Ann Pittman's Austin Theatre Favorites in 2013

From her blog aNNpITTMAN, posted January 12:

Top Ten Twenty-Thirteen Theatre

Ann Pittman (via Blogspot)

Everyone has their favorites. And everyone's weighing in (Chronicle critics: AdamRoberts, Robert Faires ... a cat).

Of course, I have my own opinions :)

So here's my credential-free pick for Austin's Top Ten 2013 Theatre Experiences (p.s. I don't include national tours or shows I was in on this list... tours obvs. aren't Austin, and despite my first girl-on-girl kiss this year, its probably biased to nominate performances I was a part of). Of the over twenty shows I saw this year, here's some moments, people and experiences that I loved (in no particular order)...

1. Barbara Chisholm in Fixing King John. This was a fun, smart show by the Rude Mechs, and pulling her hair out in the middle of it was a brilliant Barbara Chisholm.

2. The amazing set of Nursery Crimes (the DAC has never been better utilized) and the supporting characters trio of Travis Bedard, Bobby DiPasquale, and Heath Thompson. Kudos to Last Act's Will Snider for some great choices.

3. Ryan Crowder's big fat crocodile tears (in addition to the rest of his performance) in Penfold Theatre's Red.

4. Martin Burke's final monologue in Harvey. Lovely.

5. Kristi Brawner in general. From Sally in Reefer Madness to Lucy in Charlie Brown, she is quickly becoming Austin's most versatile 20 Something (sorry guys, she's taken).

6. HPT's Ken Webster as Thom Pain. Again.

7. Mad Beat Hip & Gone. I cannot understand why this didn't get more critical attention. Whatev. You guys, it was great. And those lightbulbs...

8. The Drawbridge/Gangplank lowering and raising set piece thing in Austin Playhouse's Man of La Mancha. Awesome and daunting. Broke up the play and the mood perfectly appropriately.

9. Little Shop of Horrors' colorful costumes at Zilker Park.

10. ZACH's A Christmas Story set. You'll shoot your eye out.

AND what I really, really wanted to see (which might have influenced the above list), but, alas, life had other exciting adventures...

1. Mical Trejo in Teatro Vivo's Confessions of a Mexpatriate

2. And Then There Were None by Austin Playhouse

3. Tongues (in the swimming pool!) by Theatre at the J

4. Fat Pig by Theatre En Bloc

So there you have it! Of the Austin theatre events I saw, these were the most super-duper. Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to give you The Worst Of... who knows! In the meantime, here's looking forward to more great, funny, meaningful, important, silly theatre in the heart of Texas in 2014!

(*) 2014-2015 Theatre Season at Playhouse San Antonio

Playhouse season focuses on women

By Deborah Martin : January 9, 2014

The Playhouse San Antonio is starting the new year by looking ahead to next season.

The theater's 2014-'15 season focuses heavily on women, featuring several pieces written by female playwrights, including a world premiere, and a number of juicy roles for actresses.


Here's the lineup for the Russell Hill Rogers stage upstairs:

The Wizard of Oz, Oct. 3-Nov. 2: Odds are, you know the story — tornado-displaced Dorothy tries to make her way home — as well as the music, including “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” and “Over the Rainbow.”

Fiddler on the Roof, Dec. 5-22: Patrons frequently request the musical, said Playhouse President and CEO Asia Ciaravino. It follows a family in a time of transition, as the parents cleave to tradition and their daughters start to venture into a changing world.

Gypsy, Feb. 13-March 15: The musical is based on the childhood of burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, who was raised by a stage parent who went by the handle Mama Rose.

Drood (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), May 29-June 21: The musical is based on Charles Dickens' unfinished novel “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” The audience determines the ending.

Grease, July 17-Aug. 16: The final audience fave of the upstairs season looks at the greasers and their gals at Rydell High in 1959.

Sheila Rinear (via Express-News)

And here's what the Cellar Theater lineup holds:

End of the Rainbow, Oct. 10-Nov. 2: The piece, which looks at Judy Garland's final days, will run concurrently with “Wizard of Oz,” Ciaravino said. The film version of “Wizard” helped establish Garland's place as a pop culture superstar, so offering the two shows will allow audiences to explore her work from two perspectives.

Merry Gentlemen, Dec. 11-14: San Antonio-based playwright Sheila Rinear will spend this year working with students and community members to develop this piece, a holiday-themed work that will premiere in the Cellar.

The Last Five Years, Jan. 30-Feb. 22: Jason Robert Brown's musical about the end of a relationship is built around a nifty gimmick: The wife tells her version of events beginning at the end and moving backward through time, while her soon-to-be-ex-husband tells things in chronological order.

Crime and Punishment, March 13-April 5: Marilyn Campbell's and Curt Columbus' script boils the Dostoyevsky novel into a taut 90 minutes.

4000 Miles, May 15-June 7: Amy Herzog's play is about a young man who suffers a loss and recovers by moving in with his 91-year-old grandmother.

Water by the Spoonful, July 3-26: Quiara Alegría Hudes's Pulitzer Prize winning drama is about an Iraqi war veteran trying to forge a life for himself stateside.

In addition, plans are afoot for Motherhood Out Loud, a Vagina Monologues-like look at parenting; it's slated to run May 8-10. Ciaravino is making plans to present it away from The Playhouse. The production will be a fundraiser for the theater's education programs.


dlmartin@express-news.net

University of Texas Ph.D. Student Dotun Ayobade Receives Award for Paper on Stand-up Comedy in Nigeria

From the Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Texas:

A round of applause for Performance as Public Practice PhD student Dotun Ayobade, who was awarded the Ken Lohrentz Graduate Paper Award from the Mid-Atlantic Association of African Studies (MAAAS)!

Dotun presented his paper, Playing a Race Where There is No Race: Standup Comedy and Performing Race in Post-Colonial Nigeria, at the MAAAS conference in September. Congratulations, Dotun, on your well-deserved recognition!

(*) 2014 Renaissance Guild Season, San Antonio

Click to go to Renaissance Guild website

Adam Roberts' 10 Favorites for Austin Theatre in 2013

Top 10 Dramatic Turns of 2013

A look back at some of the year's most gripping performances

By Adam Roberts, Fri., Jan. 3, 2014

Jill Blackwood in 'Les Miserables,' Zach Theatre (photo: Kirk R. Tuck)

In reverse chronological order:

1) THE COMPANY OF 'LET IT BE CHRISTMAS' (World Vision & Gateway Church) The performers heralded Christ's birth with rafter-shaking vocals that soared on high.

2) THE COMPANY OF 'BLOOD WEDDING' (Mary Moody Northen Theatre) The air of rural Spain poured forth from the ensemble in a riveting production of Lorca's drama.

3) JILL BLACKWOOD IN 'LES MISERABLES' (Zach Theatre) As Fantine, Blackwood dreamed her dream center stage in arresting fashion.

4/5) RACHEL MCGINNIS MEISSNER AND LAURA ARTESI IN 'A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE' (City Theatre Company) Meissner's striking turn as Blanche provided both realism and magic, and Artesi delivered a stellar Stella.

6/7) MICHAEL STUART AND BENJAMIN SUMMERS IN 'A WALK IN THE WOODS' (Street Corner Arts) Summers' Honeyman was visceral and searing, and Stuart's Botvinnik drew one in to such a degree that it was difficult to glance away.

8) THE COMPANY OF 'TWELVE ANGRY MEN' (City Theatre Company) From 1 to 12, each juror contributed his own heft to this wonderfully weighty production.

9) THE COMPANY OF 'BEAUTY IS THE BEST PRIEST: SHORT PLAYS OF THE HAR­LEM RENAISSANCE' (Austin Commun­ity College Department of Drama) Like a living museum inside a more traditional one, the company granted new insight into a world of literature with which I'd had little acquaintance.

10) JACOB TRUSSELL IN 'OTHER DESERT CITIES' (Austin Playhouse) Trussell's turn as Trip was as captivating and multilayered as it was realistic and honest.

Robert Faires' 15 Favorites in 2013 Austin Theatre, Austin Chronicle

Top 10 Reasons I Stayed in Love With Theatre in 2013


Austin thespians played for keeps, with boundless commitment and imagination, in the year's most memorable theatre


By Robert Faires, Fri., Jan. 3, 2014


1) 'SLIP RIVER' (UT Dept. of Theatre & Dance/Cohen New Works Festival) Spiriting its audience beneath the Payne Theatre, past clotheslines and through butcher-paper forests, feeding it cornbread muffins, and leaving it onstage in a festive dance party, this exhilaratingly theatrical mash-up of 19th century novels and modern pop – its orphan hero chases freedom along an "underground railroad" run by Beyoncé! – packed more imagination, adventure, and wit into half an hour than most plays do in three times that.


2) 'RICHARD III' (Texas State University Dept. of Theatre & Dance) The Bard's diabolical monarch as Third World despot, with Eugene Lee channeling Idi Amin in his brutal grasp for the crown. The entire cast seemed caught in Richard's fearsome grip, and chilling images of mayhem from director Chuck Ney kept us in dread throughout. 

3) 'I AM THE MACHINE GUNNER' (Breaking String Theatre) Lives during wartime – a mob thug in modern Moscow and a soldier on the front lines of World War II – rendered in harrowing detail by playwright Yury Klavdiev and conjured with hallucinatory power by Joey Hood, fluidly sliding between past and present while maintaining a white-hot intensity.


4) 'THERE IS A HAPPINESS THAT MORNING IS' (Capital T Theatre) Who knew that fusty old mystic William Blake could inspire such carnal passion, such hilarity, and such theatrical bliss? A rapturous union of script, director, and actors, teeming with intelligence and craft.


5) 'THE POISON SQUAD' (The Duplicates) This inquiry into the origins of food-safety testing proved, for epicures of performance, a feast – steeped in ingenuity and collaborative energy, and liberally seasoned with playfulness.


6) 'WATCH ME FALL' (Action Hero/Fusebox Festival) The British team's cheap-theatre replays of daredevil stunts (e.g., a bike jumping over bottles of fizzing Coke) were a hoot, but seeded within them were disturbing images that also dared us to confront our cultural lust for danger and mob mentality.


7) 'THE EDGE OF PEACE' (UT Dept. of Theatre & Dance) Suzan Zeder's valedictory effort at UT wove threads from her 30 years of playwriting into a deeply felt drama of community, growing up, and moving on. A fitting farewell to her Mother Hicks characters and the year's most artfully crafted script.


8) 'TRU'/'THIS WONDERFUL LIFE' (Zach Theatre) Two solo shows, both performed in the cozy Whisenhunt, both by actors of prodigious gifts giving themselves over completely to their subjects: Jaston Williams to Truman Capote, his portrait deepened by time and made even more poignant; Martin Burke to It's a Wonderful Life, embodying the film's characters with rare honesty and embracing its message with sincerity.


9) 'ADAM SULTAN' (Physical Plant) We all died at the hands of playwrights Steve Moore and Zeb West in this extraordinary meditation on mortality and community. It imagined one man's efforts to memorialize Austin's theatre artists as they pass over time and did so with humor and grace.


10) 'ORDINARY PEEPHOLE: THE SONGS OF DICK PRICE' (Rubber Repertory) A night around the old piano in the living room – literally, as an exuberant ensemble escorted us through a batch of this local songwriter's most personal tunes as we sat in a Hyde Park living room. Sheer delight.


Honorable Mentions:


'THE BOOK OF MORMON' (Broadway in Austin/Texas Performing Arts)

'QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT' (Vortex Repertory Company)

'HOLIER THAN THOU' (Poison Apple Initiative)

'REEFER MADNESS' (Doctuh Mistuh Productions)

'BUTT KAPINSKI: WE ARE THE DARK' (Deanna Fleysher/Institution Theater)

Part-Time Job: 10 Hrs/Wk Managing Conspire Theatre, Austin

Posted at 501(C) Community:







Part Time Managing Director for Conspire Theatre, Austin

Conspire Theatre is a 501c(3) non-profit arts organization that facilitates theatre and creative writing programs for women during and post-incarceration in Austin, TX. We provide a creative approach to healing from trauma, increasing self-esteem, and reducing internal and external stigma. Our vision is that every woman realizes her potential as a creative, worthy being.

Since 2009 we have taught weekly classes for women at the Travis County Correctional Complex in Del Valle. In July 2013 we launched Performing Possibilities, an ensemble-based theatre program for women who have been released. For more information, please visit www.conspiretheatre.org.

Conspire Theatre seeks a quarter-time (10 hours/week) Managing Director to oversee the day-to-day operations of the theatre and help lead the company to continued growth and success. Initially the position will be for 4 months. Pending funding, the position could expand and continue long-term. Initially, this is a quarter time (10 hours/week) position, and offers a $600 monthly stipend. This position will be expected to work from home, with highly flexible hours.

Applications due by January 17; start date is February 1, 2014.

Click to read full job description and contact information at www.CTXLT.com

(*) Jump-Start Celebrates Blue Star Departure with the Wrecking Ball, January 11, 2014

(Jump-Start Performance Company via Facebook)

Come help us celebrate 20 incredible years in our Blue Star space at 1400 South Alamo! (click for map)

We've moved most of our fixtures to our new location (710 Fredericksburg Road), so we're turning the entire space into a sprawling performance party. As usual, Jump-Start's company members along with many of our cherished and talented friends will share with you theatre, dance, music, circus, video, and assorted presentations not so easy to fit into a category.

Confirmed performers include URBAN-15, Alamotion, Aerial Horizon, Angels of Elegance,Buttercup, Coyote Dreams, Los Nahuatlatos, Lisa Suarez, Erik Bosse, Dino Foxx, Hyperbubble, Jesse Borrego, Paint by Numbers, Zombie Bazaar, S.T.Shimi, San Antonio Dance Fringe, Doyle Avant, Anna de Luna, Paul Bonin-Rodriguez , Jump-Start Flaming Fire-Eaters, Kitty Williams and many more. Check back often because we will be continually updating the lineup!

There will also be a Video Chill room in the back of the building for ambient music, video and projections going on all night, including a performance by the critically acclaimed performance group ARTheism. You may also see roving performances and pop--up installations occur in unusual corners of the space.

Your kind donation (we suggest $10) will gain you access to the whole evening of chaos and good cheer, which includes eats and drinks for as long as they last. The doors open at 7 pm on Saturday, January 11th. We'll be shutting things down around 10 pm, or whenever we can manage to chase everyone out.

We have no idea what the owners of this building have in mind. But come and party with us before the demolition crews shoulder their way in and turn this place into some ghastly bistro or boutique.

See you at the Wrecking Ball!

(*) San Antonio Current Theatre Reviewers Pick Top 5 for 2013

San Antonio

 

5 Top Local Plays and Musicals This Year 

By Joy-Marie Scott December 29, 2013

Paige Blend, Roy Bumgarner, Twyla Lamont in Roads Courageous (photo: Siggi Ragnar)

We asked our theater critics, Thomas Jenkins and Steven G. Kellman, for their top picks from the theater scene in 2013. Beyond the productions, Jenkins also noted the considerable movement—both physical and conceptual—at some of the city’s top companies, which started this year and will continue into 2014.


“The Playhouse mounted its first original main stage musical in recent memory—Roads Courageous—while populating its Cellar with recent New York hits (Red, Wittenberg),” said Jenkins, “and big changes are afoot at three of the city’s most established theaters: the Jump-Start and the Classic Theatre have found new homes—in Beacon Hill and the Deco District, respectively—while the AtticRep joins the new Tobin Center as its resident theater company in 2014.”


Click each image below for comments from a reviewer and link to the review in the San Antonio Current. 

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Klose/Seal Productions
(photo: Siggi Ragnar)

Sam Mandelbaum as Hamlet in Wittenberg by David G. Davalos, Playhouse San Antonio
(photo: Siggi Ragnar)

(link to Steven G. Kellerman's review)

The Book of Mormon touring company

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, adapted by Sophia Bolles, Overtime Theatre
(photo: Siggi Ragnar)

Hellcab by Will Kern, Attic Rep at Trinity University
(photo: Siggi Ragnar)

Video and Ticket Offer: Wimberley Players' 2014 Theatre Season (offer expires December 31, 2013)

Video by Reed Neal at the 2014 season announcement:

20% savings on 2014 tickets When you purchase Season Tickets online at www.wimberleyplayers.org or call 512-847-0575

(*) Deborah Martin's Favorites for San Antonio Theatre in 2013, Express-News, December 26, 2013

Best of 2013: Stage

December 26, 2013

This was a very good year for fiercely original work, including several pieces created out of whole cloth and fresh takes on “Hamlet” and “Little Shop of Horrors.”

Here's the best of the best:

• “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” Woodlawn Black Box Theatre
• “The Book of Mormon,” Broadway in San Antonio
• “Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” Overtime Theater
• “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Sheldon Vexler Theatre
• “Hetarae,” Jump-Start Performance Co.
• “I Am Celso,” Teatro Farolito
• “In the Heights,” Woodlawn Theater
• “Les Miserables,” Playhouse
• “Little Shop of Horrors,” Sheldon Vexler Theatre
• “Method & Madness: Hamlet 2013,” Jump-Start Performance Co. and Classic Theatre
• “Other Desert Cities,” Inception Theatre
• “Painting Churches,” Classic Theatre
• “Picnic,” Playhouse Cellar Theatre
• “Port Cove,” Overtime Theater
• “Ragtime,” Playhouse
• “Red,” Playhouse Cellar Theater
• “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Klose/Seale Productions
• “Treasure Island,” Magik Theatre
• “Waiting for Lefty,” Proxy Theatre Company:
• “White,” AtticRep and the Aesthetic of Waste
• “Wittenberg,” Playhouse Cellar 

Deborah Martin

How Theatres Can Combat the Stay-at-Home Mindset by Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal, December 25, 2013

Thoughts, numbers, analysis and a suggestion from the country's most peripatetic theatre critic:

How Theaters Can Combat the Stay-at-Home Mindset

by Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

Dec. 25, 2013 1:43 p.m. ET

The house lights fade to black. The room falls still as an actor steps from the wings and speaks the simple words that set a plot in motion: "O for a Muse of fire." "Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve." "This play is called 'Our Town.'" Suddenly the outside world vanishes and you're swept into a parallel universe of excitement and adventure, poetry and magic, fear and hope.

That's what it feels like to go to the theater and see a great play. But when did you last do so? A week ago? A year? Or do you now prefer to stay home and watch cable television or use Netflix  to stream a movie?

If so, you're one of the reasons why live theater is in trouble.

Take a look at the National Endowment for the Arts' latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the most statistically reliable study of its kind. Not only did "non-musical play attendance" drop to 8.3% from 12.3% of U.S. adults between 2002 and 2012, but attendance at musicals also fell, to 15.2% from 17.1%, the first time the latter figure has declined since 1985. That's really bad news. Musical comedy has always been live theater's bread and butter, the ever-popular fare that never fails to fill the seats. If fewer people want to see "Fiddler on the Roof" or "The Lion King," then the pillars that hold up American theater are crumbling.

A big part of the problem for New Yorkers is the horrifically high price of tickets to Broadway shows. But 63% of all Broadway tickets are bought by spendthrift tourists. Fortunately, off-Broadway and regional-theater seats don't cost nearly so much. I just saw a play in Boston, the Huntington Theatre Company's superb revival of A.R. Gurney's "The Cocktail Hour," for which tickets ranged from $25 to $95. (By contrast, the top ticket price for Broadway's "The Book of Mormon" is a whopping $299.) And the vast majority of professional stage productions, both in New York and in the rest of America, are presented by not-for-profit theaters like the Huntington. These companies, of which there are about 1,800, mounted 14,600 shows in the 2010-11 season, as opposed to 118 commercial productions on Broadway and elsewhere. Yet they, too, view the NEA's bad-news numbers with alarm, as they readily acknowledge. Even at the top-tier resident regional companies, subscription income, still considered the most reliable yardstick of a resident company's economic health, is much weaker: Adjusting for inflation, it's plummeted 13.7% since 2008.

What's gone wrong with theater? It isn't a matter of quality control. I've been reviewing performances from coast to coast since 2004, and I continue to be impressed by what I see. Instead, what I'm hearing from regional artistic directors is that they're being slammed by the on-demand mentality.

In 2004 the iPod was a novelty and tablet computers were a dream. Now we take for granted that we can see whatever we want whenever and wherever we want to see it, be it "Grand Illusion" or "Duck Dynasty." Is there a demonstrable link between our fast-growing taste for on-demand entertainment and the plight of live theater? As yet there's no definitive proof. But there's no question about the rise of the on-demand mentality, nor any doubt that theater's audience share is declining relative to that of other art forms that are accessible via the new media.

Let's look again at the NEA survey:

• A generational shift is occurring… Young people are more likely to use the new media to consume art of all kinds. The NEA reports, for instance, that 6.6% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 use handheld or mobile devices "to read, listen to, or download novels, short stories, or plays," versus 2.5% between the ages of 55 and 64.

• …and theater gets left in the lurch. At the same time, few Americans use the new media to watch plays. While 61% of all adults use "TV, radio or the internet to access art or arts programming," only 7% view stage plays or musicals on the electronic media. Disaggregate those numbers and the tendency is even clearer: 16% of all U.S. adults are using the new media to read fiction, as opposed to 3.4% who do so to view theater or dance performances.

Click to read more at the Wall Street Journal on-line

Director Kevin Gates Discusses John Lyly's Gallathea, Poor Shadows of Elysium, January 3 - 19, 2014

On the theatre company's blog Kevin Gates discusses the upcoming second production of Austin's Poor Shadows of Elysium: Gallathea by John Lyly (ca. 1588), to be presented January 3 - 19 at the black box theatre of Trinity Street Players, 4th floor, First Baptist Church, 901 Trinity Street, Austin.

Tickets are $10, available in advance via

 

 

Director Kevin Gates talks about Gallathea

Torquato Tasso is best known for his poetry and his insanity. He died only a few days before he was to be crowned “king of the poets” by the Pope. His poetry is largely forgotten in the English-speaking world, but his legacy still lives in our collective consciousness. In 1573, Tasso’s play, Aminta, was performed before the Duke of Ferrara. This pastoral play is extremely difficult to stage effectively, because much of the dialogue describes action that occurred offstage. The play features nymphs and satyrs, Cupid and Venus. If I were to try to describe what the play is about in one sentence, it would be something along the lines of, “What is the true nature of love?”

Rachel Steed-Redig, Kristin Hall (photo: Bridget Farias)

In 1588, John Lyly’s play, Gallathea, was performed before Queen Elizabeth I by the Children of Paul’s. Gallathea features nymphs, Cupid, and Venus, and asks the same question. The action of the two plays are different, and Gallathea is much more English in its approach, since it features a comic subplot, but the theme, setting, and characters of the two plays are very similar.

I decided to direct Gallathea for Poor Shadows primarily because it was the opposite of our last production, Richard II, in many ways (it’s a comedy, in verse, with many substantial female roles). But possibly the most rewarding thing for me about digging into this text has been discovering the echoes of this play in later works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Scholars have compared parts of the play to The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and As You Like It. Parts of this play also call to my mind Romeo and Juliet (the fathers remind me of Capulet and Montague), Love’s Labour’s Lost (lovers hiding and listening to another confess their love in a soliloquy), and Twelfth Night (Toby and Andrew discussing which signs of the zodiac rule which parts of the body). And obviously, the Alchemist and his boy, and their lists of spirits and bodies, call to mind Jonson’s play on the subject.

At first blush, Gallathea is very light and not very deep, but there’s one aspect of the play that I think defies that impression. (SPOILER ALERT) To escape the curse of Neptune, two young virgins are disguised by their fathers as boys. The two girls meet in the woods and, each thinking the other to be a boy, fall in love. In the final scene, when they discover they’re both girls, the reaction of the bystanders is predictable. But the reactions of the two girls are surprising. Diana tells them they must “leave these fond affections,” and Gallathea replies, “I will never love any but Phillida.” Phillida agrees. “Nor I any but Gallathea.” Their love is based on something deeper than gender. Although the social order might not approve (Venus says she’ll change one of them into a boy), neither of the girls cares, as long as they can be together. It’s the viewpoint of the two girls that I find so interesting in this play, and I’ve tried to enhance the focus on that element in our show.

The Early Modern English drama is my area of interest, so, of course, I find this play really interesting for many reasons. But I think our show will still be very entertaining for regular, non-nerdy people, too.

Auditions for Teatro Vivo's Sketch Comedy 'The Mexcentrics,' January 4, 2013

Teatro Vivo is holding Actor Auditions on January 4, 2014, 3 - 7 p.m. for The Mexcentrics sketch comedy troupe at TKO - 700 N. Lamar #200B.
Parts are available for men and women ages 18-80+. Knowledge of Spanish for some roles is a plus but not required. Actors should prepare a comedic monologue. Each monologue should be no more than 1- 2 min. in length. Bring a headshot or photo. You may also bring a resume – optional.
Auditions are by appointment. For more info or to schedule an audition, email Deanna at deanna.teatrovivo@gmail.com.

*Writer Workshop Jan 6 - 9th
*Rehearsals Jan 13 - Feb 6 (Mondays - Thursdays)
*Tech week Feb 10th - 12th
*Show Runs Feb 13 - March 1 (Thursday - Saturday)

Playhouse's Tribe Brings Theatre to Teens, by Deborah Martin, San Antonio Express-News

 

Playhouse's Tribe brings arts to teens

By Deborah Martin  December 20, 2013

Daniel Quintero (photo: Jim Reel via San Antonio Express-News)SAN ANTONIO — Daniel Quintero remembers really, really wanting to be involved with theater, and not being entirely sure how to make that happen.

Quintero, 18, eventually found his way to The Playhouse San Antonio, scoring an internship and launching the Daniel the Intern blog, where he provides a behind-the-scenes look at goings-on at the theater.

A few months ago, he started working on a project to give other teens a similar experience.

“I want other kids that have that same yearning to have the opportunity to engage themselves in theater,” Quintero said. “I'm a senior (at Keystone School); I'll be gone in a year. I want to leave behind something I didn't have.”

That something is The Tribe, a group of high school and college students based at The Playhouse. The roughly 20 members — all of whom have made cash donations to the theater as part of the program, giving them a literal investment in the theater — help market The Playhouse. They also see Playhouse productions and serve as an informal welcoming committee at performances, chatting with audience members about the theater and whatever show is taking place. 

They've also helped facilitate events: Quintero recently mediated a Q&A following a performance of the play “Wittenberg” in the Cellar Theater.

They host some of their own events, too. Their first was a preview of the spring shows in the Cellar Theater; all of the Tribe members delivered spirited readings from the plays.

The program was modeled, in part, on the Young Adult Council, a teen group based at the acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

Amy Mireles, Naomi Villegas, Andrew Gutierrez (photo: Jim Reel via San Antonio Express-News)

Read more at San Antonio Express-News

Auditions in Lakeway for The Red Velvet Cake War by Jones, Hope & Wooten, Lakeway Players, January 5, 11 and 14, 2014

(thelakewayplayers.com)THE LAKEWAY PLAYERS ANNOUNCE AUDITIONS FOR the full length comedy THE RED VELVET CAKE WAR

AUDITION LOCATION:  The Lakeway Activity Center, 105 Cross Creek,  Lakeway, TX 78734 (click for map)

AUDITION DATES:   Saturday, January 11th, 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM, Rm. B; Wednesday,  January 15th, 7:00 to 9:00 PM, Rm B; Thursday, January 16^th, 7:00 to 9:00 PM, Rm. F

Please contact Pam Mitchell to set up a specific audition time: Pam Mitchell, Director, creationsbypam@sbcglobal.netor 512-672-9416

CAST:  3 Men, 7 women 

In this riotously funny Southern-fried comedy, the three Verdeen cousins—Gaynelle, Peaches and Jimmie Wyvette—could not have picked a worse time to throw their family reunion. Their outrageous antics have delighted local gossips in the small town of Sweetgum (just down the road from Fayro) and the eyes of Texas are upon them, as their self-righteous Aunt LaMerle is quick to point out. Having “accidentally” crashed her minivan through the bedroom wall of her husband’s girlfriend’s doublewide, Gaynelle is one frazzled nerve away from a spectacular meltdown. Peaches, a saucy firebrand and the number one mortuarial cosmetologist in the tri-county area, is struggling to decide if it’s time to have her long-absent trucker husband declared dead. And Jimmie Wyvette, the rough-around-the-edges store manager of Whatley’s Western Wear, is resorting to extreme measures to outmaneuver a priss-pot neighbor for the affections of Sweetgum’s newest widower. But the cousins can’t back out of the reunion now. It’s on and Gaynelle’s hosting it; Peaches and Jimmie Wyvette have decided its success is the perfect way to prove Gaynelle’s sanity to a skeptical court-appointed psychologist. Unfortunately, they face an uphill battle as a parade of wildly eccentric Verdeens gathers on the hottest day of July, smack-dab in the middle of Texas tornado season. Things spin hilariously out of control when a neighbor’s pet devours everything edible, a one-eyed suitor shows up to declare his love and a jaw-dropping high-stakes wager is made on who bakes the best red velvet cake. As this fast-paced romp barrels toward its uproarious climax, you’ll wish your own family reunions were this much fun!

The quality of the auditions will determine the best casting for this show.  This will be assessed after all auditions are completed.

SHOW DATES:  Thursday, Friday, Saturday, March 27^th, 28, and 29th, 2014

(*) Upcoming: THE MOUNTAINTOP by Katori Hall, Renaissance Guild, San Antonio, January 17 - February 9, 2014

(CLICK image to go to www.thecarver.org)

(*) Circle Arts Theatre 2014 Season, New Braunfels

New Braunfels

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

Highly recommended

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

by Michael Meigs

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

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

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

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

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

Indigo Rael (photo: Street Corner Arts)

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

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


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