Frontera Fest...the End Looms Large.

We are soaked, soaked we tell you, in Frontera. This week, we've attended Best of Fest Bill A (to be repeated tomorrow night, and highly recommended), and the first Wild Card bill -- which won't be repeated, but we definitely suggest you take a stab at the second Wild Card bill, 2pm Saturday. It happens to be the only remaining Frontera show that's not sold out. Yikes! (A tip: If you want to try to get in on the action Friday or Saturday night, then show up at the theatre around 7:00, and get your name on the waiting list. They do their best to squeeeeeeze everyone in.)

For the first few weeks of Frontera, the catch phrase seemed to be Improv. There was a ton of sketch and improv comedy in the fest, much of which made it to the Best of Week shows. However, other than the Girls Girls Girls slot on Saturday afternoon and the McNichol & May sketch comedy in Bill B, none of the groups moved on to Best of Fest. No, it turned out that the ultimate winners this year ended up being the poets. Ahah! They were the ones breeding while we weren't tending to 'em. Those naughty poets! (More on that later.) Anyway, the upshot is that a lot of spoken word performance art has made the Best of Fest. We're excited about that! We think the stuff is great.

And...inspired by our newfound love of this crazy poetry stuff (who knew it could be so cool??), we've decided to present our review in the form of one haiku for every performance we've seen this week. As for any critical commentary on these works, all we can tell you is this: glean what you can from our hack poetry, and please just rest assured that any Frontera show you pick up between now and Saturday night will be well worth the $14-$16. This is what Frontera is all about, folks, and all of it is great stuff.

Best of Fest Bill A - Tuesday 2/7
Alternate Routes to the Crossroads, written and performed by Hank Schwemmer.
Guitar man explains the blues, his soul, his many instruments. Weeeeird guy.

Speak, written and performed by Austin Poetry Slam members Christopher Lee, Tony Jackson, Krissy Reeves, Michael P. Whalen, and Big Poppa E.
The poets offend everyone in the audience except me. Whee!

More Mommy Confessions, written and performed by Rhonda F. Kulhanek.
Great actress depicts three hilarious southern mommy characters.

Five Minutes, written by Allan Baker, directed by Theresa Leckbee, and performed by Janis Stinson, Gina Houston, Zach Thompson, David J. Pagano, Adam X. Medina, and Jude Hickey.
Nine-one-one play makes me cry and cry. Great writing. Powerful acting.
(Ed Note: This performance included work from folks who did other things at Frontera that we didn't so much like. This piece was extremely well written, acted, and directed -- across the board. We were mightily impressed.)

Puppet Government, directed by Chris Humphrey, written by Steve Barney, puppeteered by Barney, Paula Gilbert, Ben Johnston, and Jonathon Morgan. Including the impressive Daniel Norton as the Wrongco(r) Salesman.
Appliance puppets mock White House. Bush opens cans. Rummy squeezes fruit.

Wild Card Bill A - Thursday 2/9
The Meditation, written and performed by Joe Hartman.
Hysterical spoof of touchy-feely spiritual spiels. Brilliant.

The Eulogy Project, written by Greg Romero, directed by Jason Tremblay, and performed by Sermini to music by Mike Vernusky.
Sex-ay young dude slithers around...and might be nuts. Odd, but impressive.

Gibber-Jabber Heart Attack, written and performed by Talk Whatkins.
Adam Sandler-esque stand-up (with music!) from a charming, funny guy.

reVERBerations, written and performed by Hilary Thomas and Mike Henry, directed by Jenny Larson.
Beautiful poetry and more from two great performers. We loved it.

Haiku Death Match, written and performed by Michael P. Whalen, Danny Strack, David Hendler, Matthew John Conley, Sara Quenon, and Tony Jackson. Directed by Big Poppa E.
The ill-behaved poets are baaaack. Not so blue, but still just as clever.

We'll do a final wrap-up after closing night on Saturday, and give you the final installment of our interview with Ken Webster and Christi Moore.

* Image (c) Hyde Park Theatre

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By Julie Holden in Arts & Entertainment on February 9, 2006 11:45 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Jooley Ann

Hm. No implied competition between the two intended, but I can see where you might read it that way. By "ultimate winners" I meant winners at the fest -- as in, taking home a lot of kudos -- not winners *over* anyone else.

Apologies for playing a little loose with the improv/sketch distinction. That sprung from two sources. First, one group did something they called "long-form improv" -- but it really seemed to be sketch comedy, using *a* suggestion from the audience *once* during a 25-minute performance. A little confusing...! Second, at least one sketch group's program read "improv, improv, improv" in the performer descriptions. As in, "see more of our work in the XYZ improv group."

So...there just seemed to be a lot of sketch & improv going on. There was a lot of poetry, too. None of 'em jammed up the fest at all.

Austinist will soon be delving into the improv world. We want to know more about the art form. In other words, more coming soon!

bob

--First, I'm glad to see so much great coverage of Frontera. Thanks Julie and Austinist!

--Second ...for the record, there were a mere 5 improv groups out of the entire festival (which was, by my calculations, about 80 or so groups). I'm not sure why 'improv' would have been the catch phrase, as it was the same as or less than the number of Slam Poetry-related groups (or many other disciplines/forms) in the festival. In addition, only 1 improv group made it into the Best Of Week shows (improv group Tight). While any mention of improv is great (thanks!), your article makes it sound as though the Fest was waterlogged with improv groups, which it really was not.

--Last, I didn't realize that there was an implied competition between improv and slam poetry, or between anything in the festival. My understanding is that the point of the festival was just to present different types of shows to crowds that might not usually be exposed to some. While I really enjoyed the slam poetry i did see (rightly so for it to be in the Best Of shows), I don't see the need to define Slam Poetry as "ultimate winners" over improv or over any other type of show in the festival. If anything, any artforms like that should be working together rather than seeing each other as competition within our cozy little city.

Jooley_Ann

Aw, shucks! Glad you liked it.

As for the haiku, they tell you in elementary school that it's 5-7-5 form (that's syllables), and relates to nature. But apparently that's not exactly correct: http://www.haikuhut.com/Haiku%20Definition.htm

More than you ever wanted to know about 'em, eh?

Jonathon

if i could remember how to structure a haiku, i'd be clever and declare to the world how much i laughed at that post...in haiku form. unfortunately all you get is a lame old sentence. jesus, how lame.