This has been a year for weird plays in Austin. We've seen melancholy hipsters turned into almonds, cokehead yokels convinced that the government planted tiny bugs under their skin, and a self help tape-obsessed Oedipus drag around a gum ball machine as part of a new get-rich-quick scheme. Whatever it is you're sitting down to watch on an Austin stage right now, be prepared for some absurdism. Who knows what anthropomorphisms and non-sequitur dance sequences will pop up next. more ›

In The Long Now, currently playing at the Blue Theater, Tish Reilly (played by Shannon Grounds) may or may not have Time on her side. That’s because in this case, time is not merely a concept of measurement, nor is time a chronological matter. Instead, Time, as portrayed in shadow via puppets and given voice by actor T. Lynn Mikeska, is a character as real to Tish—and at times more real—than the other humans who inhabit this original production written and directed by Edward Albee protégée Beth Burns. Burns plays with the themes of memory and trauma and how the latter can lead to severe arrested development, as is the affliction that plagues poor Tish. In a sort of reverse Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind trick, Tish is forever seeking ways not to erase the past and move forward, but rather, with the help of her friend Time, avoid the present and trip back to handful of happy memories that make up the before—no spoiler here, just know that early on, Tish had something very bad happen to her and to say she’s had a hard time facing reality is an understatement. more ›

Before West Side Story, before Beverly Hills 90210, before Sex and the City, before so much of the drama—high and low brow—we have turned to for entertainment over the past several hundred years…before all that, there was Shakespeare. Master of Play Beth Burns takes her best shot at Shakespeare with a production of the comedy Twelfth Night at the Scottish Rite Theater. The production is perfectly cast. These actors are all so clearly smitten with the bard’s work that you can feel the love as they deliver, and deliver they do. more ›