Zachary Scott Theatre's presentation of Seussical might not be the best "My First Musical" experience, but small theatre-goers will enjoy its swift pace and bright visuals, while Mom and Dad delight in the brightest members of its ensemble....

Last Saturday, actor Will Ferrell made a quick stop in Austin during a press tour for his new film Semi-Pro. He also attended a sneak preview of the film and did a Q&A session at the Alamo Drafthouse, where attendees were required to dress in 70's basketball attire for admission - you can see the Drafthouse "team photo" here. Austinist's Tom Thornton and Gordon And The Whale's Chase Whale spoke briefly to Ferrell during the media day....

Yes we can ... win 3 primaries for delegates in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. Texas State still wants a "body farm" in San Marcos. Wait, what's San Marcos currently? Prison escapee Abel Morin caught in South Texas yesterday. Researchers are revealing hidden complexities behind the simple act of kissing, which relays powerful messages to your brain, body and partner....

ImageAfter Art Last Wednesday, a Francis Bacon triptych sold at a Christie's auction for about $51 million. This is the highest price ever paid at a European auction for a post-war work. The sale, according to Christie's, demonstrates "the underlying, continued strength of the market" for art across the world. /// Actor Randy Quaid has been "banned for life" from the Actors' Equity Association, the labor union for American stage actors, for "physically and verbally"......

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....

Hillary plants one again, this time at the Republican debate. Broadway re-opens tonight. The newly proposed tuition hike brings about protests from the UT student body. Family lawyer claims "Baby Grace" was murdered for not saying "Please" or "Yes, sir". Iran is cracking down on rap music. Half of immigrants in Texas are illegal. We may be late on this one, but has anyone seen the man that is turning into a tree? Click......

Photo of Emily Tindall and Leslie Chastain courtesy UT Dep’t Theatre & Dance Ashes, Ashes8pm Saturday, 2pm SundayWinship Drama Building (UT Campus)[info] | [tickets]Ashes, Ashes, closing this weekend at UT, is the most visually-impressive theatrical work we’ve seen anywhere in quite awhile. We’ve even been to lower-end Broadway productions that didn’t have half the visual whammy of this retro-futuristic extravaganza. We simply couldn’t tear our eyes away from the post-Victorian steampunk fantasia created by the......

Zombie is the watchword this time around. Not only is Rob Zombie unmasking his take on 1978’s slasher classic Halloween this weekend, the Alamo Drafthouse has also managed to round up a herd of zombie sheep from New Zealand for your viewing (really resisting the urge to say ewe-ing) pleasure. If you could care less about the grisly fate Rob Zombie doles out to lustful babysitters and the thought of zombie sheep does nothing......

[This post comes from William Coombes, who'll soon be joining the Austinist staff!] Looking for theatre, music and nudity? Arts on Real/Naughty Austin gives you the goods with their current production of The Full Monty. Truly a rags-to-not-for-profit-riches story, Arts on Real is a glorious diamond in the rough for the local theatre scene. This home-grown venue is well used by Naughty Austin, who continue to provide the city's best "alternative" entertainment. Along with the......

We're sure you already know this because, after all, what else could you have possibly been doing on Sunday night other than watching the 2007 Tony Awards broadcast live on CBS? It's not like there was anything else on TV. Nevertheless, in case you missed it, former Austinite Julie White scored a Best Actress Tony for playing a lesbian Hollywood agent in Douglas Carter Beane's The Little Dog Laughed. White was nominated alongside the likes......

Austinist recently had the opportunity to speak with Rue McClanahan in anticipation of tonight's book-signing at Book People and her Sunday afternoon appearance at Zach Scott Theatre. For the latter, in a format much like Inside the Actors Studio, Ms. McClanahan will be dishing with Zach’s Dave Steakly about her new book, her upcoming projects, and all-things-Rue. Tickets are selling fast…so fast that the appearance up and moved to the Kelberg Stage to accommodate a......

We had the pleasure of checking out the opening night show of Mamma Mia!, the hit Broadway musical set to classic ABBA songs. We found the cast of the traveling song-and-dance spectacle to be fantastic, delivering an intensely energetic performance while managing nearly a dozen costume changes. Set on an island off the coast of Greece, the plot revolves around Sophie, a charming if naive 20-year-old girl who's been raised solely by her mother,......

The following films played Saturday, March 10th as part of the SXSW Film Festival: Campaign - This Japanese doc follows the travails of a "parachute" candidate for the Kawasaki city council. He's called that because he moved to the city specifically to run for office through his allegiance to the powerful LDP party. Japan is as big a character as the candidate, as the candid shots of life there offer revealing snippets of the......

Broadway casting group Telsey + Company (Wicked, Hairspray, Rent is looking for hot new male talent--aren't we all?--for an upcoming production entitled Cry Baby. Based on John Water's campy 1990 flick starring Johnny Depp, Ricki Lake, Iggy Pop, and Stephen Baldwin, Cry Baby told the classic tale of a gentle street thug who falls in love with a totally square chick, but then some bad stuff happens along the way that we can't remember.......

Less than two weeks remain before UT Performing Arts Center officially begins its limited run of Lion King, and crews at Bass Concert Hall are working feverishly to complete the interior renovations. Two hundred seats have been removed from the venue, which normally holds nearly 3,000 people, to make room for the grand opening processional, putting the audience right in the middle of the action. The critically acclaimed, Tony award winning Broadway adaptation of......

Austinite and UT grad Kelley Caleb Hunt was just selected as the winner of a national online storytelling contest, after submitting the hilarious video narrative above about his experience applying for an "international vegetable courier" gig. The contest--sponsored by TNT cable network, MySpace, and NYC nonprofit storytelling group The Moth--was judged by a panel that included actress Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) and author/humorist Andy Borowitz (The Borowitz Report). As the winning storytelling, Hunt......

FRIDAY [12] Some of you have asked that we publish the Weekend IST List on Thursdays, in order to better help you plan your goings-on. We're happy to oblige. Starting today, we'll be including Friday-Sunday listings both on Thursday and Fridays. --Ed. Note music • Yacht Rock Party with DJ Starsign -- Chicago, Steely Dan, America, Air Supply, Toto, Boz Scaggs, Loggins and Messina, Carole King, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Doobie Brothers, Seals and......

THURSDAY [11] Some of you have asked that we publish the Weekend IST List on Thursdays, in order to better help you plan your goings-on. We're happy to oblige. Starting today, we'll be including Friday-Sunday listings both on Thursday and Fridays. --Ed. Note party/fundraiser • Kickoff party for 2007 Hill Country Ride for AIDS at La Zona Rosa (7:30pm) party/theatre • Launch party for film/theatre magazine Caught in the Act at Molotov Lounge (7-10pm)......

Tickets for the hotly anticipated Broadway Across America performances of The Lion King at Bass Concert Hall go on sale tomorrow morning. An insider tipster tells us that there's already someone lined up. As the limited engagement is almost guaranteed to sell out, UT PAC recomends that you show up in advance before tomorrow morning's ticket sale begins. For the first three hours, tickets are only available in person at the Bass Concert Hall box......

A Love to Hide (Un Amour A' Taire)Drama, Dir. Christian Faure, 2006 Screens: Tuesday, October 3rd at 7pm "An elegant, nuanced drama with horrific subject matter, A Love to Hide is set in Paris in 1942. Jean and Philippe, two young gay lovers in occupied France, risk their lives to hide a childhood Jewish friend, Sarah, whose family has been killed by the Gestapo. They struggle to survive as a makeshift family in a......

Welcome to a deliberately antagonistic This Week in Theatre, inspired by St. Nicholas – Hyde Park Theatre's one-man show about a theatre critic who hangs out with vampires. Not so subtle, and starring HPT’s Artistic Tour de Force, Ken Webster – a man who’s reportedly tumultuous relationship with local critics befits his role in said production. (Not that we’ve ever had any run-ins with Ken. Ever. Not even one time.) We say this to......

Billing themselves as an "indie-vaudeville-conceptual-art-rock-slideshow" band, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are a quirky -- if not downright hilarious -- mom, pop, and daughter trio who create and perform songs about random slides found at garage sales, vintage shops, estate sales, and other places where vintage archival flotsam might be procured. Frontman, guitarist, pianist, and father Jason Trachtenburg leads mother Tina Piña (slide projectionist, backup singer) and 12-year-old daughter Rachel (drums, vocals) through intricate......

There's a mighty long menu of theatre being served up in A-town over the next week or so...all of it intriguing. Hyde Park Theatre, Coda Theater Project, and the new St Idiot Collective open shows this Thursday. And the dirigo group, swooping in ahead of the pack, sneak previewed Daniel MacIvor's In On It last weekend at the Off Center. This funny, engaging story of a playwright's struggle with some of life's larger questions......

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 scourged all the theatre listings this week, endlessly digging for all the dirt on all the shows in all the venues from all the companies in all of Central Texas, we realized…there is no spoon. There’s also practically nothing opening this weekend. But never fear, dear theatre goer, there’s plenty, plenty of shows that are still running from previous weeks that – if you haven’t already seen them – will forever haunt......

There's some fresh blood in Austin's theatrical waters. Our first instinct was to round them up in our pickup, blindfold them, and spank 'um real hard with cricket bats. But that's been done. Instead, we bring you news of the very first production -- ever -- by The Vestige Group. Fat Pig, a play about a good looking guy who falls for a woman who, according to "society's norms", he shouldn't have been attracted......

Our common pitch to the non-theatre-goer: Hey, you’re a fun looking guy/gal. Wanna give something new a try? You know that persnickety twitch in the back of your head, reminding you that you feel disconnected from friends, neighbors and co-workers? You know how, in a quiet moment, alone in your apartment with the sinking feeling that there just isn’t anything imaginable that you could possibly want to do, you wish that you’d felt one......

That's right, tonight is your chance to do the hump. The Humpty Hump, that is. The Funk-lectic rap collection known as Digital Underground are in town tonight and will be performing at the Rosewood Recreation Center. Digital Underground is led by Shock G, better known as the man who "once got busy in a Burger King bathroom" -- Humpty Hump. "The Humpty Dance" was one of the first rap songs we learned all the......

Starting tonight, "The Producers" comes to Austin for a weeklong run at Bass Concert Hall. With Bob Amaral playing failed musical producer Max Bialystock and Andy Taylor in the role of accountant Leo Bloom, we're sure this will be a hilarious and faithful rendition of the Broadway phenomenom, which has won just about every Tony Award ever. This outta tide you over until the movie remake starring Will Ferrell, Uma Thurman, Nathan Lane and......

Van Horn, Texas: population 3000, 460 miles west of Austin. The town exists as a waypoint for travelers making the trek from El Paso to the eastern half of Texas, which is evidently sufficient to sustain the 17 motels and 16 gas stations along the main street - a somewhat ambitiously misnomered "Broadway".It was here that we previously discovered the color-soaked eclectic treasure trove that is Texas' Only Van Gogh Gallery. The store's description stems......