Robert Faires Outlines FronteraFest BRING YOUR OWN VENUE performances, January, 2014

Change of Venue

This year, FronteraFest is takin' it to the streets – and a chapel, a bookstore, a home ...

By Robert Faires, Fri., Jan. 10, 2014


Come January every year, FronteraFest fans begin flocking toward Hyde Park Theatre and Salvage Vanguard Theater with the instinctive surety of swallows winging their way back to Capistrano. And why not? With HPT serving as the site of the Short Fringe for the performance jamboree's full 21-year history and SVT being a home base for Long Fringe shows for the last five fests, audiences have been conditioned to expect their annual fix of taking-a-risk, skirting-the-edge, what-in-sweet-heaven-was-that theatrics in those specific venues. But this year, regulars who rely on that reflex to get them to all of the festival's offerings risk missing some of the more intriguing projects on the schedule.


Now, nothing's happened to FFest's traditional stages (see "FronteraFest: The Basics" , but the number of entries in the category dubbed BYOV ("Bring Your Own Venue") is considerably higher than usual. Where most FronteraFests see one or two projects mounted somewhere other than SVT, the 2014 festival has six – and that isn't counting Mi Casa Es Su Teatro, the independently curated day of site-specific short pieces that's been part of FFest for more than 15 years. You can take your pick of a church chapel, a SoCo sidewalk, a dance studio, a bookstore, a warehouse, or a writer's residence for a performance adventure.

Read more at the Austin Chronicle on-line, including capsule descriptions of BYOB performances

Call for Scripts: Austin New Latino Play Festival 2014, Deadline January 17, 2014

Call for Scripts for the Austin Latino New Play Festival 

Submission Deadline Friday January 17, 2014

The 2014 Austin Latino New Play Festival (ALNPF) takes place May 8-10, 2014 8 pm 3 nights, 3 new plays at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Culture Center,  600 River Street, Austin TX.

The Austin Latino New Play Festival, produced annually by Teatro Vivo, brings together playwrights and audience members for staged readings of new works and rich conversation, each running just one night.  After each reading, the playwright, director and actors participate in moderated talkback sessions with the audience.

What is the process for Austin Latino New Play Festival (ALNPF)? The ALNPF provides an opportunity for Texas playwrights to hear, see, and receive feedback on their original works. The festival format brings together the playwright to work with a dramaturg, director, and actors to bring their play to life as a staged reading in front of an audience. The rehearsal process for each staged reading is approximately one week.

Guidelines for ALPNF scripts:

* The script is a work by a Latino(a) playwright or focused on the lives of Latino(a)s.

* The script is an original work.

*The script utilizes both the English and Spanish language.

* Scripts cannot have been produced or scheduled for full production before July 2014.

Playwrights selected will:

*be available and willing to collaborate with the dramaturg and the director that are selected to work with your play. 

*be available on  to attend the reading of their play, and participate in a facilitated talk back with the audience immediately after the reading. We encourage playwrights to attend all three readings of the festival, if possible.

Submission Information:

*Playwrights will submit their script in a pdf file via email by Friday January 17, 2014 by midnight, with the submission information requested below.

*Teatro Vivo will select scripts to be read in the play festival.

*No payment, fee, stipend, actual or implied will be paid to the playwrights. Selected playwrights incur their own travel expenses. Possible housing in the homes of Teatro Vivo company members.

*Plays will be announced on or before midnight Friday March 7, 2014

Submit in a separate word doc: a brief biographical sketch and playwright background, Email address, Phone Number and Home address.  Include a brief response to two questions in 200 words or less:

-What areas of your script are you still eager to explore and develop? What are your goals for this play festival process?

Submit to: joannreyes AT yahoo.com, rupertreyes AT yahoo.com

(*) Roar! Festival of Staged Plays, Atta Girl Productions at Gemini Ink, October 4 - 13, 2013

Join Atta Girl and Gemini Ink in San Antonio

for two weeks of genre bending staged readings of contemporary plays from throughout the U.S.

513 S. Presa, evenings at 8 p.m. -- click for map

Suggested donation $10.00

OCTOBER 4--Plumbing by Rebecca Kirschbaum
A preacher's son decides to have a sex change operation.

OCTOBER 5--Beware of Tigers by Ben Tremillo
Romance and multiple personality disorder come together for a sweet and sour ending.

OCTOBER 6--MATINEE (3 p.m.)
Confessions of a Mexpatriate by Raul Garza.
Raul Garza guides us through the misadventures of his travels as a Chicano through Mexico.

Sunday, by Janie Sauceda

Janie Sauceda beautifully renders growing up in San Antonio.

OCTOBER 10--You Wouldn't Expect by Marilynn Barner Anselmi
A young woman battles the North Carolina Eugenics board, which performed forced sterilizations until 2003.

OCTOBER 11, 2013--Under the Plastic Stars by Alisha M. Patterson
This fairy tale for adults re-imagines Peter Pan by placing the classic tale into modern day.

OCTOBER 12--Seeking Flight by Joan Broadman
Monty and Enzi are two African Grey Parrots who plot their escape from a research lab. Based on a true story.

OCTOBER 13--MATINEE (3 p.m.)
Bulto by Jorge Piña
Celebrate San Antonio's teatro padrino--Jorge Piña, with a special reading of his latest play Bulto.

The Entrepeneurs by Clyde James Aragon
What if all of the great Latino poets started a greeting card company?

SNAPSHOTS, the OUT OF INK PLAY FESTIVAL 2013, Scriptworks at the Salvage Vanguard theatre, June 20 - 29, 2013 -

presents

OUT OF INK 2013

Snapshots

the 15th annual showcase of 10 minute plays

June 20-22 and 27-29, 2013 at 8 p.m.

Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd. - click for map$15 general admission, $12 students/seniors/ScriptWorks
June 20th is a Pay-What-You-Wish preview

RESERVATIONS/INFORMATION: www.scriptworks.org512-454-9727

Whether it's avoiding adjectives, employing superheroes, crickets, or trunks, or finding a way to incorporate the opening and closing lines of Finnegan's Wake, ScriptWorks members have been up to the challenge of combining three arbitrary ingredients into cohesive ten-minute plays for 15 years.

Every year for the past 15 years, members have worked feverishly for 48 hours during the Weekend Fling to pen their opuses built around that year's three ingredients. And every year for the past 15 years, eight of the plays have been produced in the Out of Ink 10 minute play showcase. Over the years, the showcase has been performed at six different venues, from the long-gone Public Domain to the recently-gone Blue Theatre with stops at ACC, The State Theatre, The Hideout, Hyde Park Theatre, and Salvage Vanguard along the way.

Dozens of national and local theatre artists have contributed ingredients including Robert Faires of the Austin Chronicle, Michael Barnes of the Austin-American Statesman, director and casting director Vicky Boone, actors Ev Lunning and Babs George, designers Leilah Stewart, Ia Ensterä, and Natalie George, and playwrights Sherry Kramer, Suzan Zeder, Sibyl Kempson, Zell Miller, III, Naomi Iizuka, Dan Dietz, and Lisa D'Amour to name just a few.

This year the mini-festival returns to Salvage Vanguard and with eight plays inspired by the following ingredients:

1) The play must contain or involve a photograph--which two or more characters interpret the meaning of differently.
2) One character speaks only in commercial lingo, using known tag-lines or slogans.
3) The play must contain a gunshot or a birth.

At the end of the Weekend Fling, the plays were read in a ScriptWorks Salon at Hyde Park Theatre. A selection committee picked eight of the plays for production in Out of Ink. The selection committee included director Sharon Sparlin and non-applying members Elizabeth Cobbe and James Venhaus.

The Snapshots scripts were written by James Burnside, Trey Deason, Amparo Garcia-Crow, Kirk German, Zac Kline, Max Langert, Jason Rainey, and Anne Maria Wynter.

The plays will be performed by an ensemble of actors including Roxy Becker, Pete Betcher, Amy Chang, David DuBose, Nathanael Dunaway, Joe Hartman, Heather Huggins, Katie Kohler, Jordan Marrett, Don Sneed, Rommel Sulit, and Katy Taylor. They'll be directed by Lowell Bartholomee, Heather Huggins, Ellie McBride, Christina J. Moore, and Sharon Sparlin. Designers for the project are Pam Friday, George Marsolek, Jennifer Rogers, and Bryan Schneider.

ABOUT SCRIPTWORKS ScriptWorks (formerly Austin Script Works) is a playwright-driven organization that seeks to promote the craft of dramatic writing and protect the writer's integrity by encouraging playwright initiative and harnessing collective potential. ScriptWorks is funded and supported in part by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future.

For more information about ScriptWorks call 512-454-9727 or email: info@scriptworks.org
 

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Invitation to Join Shakesperiana 'Winter of Our Dyscontent,' Dys Theatre

An invitation from






to submit to

The Winter of our Dyscontent

Made glorious SUMMER by this feat- nay, FEAST of a festival.
March 1, 2, 8, 9 AND BEWARE THE IDES.



Here’s the rub: let’s get as many different takes on Shakespeare as possible, from as many different groups, individuals, and time periods as possible, and put ‘em all together under the same roof in joyous celebration of ye ol bard’s diverse influence on our communities. We’re looking for traditional interpretations, modernized stuff, classic homages, monologues, improvs, sketches, musics, et cetera, ad nauseam, carpe diem!

What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

Friends, Austinites, Countrymen: We’re soliciting from you, all of you, 2 to 20 minute segments that are in some way related to the bard, to be performed at Salvage Vanguard Theater once or more, at 8pm, the first two Fridays and Saturdays of March and BEWARE THE IDES (because we might indeed have a sxsw venue for a “best of” on the 15th and 16th). Click to go to the submission form at the Dys Theatre website.

Avaunt, player, the spaces are filling! Time is of the essence!
In most expedient haste, do alight thy pointer on this web-tastic form and submit thyself:

Upcoming 21013 FronteraFest: Short Finge at the Hyde Park Theatre, Long Fringe at the Salvage Vanguard, January 15 - February 16 Long Fringe at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, January 15 - February 3

Hyde Park Theatre in collaboration with ScriptWorks and the Salvage Vanguard Theatre

presents

The 20th Annual FronteraFest

January 15 – February 16, 2013

FronteraFest, now celebrating its 20th year as one of the largest fringe performance events in the Southwest kicks-off its ‘Short Fringe’ from January 15 – February 16 and ‘Long Fringe’ performances from January 21 – February 3, 2013. The Short Fringe takes place at Hyde Park Theatre (511 West 43rd) Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Long Fringe performances are held at Salvage Vanguard Theatre (2803 Manor Road) at various dates/times (available at www.hydeparktheatre.org). There is also a special ‘Mi Casa es Su Teatro’ event which takes place one day only, Saturday, February 9th from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm.

Over the course of two decades, FronteraFest stages have been host to more than 2,000 performances and well over 8,000 participants from Central Texas and beyond. The month-long Festival, now an institution, features three separate components; the Short Fringe which runs the entirety of the Festival showcasing pieces 25 minutes or less, and the Long Fringe, with longer pieces between 45-90 minutes. The final and most unique component, 'Mi Casa es Su Teatro' consists of one day of performances hosted primarily at private homes.

FronteraFest is a collaboration between two of Austin’s foremost arts organizations, Hyde Park Theatre, an award-winning professional theatre in Central Austin and ScriptWorks, a statewide playwright development and service organization. The Salvage Vanguard Theatre at 2803 Manor Rd. hosts the Long Fringe productions.

The festival was created in 1993 by Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre Artistic Director Vicky Boone. Boone resigned in 2001 and Ken Webster became Artistic Director of the organization, which changed its name to Hyde Park Theatre. In 2002 Hyde Park Theatre and ScriptWorks' began a partnership to produce the storied festival with Christina J. Moore of ScriptWorks serving as festival producer.

To commemorate two decades of exciting, moving, sometimes weird and delightfully unexpected performance, former FronteraFest ‘Best of Fest’ winners and long-time participants have been invited to return to the stage for special appearances on Thursday evenings, including Steven Tomlinson, Emily Fordyce, Cyndi Williams, Zell Miller, III and Keira McDonald. Past notables include nationally recognized playwrights Kirk Lynn, John Walch, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lisa D'Amour, who presented some of their earliest work at the festival.

Tickets available from BuyPlayTix via www.hydeparktheatre.com

All FronteraFest performances are listed on Austin Live Theatre's Central Texas theatre calendar and at the HPT website.

Click for further background at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Boar's Head Pageant at St. Albert the Great Catholic Church, January 5, 2013

St. Albert the Great Catholic Church
proudly presents

The Boar’s Head Pageant

Join us for the only medieval celebration of the Christmas season and New Year in Austin.

Saturday, January 5, 2013 at 7:00 p.m.
St. Albert The Great Catholic Church
12041 Bittern Hollow
Austin, TX 78758

This delightful theatrical presentation takes you to a castle of Olde England, a lavish royal party, the arrival of the Yule Log, caroling, and the Boar’s Head celebration – the conquest of the ferocious wild boar.
Bring your family and friends to enjoy this fabulous musical production, featuring a magnificent orchestra professional performers, traditional songs, elaborate period costumes and the arrival of the Magi.
Guests are welcome to come in costumes and participate in the singing and merriment.


See the website for additional information

The Boar’s Head Legend

In medieval times wild boars roamed the pagan English countryside terrorizing villagers and dominating the forests. Around these times, the Christian missionaries arrived in England and found an annual festival held in the darkest days of winter, celebrating man’s triumph over nature, symbolized in the slaying of the fierce wild boar.

Wealthy families hosted these festivals with great feasts, musical performances and jolly amusements. These popular festivals conflicted with the celebration of the Christmas holiday and the Epiphany. The missionaries solved this dilemma by using the boar as a symbol of evil in the world and the feast as a celebration of Christ’s birth, love and goodness. The Boar’s Head celebration’s new meaning took hold and became a tradition in Christian England.

The origins of the Yule Log can be traced back to the winter Solstice festival in which the Norsemen celebrated around bonfires and indulged in feasting and drinking “Yule” beer, (the sacrificial beer of “Jol” or “Jule” a Nordic god). In England, the custom was that on Christmas Eve an enormous log of freshly cut wood called the Yule Log would be dragged home by oxen or horses with great ceremony as the family members walked alongside and sang merry songs. On Christmas Eve, the master of the house would place it in the hearth, and sprinkle the trunk with oil, salt and mulled wine and say suitable prayers. In some families, the young girls of the house lit the log with a splinter from the preceding year’s log which they had carefully tucked away.

The Boar’s Head Pageant is now presented in a handful of churches through the country. It has become a theatrical symbol of the triumph of the ultimate Good, the Christ Child, over evil. The pageant is not simply a folk story of the past. It is a living story, enacted by modern Christian performers to remind us of the true meaning of the Christmas season.
St. Albert the Great parish offers this ninth annual celebration as our gift to the Austin community in praise of our Creator for the gift of His Son and salvation. May the meaning of Christmas remain in your hearts throughout the year.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: TEN - ten ten-minute plays directed by students, Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University, December 4 and 5

From the Mary Moody Northen Theatre:

It's that time again. Join us for the 8th annual 10-minute play festival, featuring the work of 10 student directors! The event is FREE and open to the public. No reservations required, but do come early as seats fill quickly. Performances are December 4th and 5th at 5 and 8 pm.

 

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: Fifth Annual Theatre Action Project Youth Arts Festival, Boyd Vance Theatre, May 12

presents

The 5th Annual Theatre Action Project Youth Arts Festival

Saturday, May 12, 2 - 5 p.m.

Boyd Vance Theatre, George Washington Carver Museum, 1165 Angelina (click for map)

Admission is Free

Theatre Action Project’s 5th annual Youth Arts Festival will be held on Saturday, May 12th from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Boyd Vance Theatre at the George Washington Carver Museum. Vampires and Classic Opera Inspire Teen Performances at this year's TAP's Youth Arts Festival. This year’s festival will feature work by more than 100 students from 12 middle schools in 4 school districts from the Austin area. Festival hosts and keynote performers will be from the Changing Lives Youth Theatre Ensemble (CLYTE). CLYTE is done in partnership with Theatre Action Project and SafePlace. The festival line up represents a broad spectrum of creativity from the region’s youth, from a movie about vampires, a digital story inspired by a classic opera, a mural created to inspire a school community, to a play about the voices that try to control our choices. In addition, TAP will be presenting its inaugural Shining Light Awards.

Schools featured at this year’s festival include Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, Bastrop Middle School, Burnet Middle School, Cedar Creek High School, Cedar Creek Intermediate School, Del Valle Middle School, Dobie Middle School, Garcia Middle School, Manor High School, Mendez Middle School, Ojeda Middle School, and Webb Middle School.

The Youth Arts Festival takes place at the Boyd Vance Theatre at the George Washington Carver Museum, 1165 Angelina Street Austin, TX 78702. Admission is Free. For more information, visit www.theatreactionproject.org, or call: 512- 442-8773.

Upcoming: Playfest 2012, San Pedro Cellar Door Theatre, January 12 - 22

Received directly:

San Pedro Playhouse Cellar Theater

presents

Playfest 2012

January 12-22

Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

800 West Ashby at San Pedro, San Antonio (click for map)

All tickets just $15!


Ten original 10-minute plays written by the talented professionals of the Playhouse Playwrights!

You Only Live Once Gregg Barrios

Canine Kidnap Caper Rebecca Burroughs

Forever Laurie Dietrich

The Message achel Joseph

The Trip of a Lifetime Mellissa Marlowe

The Crank Call Mary Ellen Rainwater

Moving Home Sheila Rinear

Calling Out Joshua Rowan

Pas de Deux (Twice) Lindsey Van de Kirk

Out of the Past Antoinette Winstead

Upcoming: Ten-Minute Play Festival, St. Edward's University, December 6 and 7

Found in Hilltop Views, St. Edward's University, November 29:

Students in theater major to direct 10-minute plays at MMNT

By Jenna Jaco

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The St. Edward's University theater department has yet another production currently in the works. The Ten Minute Play Festival is a free-admission collection of short plays showing at the Mary Moody Northen Theater Dec. 6-7.

All of the 10-minute plays are student-acted as well as student-directed. Instead of having a faculty member as the director like a typical MMNT production, the plays are headed by undergraduate theater majors in the directing class offered by the St. Edward's theatre department.

The directing class is comprised mostly of seniors, and the plays they direct are part of the Ten Minute Play Festival and serve as a kind of final project for the class. This annual event allows students to apply everything they have learned in class and exhibit their own work and directorial style.

Unlike the New Works Festival put on by Transit Theatre Troupe in October, the Ten Minute Play Festival consists of student directors working with short plays that are already published and that do not necessarily share a common theme. Also, the Ten Minute Play Festival is performed on the St. Edward's main stage — in the round at the Mary Moody Northen Theater.

Read more at Hilltop Views, online . . . .

Upcoming: New Works Festival 2011, Transit Theatre Toupe at St. Edward's University, October 17 - 18

Announced on-line:

The Transit Theatre Troupe

announces

New Works Festival theatre 2011

Monday, October 17 and Tuesday, October 18, at 7 p.m.
Maloney Room, Main Building, St. Edward's University
3001 South Congress Ave


Looking for a good time? Look now further than the 2011 New Works Festival!

Join us in five unique performances centered around the Freshman Studies Theme- "Looking in, Looking out- and Transformation." Rumor has it we might even be giving away some top secret prizes if you cast your vote in our Best of Fest competition (more on that later!). For two nights only, you can enjoy some FREE theatre and the St. Edward's directorial skills of Gloria Adams-Hanley, Johnny Joe Trillayes, Marett Hanes, Lainey Murphy & Leah Harris!

Why: Because we love you. And want to see all of your shining faces there.

Arts Reporting: Manifest the Whale at Austin Community College

Found on-line at the Austin Community College paper, Accent:

Unscripted play wraps up events at Carnival ah!

PERSPECTIVE

by Sarah Grover, Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Carnival Ah! festival held annually at Rio Grande Campus, ended on a theatrical note as an original theater production titled Manifest the Whale, the Teacup Destiny was performed by students in the "Ah! Chill Tent."

The play, assembled by Assistant Professor of Drama, Arthur Adair, was the last event to wrap up the Carnival ah! festivities held on April 12-13. The production made up of three story lines including The Teacup Whale by Lydia Gibson, Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare, and the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale.

According to Adair, he tried to incorporate the concept of Manifest Destiny in the play, by drawing on different types of social issue and political references. "The main idea [for the play] is based on the journey of individuals who are seeking change," said Adair. "All of the stories in the play had to do with the individual's discontent with society."

Read more at the Austin Community College

Accent, on-line . . . .

Upcoming: The 2011 David Mark Cohen New Works Festival, March 28 - April 2

Found on-line:

The University Co-op

presents

The Cohen New Works Festival,

March 28 - April 1

a celebration of new work created by UT students throughout the University of Texas campus. It is not just an event, but a celebration of a continuously ongoing process-the creation of new work.

Keynote Kick-off with James Still
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 7 p.m.
Inside atrium of the Winship Drama Building, The University of Texas at Austin
This event is open to the public. It is completely free and will be followed with light
refreshments.
All events FREE.

Click to go to the website

Click to view the schedule

Click to download a .pdf guide to the festival

Upcoming: Summer Acts Festival, City Theatre, July 6 - 19

Received March 10 from Andy Berkovsky:

A call out to all stage and theatre hopefuls… Is your company, crowd, or crew looking for a performance space this summer, but the economic blues got you down??

City Theatre has the answer! SUMMER ACTS! AUSTIN 2009

SUMMER ACTS! City Theatre’s two-week summer theatre festival with thirty-six stage performances playing host to emerging new works, original musicals, theatre on the edge, hard-hitting dramas, original comedy projects and much more. WE WANT YOUR SHOW!!

When? July 6 - 19, 2009.

Interested in participating? Application and information available on our website – www.citytheatreaustin.org

What do you get? Six performances at City Theatre, which includes use of all light and sound equipment, box office and lounge, an experienced technical and management staff, free publicity, eligibility for the 2009 Austin B. Iden Payne theatre awards,and 100% of the box office!

Festival cost? $650 – just under $110 per performance. Charge $10, have eleven people show up. and you’ve made your money back. IT IS A LOW COST!

As we get closer to the summer theatre frenzy and groups finalizing shows, dates, and venues, City Theatre offers you this invitation to stage a show this summer. Performance spots are limited, so if you have any questions, please email info@citytheatreaustin.org or give us a call at 512-524-2870.

We hope Summer Acts! will prove to be beneficial here in Austin and give organizations and performers the opportunity to continue their craft during the summer months and throughout the year.

What are you doing on stage this summer?? Be a part of Summer Acts! Austin 2009.






3823 Airport Blvd. Austin, Texas 78722