulls off the unexpected – like compelling, well-articulated stage combat – it just serves notice that they're still finding new ways to impress you.

2) NOEL GAULIN IN EVERYTHING Gaulin had a hell of a year – screaming, jumping, moving-as-if-on-strings, and otherwise turning himself into a live-action cartoon character in The Bear, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and Vodka, Fucking, and Television.

3) RACHEL WEISE'S DIRECTION Yeah, my wife wrote one of the lovely plays Weise directed this year, The Man Who Planted Trees. But I also loved her staging of The Bear by Anton Chekhov, and I've never even met him.

4) THE SCRIPT FOR 'MESSENGER NO. 4 (OR ... HOW TO SURVIVE A GREEK TRAGEDY)' (Cambiare Productions) Will Hollis Snider's charming and inventive epic blended Back to the Future, The Matrix, and Euripedes into something altogether new.

5) THE FINAL MINUTES OF 'JUBILEE' (Rub­ber Repertory) Making your cast jump up and down for an interminable amount of time sounds boring, and making boring-sounding things beautiful was what Jubilee did best.

6) THE ATMOSPHERE OF 'DREAM CABINET' (Salvage Vanguard Theater) Few productions set a mood more effectively.

7) EVERYTHING ABOUT 'LEGALLY BLONDE: THE MUSICAL' (Summer Stock Austin) I'm not made of stone, you guys.

8) BETH BRODERICK IN 'JUST OUTSIDE REDEMPTION' (Theatre en Bloc) Broderick stole every scene by balancing charm, humor, and gravity.

9) KACY TODD IN 'HOLIER THAN THOU' (Poison Apple Initiative) Todd carried the emotional climax of a play consisting of interconnected monologues – no mean feat.

10) SOUND DESIGN FOR 'SPACESTATION1985' (Natalie George Presents) I didn't love the play, but the sound by Buzz Moran made the outer space setting come to life.

Profile: Breaking String's Vodka, Fucking and Television by Maxsym Kurochkin, November 29 - December 18

 

by Michael Meigs


It's a long way from Chekhov's elegiac The Seagull to Maksym Kurochkin's Vodka, Fucking and Television. If Graham Schmidt, artistic director of Breaking String Theatre, were teaching courses on modern Russian drama -- which he is not, having decided for the time being to do rather than to teach -- then Chekhov's first major play, staged in 1896, would probably be on the assigned reading list for the first or second week of the fall semester. Not until one of the concluding classes in the spring semester would VF+T appear, as a 2003 piece that helped shape the resurgence of the production of contemporary original drama in Russia.

If the grad students were lucky, they might get to meet Max Kurochkin, the playwright, either in person or via Skype, since over the past couple of years Schmidt has gotten himself involved in a big U.S.-Russia theatre cultural project financed by the U.S. State Department, one that reaches beyond the capitals and the big-money producers to a handful of theatre-rich regional hotspots including Austin.

There are a couple of other ways to draw lines  between the Chekhov and the Kurochkin works, and those also involve Austin.  Breaking String's The Seagull was staged in October 2007. Director Graham Schmidt had translated the play. After working with many of the same artists in two other Chekhov pieces, he turned the company's focus to what's happening now in Russia.

For me these pieces anchor a timeline, however provisionally.  That 2007 Seagull was one of the first theatre pieces that Karen and I attended after relocating to Austin five years ago. It provided our entry point to a creative culture that continues to astonish and to delight -- an experience that directly prompted the eventual establishment of AustinLiveTheatre.com. 

Austin actress Liz Fisher and her husband Robert Matney were both in that memorable Seagull and in subsequent Breaking String productions. Last year during the company's second annual New Russian Drama Festival, Fisher and friends got together to do a staged reading of VF+T, presented as lagniappe to the company's full staging of Kurochkin's The Education of Bento Bonchev. She later agreed to direct a fully staged production of Kurochkin's comic and decidedly odd little twenty-first-century morality play. It opens this week at the Hyde Park Theatre for a three-weekend run.


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

Messenger No. 4, Cambiare Productions at the Blue Theatre, February 17 - March 4

And here's the other fraternal twin of the Paper Moon Rep/Cambiare collaboration. ALT always regrets writing 'after the fact' pieces. There's something laudable about setting things down for the historical record, but a theatre friend used regularly to disparage such essays as 'useless reviews.'

Perhaps less so in this case. These compatible personalities and theatre companies carried out a new and successful strategy of production. At a time when others are talking about cooperation -- as with the nascent Scenery Co-op that's under study and partly underwritten by the generosity of the MetLife Foundation -- they teamed up for some of their fundraising and they shared a venue, an ingenious set by Ia Enstera, and a performance calendar. Paper Moon took the first shift; Cambiare hit the boards afterward, about 9 p.m.

Not everyone was able to attend the double-header. Will Hollis Snider's jaunty Messenger No. 4 ran until almost 11 p.m. Although there was a pause of 15 minutes or so for resetting the scene, each piece played without interruption. I, for one, was a bit punch drunk by the end of Messenger -- so much so that I managed to lose the program sheets for both of the performances.

Rachel's Phineas was a carnival of caring while Will's script for Messenger No. 4 was a scrappy, all-boy imaginng. He pulled apart dramatic conventions with happy audacity, rewriting Greek tragedies with a 21st-century corporate spin. This Monty Pythonesque deconstruction of dramatic art had a good dose of Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future -- and in fact of much of the extensive sci-fi literature about the risks of time travel.

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

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 . . . .

Upcoming: Messenger No. 4 and The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm, Cambiare Productions & Paper Moon Rep, Feb. 17 - March 4ertory

Received directly:

jointly present

Messenger No. 4 (or How to Survive a Greek Tragedy)

by Will Hollis Snider

and

The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm

by Rachel McGinnis

February 17 - March 4

Performances Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. (Phineas) and 9:30 p.m. (Messenger);

Sundays at 6 p.m. (Phineas) and 8 p.m. (Messenger)

Monday performances on February 20 and 27 at 7:30 p.m. (Phineas) and 9:30 p.m. (Messenger)

at the BLUE Theatre, 916 Springdale (click for map)

Austin’s Cambiare Productions and Paper Moon Rep are proud to announce a double feature of full-length world premieres featuring Will Hollis Snider’s comedy Messenger No. 4 (or How to Survive a Greek Tragedy) and Rachel McGinnis’ The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm.

Directed by Austin Critics’ Table nominee Will Hollis Snider (Intermission, Elektra, The Nina Variations, Orestes), Messenger No. 4 would be just another rollicking workplace comedy, except that the workplace in question is history’s greatest plays. This high energy tour of love, fate, and the Western Canon raises the stakes on workplace frustration to cosmic heights as Messenger No. 4’s job dissatisfaction transcends water cooler grousing, leaping directly to erasing our greatest literature and maybe even reality itself.


Directed by B. Iden Payne and Austin Critic’s Table winner and nominee Rachel McGinnis (The Laramie Project, The Dudleys, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Rabbit Hole, The Nina Variations, The Heidi Chronicles), The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm is a sideshow whirlwind of folly, danger and the missteps of youth. When a powerful invention lands in the hands of impulsive Phineas Hamm on his 25th birthday, he’s faced with the possibility of altering his reality with the single pull of a lever. What happens when desires and abandon trump resilience and loyalty? Set to music with choreography by Ballet Austin’s Kaitlyn Moise, Phineas is an exploration of tempting fortunes and their immediate outcomes.

The Cambiare Productions / Paper Moon Rep partnership began simply as a means to offset the single largest expense of any production--rent; but the collaboration has grown into what promises to be a captivating evening at the theatre. The shows remain their singular selves, but the evening will reward those who buy the Double Feature ticket with reduced admission, a complimentary cocktail and an end-to-end experience. The companies are also sharing production staff. The artistic team for Messenger No., 4 and The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm includes B. Iden Payne Award Winners Ia Enstera (Production Scenic Design) and Megan Reilly (Production Lighting Design), B. Iden Payne nominee Glenda Barnes (Costume Design, Messenger No. 4), Amanda Gass (Production Manager/Dramaturg, Messenger No. 4), and Elizabeth Cobbe (Dramaturg, Phineas).


Messenger No. 4 and The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm will be presented as a full evening of theatre at the Blue Theatre (916 Springdale Rd., Austin) from February 17th to March 4th. Tickets will be available for the entire night of theatre or for individual performances at www.PhineasAnd4.com

About Cambiare Productions: Founded in the fall of 2007, Cambiare Productions seeks a laboratory for new and devised works. Cambiare Productions continually reaches out to the Austin and global theatre community in person and via social media to find new partners in the creation of theatre. For more information on Messenger No. 4 or Cambiare Productions please visit CambiareProductions.com.

About Paper Moon Repertory: Founded in 2010, Paper Moon Rep is dedicated to the fine art of theatrical production and education. Our mission is to provide high quality productions that capture the imaginations of theatregoers through inventive scenery and props, one-of-a-kind costumes, innovative music and fantastical storytelling. For more information about The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm or Paper Moon, please visit www.PaperMoonRep.com.

Auditions for Messenger No. 4, Cambiare Productions at FronteraFest, December 12

Found via link tweeted by Travis Bedard of Cambiare Productions:

Cambiare Productions announces auditions for their next production: Will Hollis Snider's Messenger No. 4 (or... How to Survive a Greek Tragedy)

On December 12th, Cambiare Productions will hold open auditions for the stage production "Messenger No. 4". Auditions will be held from 7-10pm.Auditions will be at: Ridgetop, 304 E 33rd St. #1 Austin, TX 78705. (It is a brick two story building on the top of a little rise on the north side of 33rd St. between Grooms and Tom Green. Number 1 faces 33rd Street, it's the first door on the front of the building. White Christmas lights around the door.) (Click for map) Follow the Signs.

A high-energy ensemble show, "Messenger No. 4" is a love story written across time, space, and much of the classical western canon. Tired of his workaday life delivering exposition to royals, Messenger No. 4 decides to break a few rules to liven up his job but ends up getting much more than he bargained for.

Oh... and there's a sword fight and quite possibly a dance break.

Messenger No.4, written and directed by Will Hollis Snider, with set by Ia Enstera, lights by Megan Reilly and costumes by Glenda Barnes will be presented in tandem with Paper Moon Rep's The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm from February 17th to March 4th at the Blue Theatre in Austin, TX. Limited rehearsals will begin prior to the holidays with a full 4-5 day rehearsal schedule beginning after the New Year.

Please RSVP Amanda Gass at Amanda@CambiareProductions.com for a time slot. Please indicate your first and second preference: 7:00 - 7:30; 7:30 - 8:00; 8:00 - 8:30; 8:30 - 9:00; 9:00 - 9:30; 9:30 - 10:00. If you are unavailable Monday between 7-10, but would still like to be considered, please email Will Hollis Snider at: will@cambiareproductions.com

No roles are precast. All ages and ethnicities are encouraged to audition. Please bring a headshot and resume if you can. All roles will be stipended.

Sides will be provided. Click 'Read more' for capsule descriptions of the ten roles.

Video: di[verge], Vestige Group, July 15 - 31

Received directly, a video by Will Hollis Snider for the Vestige Group:

[Apple users: Can't see the video? Click here to go to YouTube!]

presents

di[verge]: an original play with songs

by Suzy Gidseg

July 15-31, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5pm.
Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Road (click for map)
Tickets $15 - $25 (pick your price); all Sunday shows are Pay-What-You-Can.

Opening night: Free drinks and bites!
Puchase tickets at www.nowplayingaustin.com/page/austix
WEB: thevestigegroup.tumblr.com www.vestigegroup.org

One woman, two paths. When our lives di[verge] do we ever really accept our present, or do we continue to dream about our past and what might have been? What hold do our choices have on our future. Do they define us, or do we define them? One woman is making her choice. What happens next will change her life forever.

Images by Will Hollis Snider: Uncle Vanya, Breaking String Theatre Company, June - July 3

Performance photos taken by Will Hollis Snider for

Anton Chekhov’s

Uncle Vanya

directed by Graham Schmidt

June 16th - July 2nd

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m., Monday, June 27 at 8 p.m.

at the Off-Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street (click for map)

Chekhov's meditation on hope and environmental stewardship speaks with increasing urgency a century after its first performance.

Tickets available at breakingstring.com/tickets and 512-784-1465

General Admission: $15 - 25, Sliding scale;Monday, July 27th is a Pay-What-You-Will Industry Night

Click to view additional images by Will Hollis Snider at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Images by Will Hollis Snider: Selkie Project: Gestation by Divergence Vocal Theatre, January 23

Will Hollis Snider has published on Flickr a set of 17 images from Selkie Project: gestation presented by Divergence Vocal Theater on Saturday, January 23 at the Creative Research Laboratory in Austin.

Shown here are participants Chase Crossno, Caroline Sutton Clark, and Steffanie Ngo Hatchie.

The Selkie Project was a cross-disciplinary installation environment of multimedia performance, opera and new music-theater. Misha penton designed voice, text and sound design. megan M. Reilly did multimediaand lighting design.

Performers were Misha Penton, mezzo soprano; Maimy Fong, piano; Steffanie Ngo-Hatchie, Chase Crossno actors; Caroline Sutton Clark, dancer/choreography.

View more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Muses III: Memories of a House, Vestige Group at private residence, August 20 - 30

Pocket theatre.

Home theatre; intimate theatre.

Theatre for no more of you than can fit comfortably into a 12x15 room with the actors.

Muses III by the Vestige Group puts you into a small group for this experience. They have concessions available on the lawn beforehand, under the tall and twisty live oaks. They suggest that you get to know the persons in your group.

You probably won't, because your guide is not going to push the touchy-feely approach among your dozen faces. You'll be up close and personal with the actors soon enough.

The evening reminded me very strongly of those odd national day receptions we attended in central Africa. For one thing, the proprietors have acquired an eclectic houseful of handicrafts, art, masks, textiles and textures from across the world. We strangers carefully tramped through the house, settled on sofas as directed, slipped along the corridors and lingered out by the pool. As in a diplomatic reception, our mission was to get to get acquainted -- in this case, not with one another but with this odd collection of characters dreamed up by the writers.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Muses III, Vestige Group at private location, August 20 - 30

UPDATE: Click for ALT review, August 22

Received directly:

12 playwrights, 18 actors, 4 directors...and one house.

Muses III
Directed by Susie Gidseg, Jen Brown, Will Hollis Snider and Aaron Black

Written by Barry Pineo, Max Langert, Sarah Saltwick, Jenny Keto, Charles Eichman, Bastion Carboni, Kristin Harrison, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Trey Deason, Susie Gidseg, Matha Lynn Coon and Aaron Black.

After a successful run of the original Muses: Memories of a House in 2007, called "theatrical magic" by the Austin Chronicle, and an exciting performance of Muses II last summer,called a "traveling feast," Vestige is excited to produce their third installment.

The Muses III: Memories of a House is a collaborative piece that centers around a home and the different people who have lived their lives inside it. While traveling around this beautiful house, audience members will happen upon moments in many individuals' lives, blurring the line between real life and the theatre. From photographs taken of the house, Austin playwrights bring each room within the house to life in a different way.

Full Run Dates
Thursday, Friday and Saturday: August 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 at 7:30
Sundays: August 23rd and 30th at 5:30
Performances are $15-25 dollars. Thursday night performances are pay as you wish.
Flat shoes are encouraged. Stairs are involved in this production.
Reservations required. Production located at a private residence.
All tickets must be purchased in advance. Places are limited. Buy your tickets now by reserving through nowplayingaustin.com. The address of the house will be given out post reservations.

Orestes, Cambiare Productions at the Off Center, July 31 - August 15

Hidden Treasures from Afghanistan's National Museum are now on exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the last of several stops in a 15-month tour of the United States. I caught the exhibit in Washington DC last year, but you may have seen it this spring in Houston.

A haunting diorama of a barren Afghan plain shows how the unimaginable golden treasures were preserved in hidden subterranean vaults for thousands of years, even as the fabulous palaces of antiquity above them were torn down for re-use as construction material.

I had hoped that Will Hollis Snider's Orestes would offer us reworked antique treasures, but he provides instead an empty, echoing structure constructed from the pulled-down palaces of Greek myth.

The structure is not entirely barren. One clever touch is to convert the ravaging Erinyes or Furies from avenging spirits to fantasms of Orestes' mind, embodying the murdered -- his sister Iphigenia, sacrificed at Aulis by their father Agamemnon; Agamemnon himself, murdered by his wife, their mother Clytemnestra, upon his return from Troy; and Clytemnestra, whom Orestes has just killed, on instructions from the god Apollo.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Orestes, adapted & directed by Will Hollis Snider, Cambiare Productions at Dougherty Arts Center, July 30 - August 15

Click for ALT review, August 3



UPDATE: Insite magazine interview by Brian Paul Scipione of adapter/director Will Hollis Schneider, August 2009 edition

UPDATE: Robert Faires of the Austin Chronicle interviews adapter/director Will Hollis Schneider, July 30

UPDATE: Statesman's Jeanne Claire van Ryzin interviews adapter/director Will Hollis Schneider, July 30

UPDATE: KUT-FM's John Aielli interviews Orestes cast, July 14

Received directly:

Orestes

Austin’s Cambiare Productions is proud to present a darker, more intimate vision of Euripides' classic Orestes.

Adapted and directed by Austin Critics’ Table nominee Will Hollis Snider (Sonata Escondida, Intermission, Elektra, The Nina Variations), Orestes will be performed at the Off Center (2211-A Hidalgo, Austin) Thursday through Saturday, July 30th through August 15th at 8 PM.

Tickets are priced at $15, $12 for students, and will be available at the door. Thursdays will be pay-what-you-can nights. Reservations can be made at reservations@cambiareproductions.com or at (512) 524-3761.

Snider’s adaptation takes Euripides classic, strips away the presentational storytelling of three millennia ago and reinforces the story with other classic texts including Iphigenia at Aulis, Elektra, The Libation Bearers, Iphigenia Among the Taurians, Agamemnon, and The Eumenides.

The production places the title character squarely at the center of his own story. It is set days after Orestes’ murder of his own mother, Klytaimnestra, in retribution for the assassination of his father. The dark fevered hallways of Orestes' mind are explored as he seeks absolution and release from the curse of the House of Atreus.

Sprinting backwards through the events leading up to Klytaimnestra's bloody death, the production unravels before Orestes' eyes the deceit and duplicity of the last generation of the House of Atreus as the black and white of zealous revenge recedes to the greys of politics and treacherous love. Confronted with the truth, haunted by Furies and hunted by his own people, Orestes makes one last desperate stand against God and man.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

The Nina Variations, Gobotrick Theatre Company at Dougherty Arts Center, November 6 - 22

Two persons, forty brief scenes, a scant hour and twenty minutes in a playing space about the size of a writer’s study – this was the most deeply satisfying theatrical experience I’ve had since beginning my exploration of Austin theatre last year.

The Nina Variations is a theatre-maker’s dream, crafted by Stephen Dietz from the material of Chekhov’s The Seagull. Coincidentally, last year’s production of that play by Broken String Players at the Off Center was my first evening of Austin theatre.

This beautiful evening will be caviar to the general, in part because to appreciate its creativity fully the audience should have at least a vague acquaintance with Chekhov’s quietly comic melancholy, with the source play and with its characters. Playwright Dietz does give us a quick refresher in Scene 4, as Treplev (Aaron Hallaway) gives a list of the characters with comments on their relationships, illustrated with whimsical drawings, back-projected.

Chekhov always gives us a large cast of characters. Family members, friends, local officials, servants and others spend much of their time in desultory talk with and about one another. The trivial mixes with the transcendent. There is a slow overall movement through his plays, but just as in real life, the present moment is the most important. And the present moment is often filled with longing, with banter, with philosophizing, with small absurdities.

The Seagull, set in a remote Russian province, opens as family and friends gather by an improvised stage by the lake. Treplev, the neglected son of a famous actress, is staging a play, a new sort of play, in which he has confided the single role to Nina, the neighbor girl whom he adores. As dusk gathers, Nina delivers before the idly curious group of onlookers Treplev’s impossible text, a soliloquy evoking a time hundreds of years from now, when mankind will have perished and the earth will have changed unutterably. When they titter at his concept and at the red-eyed devils that appear to accompany his words, Treplev angrily breaks off the presentation.

Much, much more happens in the play. But Act IV, set years later, gives us Treplev once more, a recognized though anonymous author, scribbling in his study. His beloved Nina has returned to town, after running off to live with the successful novelist Trigorin, who neglected and abandoned her even though she bore his child. Nina is now a working actress. She comes unannounced to the door of Treplev’s study. After a brief encounter, a scene of less than three pages, she leaves him, leaves the town, and leaves the province. Shortly afterwards, as Treplev’s family and acquaintances play cards, they hear a distant explosion. The family doctor goes out, comes back unperturbed, reassures everyone, then draws a friend downstage to tell him, in confidence, that Treplev has just shot himself. Curtain.

For The Nina Variations we are allowed into the house just fifteen minutes before the announced starting time of 8 p.m. Treplev is there, seated at his desk, wrapped in thought, scribbling, revising, thinking, scribbling some more.



There is a faraway, droning chord, almost obscured by the low surge of the ventilation system. We sit. We watch Treplev. If we are so minded, we can empty our thoughts, quiet those drunken monkeys of the mind, and absorb the scene of the writer at work, emblematic not only of Treplev’s dilemmas but also of those of playwright Stephen Dietz. After that contemplation, eventually the distant music changes, a young woman walks irresolutely out of the shadows beyond the stage, and Nina initiates the action.

Dietz takes this relationship, respecting fully the characters involved, and offers variations, in the musical sense, on Chekhov’s scene. What more might they have said? How could Treplev have opened his heart to her? What could she have said to him about the patent scandal of her profligate life with Trigorin or the early death of their child? What if they re-explored the script from Treplev’s failed drama, or changed roles, or tormented one another, or free-associated in Chekovian style about the meaning of art, of form, of love, of eternity, of one another? What if somehow they had overcome the inevitable characteristic of Chekhov’s characters, that of not quite listening and instead speaking past one another?



Dietz rings the changes, and the bells peal out in ever-changing sequences. Or, changing the metaphor, his Treplev and Nina rise and bank through the imagined world of the play like paragliders following thermals over a familiar landscape, giving us new views and unexpected possibilities. They close with one another or they confront. Treplev mocks the use of a seagull as a symbol. They dream. They give us their premonitions. In a powerful moment Treplev speaks from the lonely lakeshore about his thoughts as he lifted the pistol to his head.

The variations are marked only by the silent change of a number discreetly projected on a back curtain. Initially I found this off-putting – shouldn’t we receive an audible signal, a quiet ding to emphasize each beginning again? But the scenes are variations, not alternatives. Without explicit, insistent demarcation, those many possibilities assume simultaneous existence for us. They exist because Dietz imagined them, Aaron Hallaway and Rachel McGinnis embodied them, Will Hollis Snider directed them, and the whole apparatus of theatrical production gave them life.

Add to that intellectual stimulation the fact that the acting is of the very highest quality. It had to be – with two characters working one another and working the text, any false note would have thrown the whole exercise into the “interesting but so what?” category. Their pacing, silences, concentration, gestures, congruence of character to the originals in The Seagull – nothing was lacking.

In other productions of The Nina Variations, directors have chosen to populate the stage with several Ninas and Trigorins, thereby suggesting that outcome is tied to individual traits. Here, in contrast, by embodying their characters consistently with conviction and apparent spontaneity, Aaron Hallaway and Rachel McGinnis raise for us the issues of actions, responsibility, uncertainty and risk. If only I had said. . . .




In opening moments Hallaway appears too young to play Treplev, but his intelligence and emotional openness overcome that handicap promptly. McGinnis, assured, unapologetic, alternately amused by Treplev and annoyed by him, is never a victim and always alluring.

This is such an intimate play in substance and in setting that in style much of the acting approached cinema technique. Small gestures, visible thought, naturalistic diction, throwaway lines. At times the volume was so subdued that phrases or whole sentences went missing for me in the soughing of the ventilation. But anger or emotion flared as well – such as Treplev’s response to Nina’s word game, taunting her repeatedly with “Masha” – the name of the provincial girl hopelessly in love with Treplev. Laughter was there, as was hope.

Gobotrick’s Nina Variations is a brilliant, consistent, heart-rending series of riffs on Chekhov’s characters, one which preserves Chekhov’s sensibilities and reminds us gently and insistently that life is here, life is now, life is immediate, and all our choices are full of meaning.

Joey Seiler writes a perceptive review, Austin Statesman, November 19

Austin actress Jennymarie Jemison's post on the Nina Variations, with a response from Rachel McGinnis (who played Nina), November 26

[Click for Ryan E. Johnson's perceptive review on Austin.com]

[Click here for the Act IV scene between Treplev and Nina, contained in teaching materials prepared by the Vienna (Austria) Theatre Project for the first European presentation of the play]