Allan Baker's Work to be Staged in Guam and in California, 2013 - 2014

Austin gay playwright Allan Baker's ten minute play, ...last and always, will soon be performed in Guam and in Santa Cruz, CA. 

The University of Guam will produce the play from Nov. 14th to 23rd at the Fine Arts Theater as part of their One Act Festival of student-directed short plays.
Throughout the month of January, 2014, the Actor's Theatre of Santa Cruz, CA will produce ...last and always as part of their 19th annual "8 Tens @ 8" ten minute play festival. Based on the last scene of Allan's powerful one act 9/11 play, Five Minutes, this play tells the story of a gay couple...one in the World Trade Center and one at their home in the city...as they say goodbye.

These will be the fifth and sixth productions of this play. In June, 2009 it was produced by NativeAliens Theatre Collective as part of New York City's Pride Festival. In February, 2011 it was produced by Turtle Shell Productions in New York City as part of their "Eight Minute Madness Playwright's Festival". In May, 2012 it was produced by Blue Slipper Theatre of Livingston, Montana as part of their first ten minute play festival. And, in June, 2012 ...last and always was produced by Buffalo United Artists Theatre of Buffalo, NY as part of their "Takes Ten: GLBT Short Play Festival".

Click to go to Baker's website Abby Productions for the texts of both plays

Playwright Sarah Ruhl Sponsored by Michener Center forWriters, University of Texas, October 16, 2013

Playwright Christopher Durang Attends Q & A and Performances of his Adrift in Macao, Texas State University

Christopher Durang (photo via Austin Chronicle)

 

 

Christopher Durang

Tony-winning playwright takes up residence at Texas State

by Robert Faires, October 3, 2013

[. . .] Adrift in Macao, a 2007 musical for which the playwright penned the book and lyrics, is being mounted by the Texas State University Department of Theatre and Dance, and the author will be in San Marcos to see it. Indeed, he and his partner of 26 years, John Augustine – a widely produced and very funny dramatist in his own right – will be on hand as playwrights-in-residence, thanks to the efforts of Kaitlin Hopkins, head of the musical theatre program at Texas State and an old friend of Durang's, with support from the Bowman Guest Artist Series.

The residency is obviously for the benefit of the department's students, and they'll have the chance to take a master class on the audition process with both authors, but Texas State is creating ample opportunities for the larger community to take advantage of it. After the evening performances of Adrift in Macao Friday and Saturday, Durang will join the cast for a talk-back moderated by Hopkins, who directed the production. And Saturday afternoon, a pair of programs involving the two writers will be open to the public – one focusing on Durang and his career, the other a roundtable discussion about collaboration featuring Durang and Augustine[. . . .]

Saturday, Oct. 12

"A Conversation With Christopher Durang" – 1-2 p.m.

Durang will field questions from head of playwriting Jim Price and the audience, and will also read from his own work.

"Collaboration: The Process" – 2:30-4pm

Durang and John Augustine will join students in Texas State's playwriting and directing programs for a roundtable discussion about the collaborative process between writer and director, and how it differs when the play is in development and when it's being fully produced. MFA directing associate professor Deb Alley will moderate.

Click to read full article at the Austin Chronicle

---

Adrift in Macao runs Oct. 8-13, Tuesday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m;. Sunday, 2 & 7:30 p.m., at University Mainstage Theatre, 430 Moon, Texas State campus in San Marcos. For more information, call 512/245-2204 or visit www.txstatepresents.com.

Dramatis Personae workshop with Kirk Lynn, Scriptworks, May 7, 2013

DRAMATIS PERSONAE WORKSHOP COMING UP!

Kirk Lynn of the Rude Mechs
place and time TBA

Contact Christi@scriptworks.org to sign up!

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Dramtis Personae: Delving into Character with Dael Orlandersmith, Scriptworks at the Hyde Park Theatre, April 3, 2013

DRAMATIS PERSONAE WORKSHOP COMING UP!

Delving Into Character

with Dael Orlandersmith
Wednesday, April 3rd at 7:00 pm
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 West 43rd St.

Contact Christi@scriptworks.org to sign up!

This workshop will explore character development using aspects of Carl Jung's work. The workshop will emphasize the inner life of characters and how and why they respond to the story set up by the playwright. How and why does a character think/respond to circumstances? How does the family background/environment play a role?

Dael Orlandersmith is an actress, poet and playwright who is best known for her Obie Award-winning Beauty's Daughter and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama, Yellowman. Her latest project, a co-production between Berkeley Rep and the Goodman is Black N Blue Boys/Broken Men in which she plays male characters who have been abused. She will be doing a reading of that work at Austin Community College as part of their Arts and Humanities Festival on April 4th.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: 9 Lives (and Deaths) of Slapdash, Loaded Gun Theory, November 17

presents

9 Lives (and Deaths) of Slapdash

Slapdash Flimflammery 9

Loaded Gun Theory's (mostly) annual 24-hour play festival returns on November 17th! 7 writers locked in a dark theatre overnight. 7 directors and 21 actors rehearse all day and 7 new plays are brought to life at the Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo, near E. 7th and Robert Martinez, behind Joe's Bakery (click for map).

Performances at 8 p.m., November 17. Tickets $15 ($13 Creative Alliance members) available on-line through GetPlayTix.

Stage Goddess	Maddie Winston	Stage Manager
Writer	Travis Holmes	Writer
Writer	Aimee Gonzales	Writer
Writer	Trey Deason	Writer
Writer	Timothy Thomas	Writer
Writer	Anna Ford Larson	Writer
Writer	E. D. Harrelson	Writer
Writer	Gary Jaffe	Writer
Director	Lynn S. Beaver	Director
Director	Julie Winston-Thomas	Director
Director	Ian LeClair	Director
Director	Frank Benge	Director
Director	Ian King	Director
Director	Andrea Smith	Director
Director	Karen Jambon	Director
Actor	Bill Arnold	Actor
Actor	Amy Lewis	Actor
Actor	Le Easter	Actor
Actor	Zach Pettichord	Actor
Actor	Suzanne Balling	Actor
Actor	Mary Roark	Actor
Actor	John Dunn	Actor
Actor	Courtney Hopkin	Actor
Actor	Mick D'arcy	Actor
Actor	Jessica Medina	Actor
Actor	Alexandra Budziszewski Russo	Actor
Actor	Dawn Youngs	Actor
Actor	Marsha Sray	Actor
Actor	Robert Deike	Actor
Actor	Kurt Hildebrand	Actor
Actor	Andy Smith	Actor
Actor	Derek Jones	Actor
Actor	Kera Blay	Actor
Actor	Wray Crawford	Actor
Actor	Alison Farnell	Actor
Actor	Brian Schneider	Actor

(Click to return to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Playwright Lisa D'Amour Talks with UT's El Alcalde, October 2

The Alcalde on-line magazine of the Texas Exes alumni association publishes an interview with alumna Lisa D'Amour (MFA) as the Department of Theatre and Dance prepares to stage her work The Cataract on October 19 - 28:

Lisa D'Amour (via the Alcalde)

Playwriting's Next Big Thing:

Pulitzer Finalist Lisa D'Amour

by Rose Cahalan, October 2, 2012

When playwright Lisa D’Amour, MFA ’96, finished a workshop at Hampshire College last year, she checked her voicemail. To her shock, dozens of vague, celebratory messages had poured in: “Lisa, congratulations!” and “Wow, just heard the news!” D’Amour turned to a friend and said, “I think I just won something.”

D’Amour’s play Detroit had just been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The elite honor was only the latest accolade in D’Amour’s highly acclaimed and rapidly ascending career—she also won an OBIE, or Off-Broadway Theater Award, for Nita and Zita in 2003.

In the past few weeks alone, arts and culture giants the New York Times and the New Yorker have both published glowing reviews of Detroit, a dark comedy about relationships and the recession co-starring former Friends star David Schwimmer. The Times called Detroit “Superb … a sharp X-ray of the embattled American psyche as well as a smart, tart critique of the country’s fraying social fabric.”

New Orleans native D’Amour found time last week for a visit to campus, where the Department of Theatre and Dance will soon stage her drama The Cataract (performances run Oct 19-28 in the B. Iden Payne Theatre) [click for more information at AustinLiveTheatre.com]. In between a packed schedule of workshops, guest lectures, and media appearances, D’Amour caught up with The Alcalde.

Click to read the interview at the Alcalde . . . .

Playwright/UT Prof Steven Dietz Speaks at St. Ed's on March 29

St. Edward’s University’s Visiting Writers Series will host UT Austin Professor of Playwriting Steven Dietz, in their Visiting Writers Series on Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 pm.

Since 1983, Dietz’s thirty-plus plays have been seen at over one hundred regional theatres in the United States, as well as Off-Broadway. International productions have been seen in England, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Austria, Russia, Italy, Slovenia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Singapore, Thailand and South Africa. His work has been translated into ten languages.

Mr. Dietz joins authors Oscar Casares and Debra Monroe, and poets Marie Howe and Naomi Shihab Nye on the list of celebrated writers that the Visiting Writers Series will be bringing to the St. Edward’s University campus for the 2011-2012 academic year.

Location: Maloney Room, 3rd Floor of the Main Building (at the center of the campus)
St. Edward’s University, 3001 South Congress Ave. (click for campus map)

[photo: Steven Dietz, via University of Texas]

Upcoming: Reading/Lecture by Playwright Sherry Kramer, Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas, March 22

The Michener Center for Writers of the University of Texas

presents

Sherry Kramer

reading from a work in progress

7:30 pm • Thursday • March 22, 2012
Avaya Auditorium, ACE 2.302
southeast corner of 24th & Speedway on campus
MICHENER CENTER FOR WRITERS • THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
www.utexas.edu/academic/mcw • 512-471-1601

Sherry Kramer's readings are always wildly entertaining, like her work—a fearless melding of humor, pathos, and intellect. Kramer’s plays have been produced in theaters across the country and abroad. She is a recipient of fellowships from the NEA, the NY Foundation for the Arts and McKnight Foundation. Her other honors include the Weissberger Playwriting Award and a NY Drama League Award (WHAT A MAN WEIGHS), the LA Women in Theater New Play Award (THE WALL OF WATER), and the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (DAVID'S REDHAIRED DEATH). She was the first national member of New Dramatists, former head of the Iowa Playwrights’ Workshop, and is on the permanent faculty at Bennington College.

Upcoming: Playwright Will Kern Lectures at Trinity University, San Antonio, January 30

Via

Trinity University Dept of Human Communication and Theatre

presents

a lecture by playwright Will Kern

Monday, January 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the Cafe Theatre located in the Ruth Taylor Theatre Building (#3 and #31 -- click for map)

Trinity University Campus, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, Texas, 78212

Admission free -- no reserved places

Internationally known and produced playwright Will Kern will present a lecture at Trinity University on The Art of Playwriting. Mr. Kern's most famous work is the play Hellcab (1992). First produced as a late-night show by Famous Door Theatre in Chicago, the play, which was originally scheduled for twelve performances, ran for over nine years and is one of the longest running shows in Chicago theatre history. Hellcab has been performed all over the U.S. and abroad, including Scotland, Israel, Singapore, and Ireland. The play was adapted for the screen by Mr. Kern in 1998 and the film starred Gillian Anderson, John Cusak, Jullianne Morre, Laurie Metcalf, Harry Lennix and John C. Reilly.

Trinity University Dept of Human Communication and Theatre
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 7:30pm in the Cafe Theatre located in the Ruth Taylor Theatre Building.

Internationally known and produced playwright Will Kern will present a lecture at Trinity University on The Art of Playwriting. Mr. Kern's most famous work is the playHellcab (1992). First produced as a late-night show by Famous Door Theatre in Chicago, the play, which was originally scheduled for twelve performances, ran for over nine years and is one of the longest running shows in Chicago theatre history. Hellcabhas been performed all over the US and worldwide, including Scotland, Israel, Singapore, and Ireland. The play was adapted for the screen by Mr. Kern in 1998 staring Gillian Anderson, John Cusak, Jullianne Morre, Laurie Metcalf, Harry Lennix and John C. Rilly.

Location:Trinity University Campus, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, Texas, 78212
Tickets:FREE
For Reservations: Limited seating and NO Reservations are being taken. Seating is on first come basis.

UT Playwright's Transition of Doodle Pequeño (upcoming 11/30) Selected for Kennedy Center 2012

Announced by College of Fine Arts, University of Texas, October 18:

The Transition of Doodle Pequeño selected for Kennedy Center's 2012 “New Visions/New Voices”

Play by M.F.A. candidate Gabriel Jason Dean

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced its 12th New Visions/New Voices showcase to be held May 18 - 20, 2012 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. A biennial workshop dedicated to developing new plays and musicals written for young people and their families, New Visions/New Voices will present works from theater companies from New York, NY; Chicago, IL; Malvern, PA; La Jolla, CA; Glen Echo, MD; London, England; Toronto, Canada; and Melbourne, Australia.

The Transition of Doodle Pequeño, written by Michener Center for Writers candidate Gabriel Jason Dean, has been selected as one of eight plays for the Kennedy Center's prestigious showcase. Directed by department alumna and current People's Light & Theatre Producer Wendy Bable (M.F.A. 2009), Dean's story provides an inventive look at gender identity, difference, and discovering how things aren't always what they seem. It's Halloween with all the trimmings—oranges the size of pumpkins…vampires…tutus…an imaginary talking goat—and Doodle is the new kid in the quadruplex. When he and his new friend wear skirts, neighborhood bullies take notice.

Since its inception in 1991, New Visions/New Voices has assisted in the development of 80 new plays, musicals, and operas from 72 playwrights and 32 composers working with 51 American and seven international theater companies.

The Transition of Doodle Pequeño will be produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance November 30 - December 3, 2011 at the Oscar G. Brockett Theatre located in the F. Loren Winship Drama Building on The University of Texas at Austin campus.

Click to read interview of Gabriel Jason Dean by Adam Szymkowicz at www.http://aszym.blogspot.com

Upcoming: Back to the Flim Flam, Part 8, Loaded Gun Theory, October 1

Received directly:

presents

October 1, 8 p.m.

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

Tickets $15 ($13 for members of the Austin Creative Alliance) Click to buy tickets on-line

24 hours before showtime 7 writers are locked in a theater. They give a line, they take a line. They write all night.

Early the next morning groggy directors, actors, and stage managers show up to rehearse frenetically and produce a fantastic night of theater for you at 8 p.m.

So what's the special sauce this year? We can't say much. But it has a little something to do with time...

Upcoming: Scriptworks Dramatis Personae Workshop with Octavio Solis, May 3

Caught by Tweet:

ScriptWorks presents

a Dramatis Personae Workshop

with

Octavio Solis
Tuesday, May 3rd 7 – 9:30pm
Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd. (click for map)

Reserve your seat by emailing info@scriptworks.org

This class with award-winning playwright Octavio Solis will involve relaxation and visualization exercises as part of the writing process. Participants will do their writing in the class and then read what they wrote aloud.

Octavio Solis is a playwright and director living in San Francisco. His works John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven, Ghosts of the River, Quixote, Lydia, June in a Box, Lethe, Marfa Lights, Gibraltar, The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy, The 7 Visions of Encarnación, Bethlehem, Dreamlandia, El Otro, Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, and La Posada Mágica have been mounted at the California Shakespeare Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Yale Repertory Theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Dallas Theater Center, the Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, South Coast Repertory Theatre, the San Diego Repertory Theatre, the San Jose Repertory Theatre, Shadowlight Productions, the Venture Theatre in Philadelphia, Latino Chicago Theatre Company, the New York Summer Play Festival, Teatro Vista in Chicago, El Teatro Campesino, the Undermain Theatre in Dallas, Thick Description, Campo Santo, the Imua Theatre Company in New York, and Cornerstone Theatre.

Solis has received an NEA 1995-97 Playwriting Fellowship, the Roger L. Stevens award from the Kennedy Center, the Will Glickman Playwright Award, a production grant from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the 1998 TCG/NEA Theatre Artists in Residence Grant, the 1998 McKnight Fellowship grant from the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and the National Latino Playwriting Award for 2003. He is the recipient of the 2000-2001 National Theatre Artists Residency Grant from TCG and the Pew Charitable Trust for Gibraltar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Solis is a Thornton Wilder Fellow for the MacDowell Colony, New Dramatists alum and member of the Dramatists Guild. He is working on commissions for South Coast Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Upcoming: Reading of The Happy Ones by playwright Julie Marie Myatt, University of Texas, October 28

Received directly:

THE MICHENER CENTER FOR WRITERS
at the University of Texas at Austin

presents a reading of

The Happy Ones

by Julie Marie Myatt, Fall 2010 Michener Residency Author

Thursday, October 28, 7 p.m.

Avaya Auditorium, ACES 2.302, southeast corner of 24th & Speedway on theUT Campus

Orange County, California, 1975. For appliance salesman Walter Wells, it’s the happiest place on earth. He has a beautiful wife. Two great kids. A house with a pool. Contentment. Until fate strikes a devastating blow, leaving Walter with no reason to put the pieces of his life back together. He resists attempts to help, especially the unexpected — and unwanted — o er from a Vietnamese refugee named Bao Ngo, who bears his own sorrows. Across a cultural divide, Walter and Bao each look to the other for a way back, if not to happiness, then at least to peace.

Julie Marie Myatt’s The Happy Ones is the winner of the Ted Schmitt Award from the L.A. Drama Critics’ Circle honoring an outstanding new play . Her other recent work includes Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter, which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival before being performed at the Kennedy Center in DC; My Wandering Boy; Sex Habits of American Women; and Boats on a River. Her plays The Joy of Having a Body, Zealot, and Mr. and Mrs. are all published by Playscripts,Inc.

A member of New Dramatists, Myatt lives in Los Angeles.

Seminar: Writing the Impossible, with C. Denby Swanson, Austin Scriptworks at Dougherty Arts Center, June 26

Received directly:

Austin Script Works Dramatis Personae Series

WRITING THE IMPOSSIBLE

A workshop with Colin Denby Swanson

Saturday, June 26th from 2-4pm
Dougherty Arts Center , 1110 Barton Springs Rd.

COST: $20 ASW members/ $30 General
INFO/RESERVATIONS: 512.454.9727; christi@scriptworks.org

Playwright Jose Rivera encourages us to include at least one impossible thing in each of our plays. In the play that you are writing or even just thinking about, what is your one impossible thing? What *can* it be? We’ll study Rivera’s “36 Assumptions About Playwriting,” and specifically the idea of impossibility. The workshop will also include writing exercises to make room for impossibility in character, dialogue, scene direction and events.

More information at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .