Upcoming: Drag Kings, The Musical: IV, Blue Theatre, September 17 & 18

Received directly:

Drag Kings: The Musical 4

Featuring your favorite performers from Kings N Things and some amazing guests from Austin, Houston and New Orleans!

@ the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Rd.
It's a little sneaky, tucked away behind the Goodwill on Springdale Rd, right next to Blue Genie:
http://bluetheatre.org/

Two shows for your viewing pleasure!
Friday, September 17
Saturday, September 18
Doors @ 8pm, Show @ 9pm

Hosted by Stanley Roy and Lady C.
The show is all ages, but take note that the show may include mature language and themes.
Tickets can be purchased online for $10.
*Standby line: In the instance that tickets sellout online, a standby line will be available the night of each show. If tickets are not claimed prior to 15 minutes before the show starts, they will be resold to the public for $10 cash (per ticket).
Tickets available now!
http://dktm4.eventbrite.com/

More from AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Metamorphoses, originated by Mary Zimmerman, Zach Theatre, August 5 - September 26

Call this the Cirque de Soleil approach to Greek myth.

From its 1996 origin at Northwestern University Mary Zimmerman's piece used a pool of water as its central metaphor -- suggesting the chaos at creation and both the life-giving and life-threatening qualities of water and the sea. At Northwestern the piece was staged next to and in an Olympic standard pool. The water setting was retained at the Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago and at the Circle in the Square in New York, although those basins were shallower.

The Zach Theatre expands that metaphor. First, by locating that pool in the circular space of the Whisenhut stage and surrounding it with a raised walkway, so that the water below the pool steps is relatively deep. Audience members in the first and second rows of that circular space are looking up at performers walking by. An occasional, unavoidable splash is sure to wet the nearest spectators. Dress accordingly. Those elements of the setting might be called "earth" and "water."

Second, for this staging director Dave Steakley provides us with "air" and "fire" as well. Austin's muscular, confident aerial dancers from Blue Lapis Light (Andy Agne, Margaret Carter, Stefania Tafuro and Will Zinser) regularly occupy the spaces above our heads, twisting and plunging with grace. The combination of Blair Hurry's witty, circus-gaudy costumes and dramatic, often unexpected lighting from Jason Amato moves action and effects into the higher spheres. The result is the pure, gorgeous spectacle of vivid athleticism, with only a couple of older players serving to contrast with all that youth.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Reviews from Elsewhere: Salome by David Yeakle & Justin Sherburn, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, September 4

Link received from Tongue & Groove Theatre:

Hip Pocket Theatre walks tightrope with 'Salome'
Posted Saturday, Sep. 04, 2010
By Mark Lowry
Special to the Star-Telegram

FORT WORTH -- A band of circus performers can be an odd lot, a mix of attention-hungry clowns, demanding bosses, ego-driven daredevils and aerialists whose moves blend precision and sensuality. But they all have one big thing in common: They're all misfits in a world that places so much emphasis on normalcy.

Put all those elements in one performance, and it can be thrilling one minute and creepy the next, peppered with amusing and erotic interludes.

All those aspects work for Oscar Wilde's most scandalous play, Salome.

It comes together magically in David Yeakle's adaptation of the 1891 script, set in a circus milieu, for Hip Pocket Theatre.

In Yeakle's vision, the virginal temptress Salome is an aerialist (Mimi Kayl-Vaughan), her stepfather, Herod, is Ringmaster (Thad Isbell), mom Herodias a retired aerialist (Susan Austin), and Jokanaan, the character based on John the Baptist (Richard Rangel), is a caged wild man. Narraboth is an animal trainer (Paul Logsdon), and Naaman, the executioner, is a knife thrower, sharpening his blades throughout the show (and played by Grover Coulson).

Around them, strongmen, contortionists and clowns create that sense of whimsy and awe that can best be captured under the big top.

The show uses original music (by keyboardist Justin Sherburn), and oddly, a foursome of readers who speak the lines of the play, while most of the actors mime the action.

Read more at the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram on-line . . .

Upcoming: Operación Clown's Cállate! (from Veracruz), McCullough Theatre, University of Texas, September 15 - 16

Found on-line:

The University of Texas and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies

present, from Veracruz, Mexico,

Operación Clown in

Cállate! (Shut Up!)

Adriana Duch, artistic director

September 15, 2010, 7:00 pm (in Spanish)
September 16, 2010, 8:00 pm (in English)
McCullough Theatre, University of Texas
$22 - BUY TICKETS

Texas Performing Arts presents two evenings of unique theatre from Veracruz, Mexico. Operación Clown is renowned for their innovative use of masks, puppets, and cabaret theatre based on theatrical clown technique.

This internationally celebrated theatrical group will bring the acclaimed piece Cállate to the McCullough stage. Narrated with an explosive mixture of melodrama and irreverent humor, this love story set at the time of the Mexican Revolution combines drama, comedy, wrestling and images inspired by the Golden Age of Mexican cinema to fuel a cast of characters based on stereotypes of the period.

“Actually, there are just two things you’ve got to know: the title means “shut up” and the show is so wildly funny that that’s the one thing it’s impossible to do.” ON STAGE SCOTLAND

Click to go to YouTube video by Operación Clown

Upcoming: The Man with the Dancing Eyes, Lab Theatre, University of Texas, September 2 - 4

Found at the Daily Texan on-line:

Dahl’s book re-imagined by students as stage play

(Lab Theatre, Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.)

By Sarah Pressley, Daily Texan Staff

Published: Thursday, September 2, 2010

Mute characters will manipulate the world around a young woman as she falls in and out of love in “The Man With the Dancing Eyes.” She discovers love, heartbreak and, eventually, a happy ending in a beloved children’s book brought to life in a virtual new world.

“The Man With the Dancing Eyes,” a play based on a book of the same name by Sophie Dahl, depicts a modern-day fairy tale as told by a group of UT students from the Department of Theatre and Dance.

“[The show] follows Pierre, a young woman from an elite and eclectic breeding,” director Courtney Sale said. “Pierre falls in love, has her heart broken and sets off to make a new life for herself in New York.”

The play was adapted by the students from Dahl’s illustrated picture book. They originally planned to put on a different play but ended up changing their minds when they found out another group would be performing the same show a few weeks later. “The Man With the Dancing Eyes” was an old favorite of the set designer and one of the actors, so the group decided to adapt this story for the stage instead.

Read more at the Daily Texan on-line . . . .

Upcoming: Christi Moore on How to Produce for FronteraFest, Hyde Park Theatre, September 15

Received directly:

Austin Script Works Dramatis Personae Series

FRONTERAFEST 101
A primer in self-producing for the fringe
A workshop taught by Christina J. Moore
Wednesday, September 15, 7:00 pm

Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St.

COST: $5 Scriptworks members; $10 general admission

INFO/RESERVATIONS:
512.454.9727; christi@scriptworks.org

This workshop, led by ScriptWorks Executive Director and FronteraFest Producer Christina J. Moore, will guide participants through the process of preparing a piece for FronteraFest, the month-long festival to be held January 11 to February 12 at the Hyde Park Theatre and other venues. From resources for finding actors, directors, and rehearsal space to the ins and outs of the technical rehearsal, we'll cover it all.

Christina J. Moore is a director and producer whose work has been seen at The State Theatre, Zachary Scott Theatre Center, Mary Moody Northen Theater, Vortex Repertory Company, Capitol City Playhouse, Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre, Different Stages, and Austin Script Works, which she helped found in 1997. FronteraFest 2011 will mark her tenth year as producer of the festival under the joint enterprise of Hyde Park Theatre and ScriptWorks.

ScriptWorks is a playwright-driven organization that seeks to promote the craft of dramatic writing and to protect the playwright's integrity by encouraging playwright initiative and harnessing collective potential. The Dramatis Personae series was initiated to provide area playwrights a place to experiment with their craft and expand their careers. Contact: Christi Moore @ 512-589-4055

Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lepine, City Theatre, August 19 - September 17

This energetic and clever staging of Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods confirms for me once again my belief that Austin's City Theatre offers the best entertainment value for money available in the area today.

Ours is an age of disclaimers, so let me be explicit, with a "claimer": I have been a fan of the City Theatre for more than two years. Andy Berkovsky and the artists working with him at the tidy little 85-seat theatre behind the Shell station at Airport Road and 38 1/2 street offer a season that is unmatched for its scope, variety and prices. The City Theatre offers a nine-play season ticket for two for only $150. You couldn't go to the movies for that.

I had acquired the CD of the 1987 original Broadway cast recording of Into The Woods, but this past weekend at the City Theatre I realized that only through performance can one appreciate the richness and complexity of the piece. The City's space gives Into The Woods the cozy intimacy appropriate for a work written as a chamber musical. Come early, so as to secure your seat in the closer rows, or pay a couple of dollars extra to reserve at second-row, center. You will be delighted by the proximity and vivid action.

The 18-member cast features both faces well known in regional musical theatre and newcomers. In Act I they weave for us a tapestry drawn from the familiar tales of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Little Red Ridinghood. Librettist James Lapine uses the additional characters of a childless baker and his wife, figures drawn directly from the tradition of German folktales or Märchen, to bring all those stories together in the magic space of "the woods," where each is bent on an individual quest. They carom off one another in unexpected ways but by the end of Act I they've all achieved their Happily Ever Afters.

In Act II Sondheim and Lapine turn that tapestry over. Life goes on, to the characters' consternation. They face discoveries, unexpected consequences, delights, ennui, losses and disappointments. Fairy tale outcomes are undone, dissolved or turned rich and strange.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .