Ken Webster never met a deep dark comedy he didn’t love. Once again, this time offering up his take on playwright Bert V. Royal’s, Dog Sees God, Hyde Park Theatre’s artistic director has produced and directed a humdinger of insightful sarcasm served up in perfect pitch black. There’s not a weak performance in the piece which imagines a more real, more down and dirty, emotionally raw world for players who resemble, remarkably, a certain collection of beloved cartoon characters original conjured by an artist who’s name rhymes with Marles Tultz. ...

Martin McDonagh's The Lonesome West, now playing at Hyde Park Theatre has nothing to do with Marfa or Alpine, so don't let the title fool you. Set in an Irish village where murder, suicide, and alcoholism are as common as eating and breathing, the play centers on two brothers who spend just about the entire show pissing off each other in increasingly creative ways. Compared to The Pillowman (which played last year at HPT), Lonesome West is almost sitcom light....

Photo by Bret Brookshire, courtesy Hyde Park Theatre Thom Pain (based on nothing)Through 12/22, Th/Fr/Sa at 8pmHyde Park Theatre (511 W. 43rd. Street)Reservations: 479-PLAY[info]Every so often when doing a review, we’ve gotta own up to something from our past. In this case, it’s that we used to be in a cult. In our defense, it was a good cult. Back in college we were part of the American Forensic Association*—"forensic" meaning “having to do with......

Last night, Austin Circle of Theaters ushered in a whole new batch of B. Iden Payne Award winners. The event took place on the lovely St. Ed's campus; MMNT artistic director Ev Lunning Jr. hosted, along with members of the Actor's Equity association. Local heroine Karen Kuykendall was this year's Outstanding Honoree; Austin Chronicle Arts Editor Robert Faires presented her award. It was an elegant and exciting evening, to be sure! We weren't shocked by......

Ken Webster has been having a mighty fine time of things lately. He was ushered into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame last summer. He was the subject of a big ol' cover article in the Austin Chronicle in April. Just last week he won an acting award from the 2007 Austin Critics' Table for two of his recent solo stage appearances, Thom Pain (based on nothing) and St. Nicholas (we can't help but think......

My how this city has grown. Austin used to be the kind of town where the summertime theatre offerings were slim pickings. Not so...not anymore. The joints are jumping, and this week is no exception. It's darn near impossible to offer a Pick of the Week, so this week we're suggesting not one but two productions we think you'll enjoy. First, however, we need to report on some awards show shenanigans that went down earlier......

'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......

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......

FRIDAY [2] music • A Fist Full of Duckets, featuring The Interest Kills, Finally Punk, and The Fucking Transmissions at The Mohawk (10pm, 18+, $6) ® music • Dave Barnes at Stubb's music • Black Before Red at End of an Ear (6pm, Free) ® music • Sparklehorse, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, Bill Baird (member of Sound Team) at Antone's ® music • For Her & The Snow, The Unfortunate Heads at......

That's right: it's time to heat up your winter nights again, with the 14th season of FronteraFest. The Short Fringe, the Long Fringe, or Mi Casa es su Teatro -- FronteraFest is five weeks of alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre presented by Hyde Park Theatre and Austin Script Works. For complete FronteraFest 2007 information, including times and locations for the Short Fringe, the Long Fringe and Mi Casa es su Teatro,......

FIRST THURSDAY [1] music • Tre Orsi (members of Shearwater, South San Gabriel, Little Grizzly), The Paper Chase, Red X Red M, at Emo's music/benefit • ME! Live presents the Emerging Artist Series Debut with Meagan Tubb band, Tacks, the Boy Disaster and the Channel at Antone’s (7pm, $5) music • Yonder Mountain String Band at La Zona Rosa music • Onion Creek Crawdaddies at Waterloo Records (5pm, Free) music • Horse + Donkey,......

MONDAY [29] opera • Philip Glass' Waiting for the Barbarians at Bass Concert Hall music • Unwed Sailor, Bayta Darell, The Twilight Lieutenants at Emo's Lounge music • Hidden Hand, Kylesa, The Roller, Ironclad at Emo's music • The Fray, Mute Math at Frank Erwin Center music • Hill Country Outdoors' New Member Meeting at Opal Divine's Penn Field film • Darkon: The Movie at Alamo Drafthouse Downtown film • Melody at Alamo Drafthouse......

That's right: it's time to heat up your winter nights again, with the 14th season of FronteraFest. The Short Fringe, the Long Fringe, or Mi Casa es su Teatro -- FronteraFest is five weeks of alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre presented by Hyde Park Theatre and Austin Script Works. For complete FronteraFest 2007 information, including times and locations for the Short Fringe, the Long Fringe and Mi Casa es su......

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......

We've made no secret of the fact that we like Ken Webster. We can't help ourselves. The man is good at what he does. And while we're not going to take credit -- although we have mentioned, repeatedly, that we'd like to see him take the stage more often -- we're happy to see he's turning out yet another one-man show over at Hyde Park Theatre these days. It's a deliciously odd one, too.......

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......

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......

Sometimes theatre is a deep, penetrating look into the human soul -- a full course dinner from soup to nuts. Other times it's more akin to tapas -- a variety of yummy snacks that adds up to light fare. Radio :30 (check out that whippy e-card!) at Hyde Park Theatre is somewhere in between. Both tragic and comic, both heavy and light, it's served up like tapas but lingers (in a good way) more......

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......

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......

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,......

Shrewd Productions' latest offering, Cheater, features the work of some seriously bad ass local playwrights, including Michael Kranes, Robert LeBlanc, Gregory Romero, Ken Webster, Mical Trejo, and Andrea Skola, who also directs. Plus, the cast includes (amongst other notables) Monika Bustamante and Lana Dietrich -- awesome! Now you, dear reader, can cheat your way out of paying to see this fine performance, simply by filling out the form below. Ok, it's not really cheating......

Ah, the theatre. Drenched in history, glory, shame, and the passionate pursuit of dreams. Wrought with the epitomic struggles of man – the epochal moments of our modern age – wrangling that which is humanity onto our most noble public platform – the stage. So yeah, just like every week there’s a manwich-size portion of performance going on in town this weekend. Beyond the kick-ass stuff that’s already going on, the new show garnishing......

We hate to whine, but sometimes writing reviews can be really difficult. You'd think it'd be the negative reviews we'd struggle with, but nope. It's the glowingly positive ones. This explains our delay in getting our thoughts about Hyde Park Theatre's current production, The Glory of Living, onto paper. Or rather, ether. We liked this production so much that we're a little tongue-tied. We keep asking ourselves, "Where to start?" Part of us wants......

This week’s theatre offerings have nothing to do with John Aielli or KUT, and we won't be playing a variety of songs referencing how exceptionally cold it’s been these past few days. Really, we just liked the title. (Sorry to all you non-KUT listeners who we’ve just completely excluded.) Plus, it actually is a very eclectic week on the boards (or, er, the concrete floors...in our local warehouse theatres). There’s an exciting collaboration afoot......

Even though St. Genesius doesn't celebrate his feastday until August, it seems the Theatre Party stars must be in alignment or something because this weekend brings you not one, not two, but four -- you heard us -- four theatre party-benefit thingees. All from companies we love, so if you want to rub shoulders with some delightful, talented people, check out any of the following! Friday, 3/24 Rob Nash's Birthday Benefit for the Vortex.......

We are soaked, soaked we tell you, in Frontera. This week, we've attended Best of Fest Bill A (to be repeated tomorrow night, and highly recommended), and the first Wild Card bill -- which won't be repeated, but we definitely suggest you take a stab at the second Wild Card bill, 2pm Saturday. It happens to be the only remaining Frontera show that's not sold out. Yikes! (A tip: If you want to try......

Sadly for us -- very, very sadly for us -- we've been under the weather and have missed several previously scheduled programs. This includes Saturday night's Best of Week IV at Frontera Fest. Since we can't share our impressions of the evening, we thought we'd at least give a rundown of the winning shows (details from the HPT website). "Aucun Espoir pour l'Homme: a junk romance" by Rocky Hopson. Clown satire about the ups......

Frontera Fest is here! Austinist is, ahem, a bit behind with this news (blame it on the holidays), as tickets have been on sale for two days! (You can get 'em by calling 479-PLAY.) The Short Fringe starts this coming Tuesday, 1/10 at Hyde Park Theatre, followed close on its heels by the Long Fringe, which begins the following Tuesday, 1/17 at the Blue Theatre. Oh, and perhaps most exciting of all, there's an......