John Malkovich, accompanied by two lovely sopranos (Louise Fribo and Martene Grimson) and backed by the Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, is in full scenery-chewing glory in his portrayal of the real-life Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger. Indeed, the entire ensemble of this production - part one-man show, part opera - is on point, and utterly worth seeing. The trouble here is that the show's concept is a mean-spirited mess. more ›

We don't get many shows as good as Black Watch in Austin. That's not a dig on our local talent. They don't get many shows as good as Black Watch in London or Chicago, either. If the challenge of theater -- or any art form, really, but particularly one whose continued relevance can be called into question the way that theater's can -- is to powerfully assert why it exists, and why the work being done in the medium can only be done on stage, in the form in which it appears, then Black Watch stands among a handful of contemporary performances -- like Nick Stafford's War Horse or the Rude Mechs' Method Gun -- as proof that theater's continued existence is vital, because without it, we couldn't get stories like this. more ›

David Crosby and Graham Nash are, of course, two-thirds of the much-beloved Crosby, Stills & Nash, as well as distinguished alumni of the Byrds and the Hollies respectively. But the duo has celebrated their musical friendship on their own for four decades, scattering hit singles (“Immigration Man”), infamous LPs (Another Stoney Evening) and plenty of socially conscious good vibes across the pop music landscape. more ›

Interdependent commentary has always been at the root of Coleman’s music, and is what helps to make it sound so natural, simple and easy, even with superimposed rhythmic and melodic lines or bursts of instrumental commentary. When he released Sound Grammar in 2004, recorded with the same quartet that will be appearing Thursday, some critics were assuming that he would reinvent the wheel for his first record in almost a decade. What they got was pure, classic Coleman. more ›

Levon Helm, Ray LaMontagne and the Secret Sisters at Bass Concert Hall, November 12, 2010. Photos by Steve Hopson. more ›

There are a few different ways that the contemporary rock band musical is structured. Most of them take a paper-thin, random plot and tack a bunch of songs from, say, Abba or Queen or Billy Joel onto it. Their triumphs and failures correspond to the rising and falling crescendos of "Take A Chance On Me" or "We Didn't Start The Fire", and audiences who like the idea of a night at the theater, but bristle at the notion of hearing songs that they aren't already familiar with, get what they paid for. more ›

Perhaps The Wizard of Oz, a touring musical based on a late 1980s Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of the 1939 MGM movie-musical based on the 1900 children's novel by L. Frank Baum (did you get all that?) can be forgiven for its association with the annoying "remake/reimagining" trend, if only because the various adaptations have all had a bit more time to age. Regardless, Austin was recently host to a three-night stand of the show at the University of Texas' Bass Concert Hall, and the production's largely British creative team and relatively youthful American cast played to crowds filled with delighted children, and managed to largely avoid the wink-wink “this joke is for the parents” Disney-isms endemic to child-oriented entertainment in the past few decades. more ›

Apparently food writing as is big as Neil Young and Van Morrison: The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Rules author Michael Pollan has been added to the 2010-11 UT Performing Arts calendar for "An Evening With Michael Pollan" on December 10th. No word on whether he's playing acoustic or with a backing band. In addition to speaking at giant auditoriums, Pollan has become the most recognizable face of the sustainable food movement, emphasizing support of local farmers, a decreased reliance on store-bought boxes of food products, and a generally more thoughtful approach to what one eats. His book The Botany Of Desire also led to a PBS documentary in 2009. more ›

Austinites have enjoyed Tegan and Sara’s previous concerts at the city’s traditional, (dare we say) run-of-the-mill live music spots like Emo’s or Stubb’s. All that changes this Friday when UTPAC’s majestic Bass Concert Hall hosts the Canadian act’s latest foray into town. A slightly odd random choice of venue, it may seem, but considering the twins’ penchant for frequent, cute banter between songs, the seated auditorium could well be the perfect setting for the sisters Quin to bestow their obvious charm, not to mention irresistible melodies and forlorn tales, upon the audience. more ›

Outside of the Archie or superhero world, comic art lurks in some fairly dark places. Three of the most prominent members of the alternative comics movement will be at the Bass Concert Hall on Friday to discuss their art, work, and the culture they've helped to create. Robert Crumb, founder of the underground comix movement, will join Art Spiegelman in a discussion moderated by fellow artist and Spiegelman's wife, Françoise Mouly. more ›

Identical twins and collaborative performers Tegan and Sara will be at Bass Concert Hall on Friday, February 26, 2010. They'll be supporting their latest album, Sainthood, on-sale October 27. Tickets are on sale Friday, October 16 at 10 a.m. through UTPAC. We know the show is a ways off, but we're offering a chance to win tickets early, so mark your calendar and enter to win: more ›

If there's a musical genre that Elvis Costello has missed over the past 30 years, hold on a year or two and he'll probably record an album to cover the omission. The eclectic nature of Costello's prolific catalog began all the way back in 1981 with Almost Blue, a collection of country covers that featured Hank Williams and Gram Parsons tunes. Since then, he's often veered away from his main job as a rock singer-songwriter to tackle chamber pop (1982's Imperial Bedroom), roots rock (1986's amazing King Of America), classical (1993's The Juliet Letters), easy listening (1998's Burt Bacharach collaboration Painted From Memory), torch songs (2003's North), and even opera (2004's Il Sogno). In recent years, he's done collaboration albums with both New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint and indie-pop darlings Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice. Confused yet? more ›

The first thing you need to know about Wicked is that you should go see it. It’s fabulous. Before we drill down into the fabulousness, the second thing you need to know is that seats are very hard to come by, as shows are either sold out or only have scattered single seats available. The third thing to know—and this is important—is that each night, 2 hours before curtain, there is a lottery held to sell a limited number of tickets for the totally excellent price of $25. To qualify, show up 2.5 hours beforehand, get your name on the list, wait thirty minutes, and if they call you, have i.d. ready and you can get two tickets. This is a very worthwhile effort, trust us. Now, about the show. In 1900, L. Frank Baum’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, introducing Dorothy and the Land of Oz and all that. Two years later, the book was produced as a play. Thirty-seven years after that the movie version, The Wizard of Oz, came out and remains one of the best loved films of all time. more ›

The cast of Annie, which played last weekend at Bass Concert Hall had the proverbial big shoes to fill. For the most part they succeeded admirably and the overall performance experience was one not to forget. more ›

This weekend, June 5-7 at 8pm, Annie appears at the Bass Concert Hall. Part of the Broadway Across America series, this is the 30th anniversary tour of a production that took home the Tony for Best Musical in 1977 and earned a nomination for Revival in 1997. more ›

Waiter, waiter, there’s HAIR in my musical! It certainly seems that way with RENT, the smash hit Broadway musical currently playing at the Bass Concert Hall. And the plot/musical numbers aren’t just reminiscent, at times, of that other musical, HAIR. The audience will get whiffs of other shows, too. But above all, the plot derives (purposefully) from Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème, right down to the same-named female protagonists— Mimi— who, in both the original opera and the Broadway show, are both overly flirtatious and terminally ill. But one needn’t be familiar with the opera to enjoy its updated version. RENT is packed with some outstanding moments and more than a few excellent songs. Basically, what we have is a group of young, fucked up, starving artist types squatting in NYC’s East Village, trying to figure out life and love and, like, you know, The Meaning of It All. Is this a tired premise? Certainly not for fans of literary archetypes—the old man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs. nature (or the concrete jungle in this instance). Mark (Anthony Rapp) is our narrator, a documentary filmmaker hounded by his answering machine, which fills up with nagging messages from, among others, his Jewish mother and a TV producer wanting him to make a soul-selling deal-with-the-devil. His roommate, Roger (Adam Pascal), is HIV positive, rendered more or less agoraphobic until Mimi (Lexi Lawson) the junkie-stripper with AIDs hurls herself at him and mad love ensues. more ›

UTPAC has just announced a September 1 performance at Bass Concert Hall featuring Elvis Costello & the Sugarcanes. The all-acoustic band will be supporting the release of Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane, out on June 2. Tickets go on sale May 18 at 10 a.m. For more info, click here. more ›

Fifteen years after the quintessential 90s musical made its debut at the New York Theatre Workshop and over a decade since it won the Pulitzer and big stack of Tony Awards for its portrayal of artistic types living in America at the end of the millennium, Rent is coming to Bass Concert Hall, thanks to Broadway Across America. Originally conceived as a way to "bring Musical theater to the MTV generation", Rent exists as both a product of and a comment on the decade in which it's set. more ›

Avenue Q, the musical unleashed off-Broadway in 2003, is a send-up of Sesame Street, but everybody knows that by now, don’t they? Instead of mirroring the overly cheerful dispositions of the muppets that inspired their creation though, these puppets and the human characters they live with on a rundown street in New York are less concerned with exploring themes like counting and cooperation and more into examining why their lives suck. It’s a tale of coming of age and plain old coming, the latter occurring during a hilarious night of wild puppet sex prompted by the foreplay of drunken revelry. The show has enough of a buzz about it, even after all these years, to run the risk of…not exactly disappointing an expectant audience, but having to stretch pretty far to clear the bar. What with all the billboards around town promising puppet nudity and adult themes, you might arrive anticipating some NC-17 action. Nah. Sure there are plenty of funny bits about racism, homosexuality, Internet porn and schadenfreude, but overall the book is tame enough. more ›

Season subscriptions are now available for the newly-announced 2009-2010 Broadway Across America series, which locally is held at Bass Concert Hall. The season, which starts in October, includes Spring Awakening, The Color Purple, Fiddler on the Roof, In the Heights, and A Chorus Line. Individual tickets will be made available about two months before each production. [Broadway Across America] more ›

I grew up in a very large, very Catholic family, pre-pedophilic priest scandal, back when members of the faith did not question what they were told, and really embraced that whole sheep thing. At least my father did. He was a convert—they say these are the worst—and he marched us up to the front pew of our little parish church, where I’m sure the congregation seated behind us had a field day counting our heads (ELEVEN!) in astonishment. Besides being reminded regularly that God was punishing us for this or that—for instance, let’s say I punched my brother and then turned around a stubbed my toe, that would be God punishing me—we were also regularly reminded that we were going to hell. Very relaxing childhood, I’m telling yo more ›

Anticipation was in the coldish air as legions of students, faculty, patrons of the arts and everyone else queued up outside the beautifully revamped Bass Concert Hall, which opened just last month to the public at large. The reason? Not George Lopez or Gordon Lightfoot (who will visit in April and March, respectively), but a performance by Philip Glass, a minimalist, trailblazing composer who was performing his homage to the poetry of Leonard Cohen. more ›

The Canadian supernova commonly referred to as Broken Social Scene shook the walls at the newly-renovated Bass Concert Hall Saturday night, reveling in their first performance in the "new America." more ›

John and Paul. Mick and Keith. Roger and Pete. None of those famous duos are actually coming to Austin this spring, but you want to know who are turning up? Bret and Jemaine, aka Hip-Hopopotamus and Rhymenoceros, aka winner of the fake 2008 Grammys for best New Zealand act and best manager and the actual 2008 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. They're also in some show on HBO. Flight Of The Conchords will play the Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas on May 7th for all the ladies of the world (and anyone else who'd like to purchase a ticket.) more ›

The UT Performing Arts Center’s Bass Concert Hall is back in business after undergoing renovations over the last year and a half. BCH hosted John Legend last Friday and is home to two stellar events this weekend. On Saturday, Broken Social Scene brings its mesmerizing compositions to the remodeled venue but not before a very special evening entitled World of Sound this Friday. more ›

Those who've seen Broken Social Scene before may possibly recall that they are really durn good on stage. There are a whole bunch of them, they've all got talent, and as a strikingly peculiar bonus, they really seem to enjoy playing music with one another. And while the cascading guitars and sheer magnitude of their multi-instrumental assault may at times careen towards chaos, it always safely returns to the confectionary bliss of pure 21st century popism. more ›

You know that a leader can inspire the world when he can demolish Morrissey's misery by turning up. So on a day filled with hope and enthusiasm, we bring you some (suddenly less) mopey news: legendary solo artist and former Smiths frontman Steven Patrick Morrissey is returning to Austin on April 12. The show takes place at the new and improved Bass Concert Hall on The University of Texas campus less than two years after Mozzer's last Austin gig at (former large venue) The Backyard in 2007. more ›

Last May, the University of Texas Performing Arts Center undertook a major renovation project with Bass Hall. The venue, originally finished in 1981, sat about 2,800 and held a 100 member orchestra, but the $14 million Ponce de Leon-inspired upgrade and facelift has given the hall a new lease on life. more ›