With Beirut’s ads proclaiming, “Nudity. Sexually Explicit Material. Adults Only,” audiences might think they'll be seeing a titillating show. While there is plenty of nudity, it isn’t of the arousing sort. In this hour-long saga of love, lust and sexual deprivation, the actors (and real-life newlyweds) Patterson and Vogt-Patterson go at each other with a clawing intensity and emotional rawness that pulls you into their dark tale of doomed love....

Thirteen years after founding Salvage Vanguard Theater, Artistic Director Jason Neulander is stepping down. Neulander has grown SVT from a crazy little fringe collective to a powerhouse producer of cutting-edge works. No doubt it'll be very exciting to see what he gets into next....

Blue Lapis Light's newest production opened last weekend, and we had chance to take it in. Illumination is the latest site-specific aerial dance work from Blue Lapis Light’s Artistic Director Sally Jacques. We were totally wowed by how pretty the show was. We might've even spent at least part of the time with our mouth hanging open—we were that amazed by the sheer spectacle. Illumination features dancers/aerialists moving around the big open space of the......

Some 300 competitors in 75 teams are set to converge upon Austin next week for the 2007 National Poetry Slam, a five-day competition that will feature some of the country's most talented slam artistry. NPS officially runs from August 7 through August 11th, but event organizers are hosting a series of preview events starting today to showcase some of what you can expect to see at the performances. "We're fortunate to be able to again......

[This post comes from Anna Hanks, who'll soon be joining the Austinist staff!] We admit that when it comes to being entertained, we have the attention span of a kitten. We’re happily distracted by bright shiny costumes, jingly bells, and the occasional gilded, squeaky rubber chicken, especially when said chicken is employed to excellent comedic effect. Put a capable, young, red-headed actress charmed with crazy comedic timing into a twinkly, jingly costume, and we’re smitten.......

Owing to construction delays, Salvage Vanguard Theater's hotly-anticipated launch party and opening production of Mud has been pushed back by at least a week. The new start dated is slated for Thursday, June 7th, assuming all goes as planned. "It's been completely crazy. We're completely crazy. We tried to wrap this job up in two months and one week. That was nuts! The reality is that it's going to take two months and two......

Founded in 1986, The Austin Children’s Choir presently boasts over one hundred members from 45 different schools. Comprised of four singing groups based on the students’ skill and age, the choir performs unique concerts throughout the year while also making special appearances as needed. This weekend, the Choir performs an interpretation of Homer’s The Odyssey: No Childsplay, headed by Artistic Director Kathleen Turner, composed by Graham Reynolds, and translated by Beverly Bardsley. Reynolds’ vast......

'Tis the week of the fest here in A-town, and making the biggest bang is Refraction Arts' Fuse Box Festival, starting this Friday. Fuse Box is a three-week smörgåsbord of performance and other types of arts, featuring artists from around the globe. We've got this one covered, with pointers to a few things that stood out to us this week. Along those lines, this Saturday's Blue 60 — the Fuse Box fundraiser and kick-off party......

Nearly a year ago, Austin theatre company Salvage Vanguard made the fabulous announcement that they were finally settling down after twelve years of wandering about town, and committing to a single performance space. That new space, on 2308 Manor Road and within spitting distance of the Vortex and the El Gringo/Chile/Chilito goodness, would eventually contain a 100-seat performance space, offices, a rehearsal studio, and a dozen smaller studios to be used by fellow theatre......

Recently seen in another local media resource: "OK, I'll say it: Ken Webster's "St. Nicholas" is a tour de force." Ken Webster is an actor, the Producing Artistic Director of Hyde Park Theatre, and an advocate of the idea that more local actors and performers should get their 15 minutes of fame. From the beginning, he has been a part of FronteraFest, Austin's annual fringe theatre festival which opens its stages to dozens of......

When you spend nearly every weekend watching all forms of low-budget, pseudo-experimental performance in barely converted warehouses, you find yourself yearning for shows that are just a little more polished. So, when a new company sprouts up, featuring ballet allstars from around the country, and headed by both a nationally recognized choreographer and composer, your interest is piqued. Enter American Repertory Ensemble. The company’s first production, Dialogues, was part contemporary ballet, part classical music......

Theatre fans aren’t hurtin’ for stuff to do this week. So let the good times roll, people. Let ‘em roll theatre-style. Put your hands together for our Austinist Pick of the Week, Free Night of Theatre! Not just one, but like a bazillion completely free shows in Austin, and across the nation. (That’s right, jetsetter – even if you’re out of town, it’s no worries, because the metro area you’re closest to is probably......

An Austin staple, the Capital City Men's Chorus, is putting on their fourth annual Midnight Cabaret this weekend. The Chorus' Artistic Director, Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, explained to us the impetus for starting an annual cabaret: the Chorus wanted to sing some music that they didn't feel comfortable performing in their typical venues (churches), so they set this up a few years ago at the Vortex. He describes it as "Twisted but not dangerous; tasteless but......

All y'all theatre fans will already know that Austin’s fringe giants, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, are about to whoop some theatrical ass on a big time national tour. The Intergalactic Nemesis, the company’s wildly popular live-performance-sci-fi-radio-drama-send-up, kicks things off with a performance at UT’s Hogg Auditorium TONIGHT ONLY, 8pm. (To all y'all who aren’t theatre fans: see this show; be converted.) Info, tickets, etc, -- visit SVT’s website. In anticipation, we bring you one of......

Ah, Austin. Quirky, quaintly subversive, and highlighted by outlandish old hippies with a hankerin’ for the demon weed, our fair city is cutely characterized in Zach Scott Theatre's wildly popular Keepin’ It Weird. The show isn’t perfect (towards the end especially – it gets downright hokey), but dag gummit if you’re not having fun in the first five minutes, chances are you’re dead, you’re Pat Robertson, or you’re from Dallas. This show should be......

Alright. Gloves off. We’ve been snarked on in the past for flippantly referring to productions at the Vortex as “naked theatre”. Taking that into consideration, we’d like to bring to your attention some “adults only” (read: probably naked) theatre opening this weekend. Bell(e): The Museum of Suicide Machinery is a “mesh of performance art, visual installation, experimental theatre, and sound montage” from Austin’s purveyors of the out-there-experimental, Ethos. Anne Marie Gordon designs the scenery......

Look out folks. There's a new theatre initiative kicking off this weekend, and it sounds like a genuinely interesting one (versus the kinds that come with lots of Ivory Tower mumbo jumbo, plenty of grant money, and...not much to offer for schmoes like us who just like to connect with really good theatre). As part of their Groundplans outreach program, Yellow Tape Construction Company is launching the Under Construction series this weekend, with a......

Is the burlesque art form enjoying a resurgence? Here in Austin, Red Light Burlesque, started in 2001, claims the earliest origins. Kitty Kitty Bang Bang has been around since 2002. Newcomers to the scene include Shrewd After Dark, who started doing burlesque last year, and the brand new Jigglewatts. There's even a national tour, The Most Dangerous Burlesque Tour in the World, coming to Emo's in November courtesy of the Suicide Girls (er, that......

Have you ever watched a comedy -- especially a dark comedy -- all by yourself? Imagine sitting in your living room, lights out, big bowl o' popcorn by your side, taking in Dr. Strangelove. Alone. That's what it's like to see a theatrical production of a dark comedy with a scant number of fellow audience members. There's a self-consciousness to all responses; laughing in particular feels forced. Such was our experience when we attended......

Maybe some of you noticed the recent passing of the State Theatre. (By “passing”, we really mean “death”.) The June water main break that flooded the theatre – moving artists like Kathy Dunn Hamrick and Steven Tomlinson to other venues in town – has now, for all intents and purposes, killed the organization entirely. At the very least, the current season is all but canceled, and all State Theatre staff (except Artistic Director Michelle......

Today at noon the National Poetry Slam officially kicks off with opening ceremonies at City Hall. Mayor Will Winn and 2006 NPS Artistic Director Mike Henry will be there to preside over the ceremonies, hosting an "estimated 500 competitors, coaches, staff members, and volunteers". Dang. That's a lot of poets. And poet friends. Folks with NPS badges get free lunch! There is so much amazing programming for NPS this year, a lot of it......

When your roster of artists includes dancers from the Joffrey Ballet, Boston Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theatre, musicians from the Tosca String Quartet, and two Artistic Directors that are already rising stars in their respective disciplines, your work has to meet some seriously high expectations. After seeing Dialogues, American Repertory Ensemble’s first performance event – a highly professional, intelligent, inventive and entertaining evening of music and dance – we think ARE lives......

(Photo by Matt Wright) As children, we were a car trip family. Five of us would pack into a Subaru and set sail from Cleveland for other, even more Midwestern destinations. Places like Lawrence, Kansas, where great grandmother lived until her death in 2004. In high school, we'd stand in the alley behind Grandma's house, sneaking cigarettes where the family couldn't see. Back there we saw the sordid underbelly of Lawrence -- kids up......

Capital T Theatre, led by Artistic Director Mark Pickell, is getting down to brass tacks. Small, young companies like Capital T – especially in Austin – often suffer from a lack of focus or attention to detail. In his production of A Brief History of Helen of Troy, however, Pickell does a fine job in replicating the kind of aesthetic and professionalism you might find Off-Broadway. The lighting design is intelligent and effective; the......

As we enter into another weekend of hard nosed thespianic action, we remember being 15. Everyone told us we were worthless and ugly, so we turned to a life of porn – that’d show ‘um, bastards. It’s a familiar story. So familiar in fact, that it’s the focus of our Austinist Pick of the Week: A Brief History of Helen of Troy. You know those posters around town where the young-looking girl is sucking......

Interested in seeing Yellow Tape Construction Company's eagerly anticipated show, opening this weekend, I Love My Dead Gay Son: The Musical? Be the first to fill out the form below, and you'll score one pair of free tickets for this Friday's performance! UPDATE: Congrats, winners! Want to know more? Here's how the Yeller's Co-Artistic Director Jonathon Morgan describes this new work: Follow Veronica as she falls for JD – the dark, brooding new kid......

Salvage Vanguard Theater is about to get big -- real big. Long established as one of Austin's fringe theatre giants, SVT is going national with a full-scale tour of their Intergalactic Nemesis series (not to mention a possible commercial run in NYC). They'll return home just in time to move into their brand spankin' new performance space and mount Nemesis again at the 1,200 seat Hogg Auditorium here in town. But according to Jason......

Just kidding. We don't think this is the kind of party where they'll appreciate sloppy dancing, slurred apologies, and that story you like to repeat when you're blinding-ass-drunk. In fact, with Blue Lapis Light at the helm, it'll probably be a very classy affair. The shindig features local and national celebrities, including Blue Lapis Light Artistic Director Sally Jaques and Oscar-nominated film director Kimberlee Acquaro. You'll also get a little snippet from the wildly......

We are the Walrus. We are the Eggman. We are a shameless, self-promoting, self-interested no-goodnik with nothing but themselves at heart. We also have difficulty conjugating verbs while writing in the royal “we”. Why all the self-loathing? Because we've picked ourselves as the Austinist pick of the week! Even though Austin Lyric Opera is celebrating Mozart's 250th birthday by performing what is arguably the best opera ever written.... Even though Austin Shakespeare Festival, upon......

Those theatrical ruffians over at Salvage Vanguard, after 12 years of sowing their wild oats all over Austin's performance scene, are finally settling down with just one theatre. Only hours ago they signed an 8 year lease on 2308 Manor Rd -- a few blocks east of the already well known Vortex Theatre. The new 100 seat performance spaced will be flanked by a 1600 sq ft rehearsal studio, administrative offices, and 12 small......