As happens this time every year, the last few months have been pretty slow at Austinist Theatre Central. The 2005-2006 season wrapped by late August or so, including the shorter, simpler summer productions and workshops that seem to be mainstays of so many local theatre companies. Finally the '06-'07 season is well planned and underway, and while we're looking forward to some exciting upcoming productions, we're also in the mood to look back at......

And they're off.... The nominations for this year's B. Iden Payne Awards have been announced. We received 'em this morning, straight from the offices of the Austin Circle of Theatres. If you want to get in on the action, ballots will be available starting this Thursday, September 21, at ACoT (701 Tillery Street) & AusTIX (kiosk at the Austin Visitors Center, 209 E. 6th Street). You must be an ACoT member to vote, but......

When a group of fantastic actors gets together, the expectations are high. St Idiot Collective’s roster reads like an all star team, with nearly every performer a theatre scene big-wig or rising star. While their talents were clearly visible in the collective’s first production, Vaudeville Vanya, on the whole the show was a misfire. Vaudeville Vanya is an adaptation of Uncle Vanya – one of Anton Chekov’s most storied serio-comedies about educated narcissists trying......

In honor of the big bi-lingual show that’s opening in town this week, we thought to ourselves, hey – why not write this post in both English and Spanish? But we don’t speak Spanish, so we used an online translator. El ir al teatro hará que las mujeres tienen sexo con usted. And now, on with our ¡Selección de Austinist de la semana! It’s a very close call between Petra’s Cuento, the aforementioned bi-lingual......

It’s pretty hard not to like Salvage Vanguard’s Intergalactic Nemesis trilogy (of which we saw Episode II: The Return of the Intergalactic Nemesis this past Friday). As the lights come up, an incredibly dry and playfully sarcastic LB Deyo introduces the show like a late night personality doing his opening bit. The audience warms, then laughs – almost as if Deyo is their new buddy, with whom they’re merely shootin’ the shit. By the......

When it comes to staging new plays, everything rests on the quality of the writing. Engaging, thought-provoking, and markedly innovative, the writing in Ryan Pavelchik’s new play, Static, is simply fantastic. The play’s first half is dark, disconnected, and confusing as it follows Josh, the main character, “breaking himself apart”. We’re introduced to characters we can’t hear or see, and bits of Josh’s past we can’t piece together or relate to the present. We......