In 1999, Neil LaBute wrote three grim little plays and wrapped them together under the misleading title Bash. Some of the critics said LaBute was getting back at Utah and at the Mormons, as a revenge for the years he spent studying and then teaching at Brigham Young University. The off-Broadway version in 2000 carried the title Bash: Latter Day Plays. more ›

Interactivity comes at a price, and in Lonestar, Texas: A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical, that price is pretty steep: In the pursuit of engaging the audience by having the three Sexy Cowgirls flirt with them, the Narrator speak directly to them, and the villain be so vile as to encourage popcorn-throwing, Lonestar spends almost no time actually telling its story. more ›

With four directors—Vestige mainstay Susie Gidseg (Touch), Will Hollis Snider (Orestes), and first-timers Aaron Black and Jen Brown—eleven playwrights, and fifteen actors performing eleven short plays, Muses succeeds at assembling a sampler that delivers an above-average hit-to-miss ratio. Which, given the mixtape-like nature of the evening, is a pretty strong compliment. more ›

The Austin premiere of Touch, written by Toni Press-Coffman and directed by Susie Gidseg, is the sort of performance that raises questions for the audience. Some of them, like whether it's fair to judge a person for how he grieves, are the sort that are comfortable to ask, if a bit sad. Others—for example, whether it's fair for a male critic to be wary of a play written and directed by women that uses a female character's rape and torture to explore a man's pain&mash;are less so. more ›