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......

Off like a prom dress indeed. This summer, theatre in the A-burg is gonna get all raucous on yah ass. The newbies, the small, feisty, ain’t-takin’-no-shit-from-the-man performance companies du resistance are all comin’ outta the woodwork to rock your sweet casbah. With that in mind, our Austinist pick of the week is Minus Tide. It’s a co-produced effort from Bayou Radio Productions (which isn’t too dissimilar from the dirigo group) and Austin fringe heroes,......

We were among a highly select group of ridiculously hip industry insiders (that was a self-aggrandizing lie) invited to attend the preview performance of dirigo group’s latest production, A Human Interest Story, by Carlos Murillo. Little darlings of the Austin fringe performance scene, dirigo group are commonly mentioned in the same sentence with companies like the Rude Mechs, Salvage Vanguard and Refraction Arts. (Like we just did) We saw a lot we liked in......

Just because you were highlighted by American Theater Magazine as one of the country’s Hot, Hip, and on the Verge performance companies, or the Austin Chronicle called you Best Theatre for a Fresh Look, or you’ve been nominated for four B. Iden Payne Awards (and counting) – does that mean you can officially resign yourself to the hallowed artistic halls of pretentious slacker-dom? Apparently not. We wandered over to the Blue Theater this past......