Austinist Preview: New Plays at UT

Monkey kings. Dark and stormy nights. 8-foot long fingernails. PTSD paranoia. Dance Dance Revolution. Put it all together.... We go to the theatre to experience worlds beyond our norm. This week, UT will host some astounding acts of the imagination in the form of new plays by local emerging playwrights Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig and Jenny Connell.

Summer People, pictured top, is the story of one summer on the coast of Maine, and what happens when war and the homefront converge. Playwright Connell has been at work on this play since last winter, when an early version premiered at Frontera Fest's Short Fringe. Her preparation included extensive research into PTSD in Iraq veterans.

As described by Yvonne Lim Wilson on AsianAustin.com, in 410 [GONE], pictured bottom, "a sister journeys to the Chinese Land of the Dead to search for her missing brother, encountering a frenetic, arcade landscape where The Goddess of Mercy and The Monkey King reign, and Dance Dance Revolution is the secret to unforgetting. Juxtaposing the closet where the Asian American teen killed himself with his ancestral home beneath a mountain in eastern China, the play follows the siblings as the sister searches for meaning inside suicide, and her brother tries to remember who he is while navigating the hijinks of the mythical beings." For more details, check out Wilson's interview with playwright Ya-Chu Cowhig.

Summer People runs October 17 at 8 pm and October 19 at 2 pm. 410[GONE] runs October 15 and 16 at 8 pm. The October 16-17 performances will be part of the National Free Night of Theatre, for which UT will be giving away 30 free seats to each performance.