Results tagged “theater”

As is the nature of myth, the classical Greek plays are more or less timeless—they've endured for millennia, after all, because their themes continue to resonate—and none are more relevant to any given situation than this one. As Troy has fallen, the men are dead and the women await being divvied up among the conquerers. Hecuba, queen of Troy, leads her daughters in preparation for their new life as slaves. This is the core of The Trojan Women in every adaptation, and it's not hard to note its relevance to every war men have fought. But when a work is as timeless as this one, the need to update it for a new generation is called into question: Do we need to hear Hecuba call the conquering Menelaus a son of a bitch to understand that she's really, really mad?

Austinist theater writer Dan Solomon recently made his directorial debut with Katherine Craft's No One Else Will Ever Love You, which runs through September 12th at private residences in Austin. In the interest of turnabout being fair play, we offered the opportunity to review his production to the directors of the plays that Solomon has reviewed so far in 2009. All theatermakers who directed a full-length play reviewed by Solomon before mid-August were invited to participate, and two of them—Touch's Susie Gidseg and Orestes' Will Hollis Snider—agreed to offer their thoughts.

Austinist's theater critic Dan Solomon tries his hand at directing a piece written by his wife. Bastion Carboni, who directed the Poison Apple Initiative's recent production of No Exit (which Solomon reviewed harshly backin June), sat down with the critic-turned-director to talk about critical credibility and what'll happen if his show sucks.

The Scottish Rite production of As You Like It succeeds on pretty much every level it attempts to reach. It's stacked with competent actors, attractive costumes, and well-painted sets. The gags are still effective, and the music never strikes an ill note. In short, it's an entirely serviceable take on a Shakespeare comedy, with nothing much to say against it. If that sounds like a series of backhanded compliments, there's a reason...

The Rude Mechs are known for two things: bold, progressive theater and throwing one hell of a party at their annual themed "Eye Ball" fundraiser. (Who can forget the free mustache rides - on a giant vibrating mustache - at the Magnum P.EyeBall?)

This Wednesday through Sunday only at the McCallum Fine Arts Theatre, Blue Phoenix Theatre will host five evenings and one matinee of music and theatre to raise funds for OperationOF. Every night at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., a local musician will play a short set, followed by a performance of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, featuring the lauded and lovely actresses Andreá Smith, Jennifer Underwood, and Julie Wright. 100% of the proceeds benefit OperationOF, a local organization founded by Seth Cochran to raise awareness and provide aid to women worldwide who suffer from obstetric fistula, "the most devastating problem you've never heard of." We sat down with the actresses and director Karen Jambon to talk a bit more about this production.

The first thing you need to know about Wicked is that you should go see it. It’s fabulous. Before we drill down into the fabulousness, the second thing you need to know is that seats are very hard to come by, as shows are either sold out or only have scattered single seats available. The third thing to know—and this is important—is that each night, 2 hours before curtain, there is a lottery held to sell a limited number of tickets for the totally excellent price of $25. To qualify, show up 2.5 hours beforehand, get your name on the list, wait thirty minutes, and if they call you, have i.d. ready and you can get two tickets. This is a very worthwhile effort, trust us. Now, about the show. In 1900, L. Frank Baum’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, introducing Dorothy and the Land of Oz and all that. Two years later, the book was produced as a play. Thirty-seven years after that the movie version, The Wizard of Oz, came out and remains one of the best loved films of all time.

Frenetically paced and shouted more than it's spoken, Will Hollis Snider's adaptation of Orestes seems focused on dusting off the myth, sleeking it down, and putting it directly in an audience's face. The thing just fucking starts, no time wasted, with Orestes dragging Helen into Apollo's temple, and the intensity doesn't really drop off for the next hour and a half. It's a little bit strange—Snider, who clearly spent a great deal of time ripping pages out of his copy of Euripedes' script, employed sound designer Adam Hilton to add contemporary flourishes to the production; even the publicity shot on the cover of the program looks like it could well be the poster for a Fantastic Fest thriller. So the fact that the go-go-go-go-GO nature of the performances—cranked up to 11 for nearly the entire run-time—is so reminiscent of what we've come to think of as the boilerplate rendering of Greek myth is a little bit disappointing.

The costumes! The cleavage! The shoes! All at House of Several Stories and that was just the audience. Okay, so maybe a review-of-crowd is not pertinent to review-of-show except, hello, this is Austin where dressing up usually means wearing your newest Crocs and maybe a t-shirt with sleeves. So it must be noted that the crowd that showed up to take in John Boulanger’s House of Several Stories at the Austin Playhouse last week was dressed to the nines (times ten). As was—at least for most of the evening, Lauren Lane, who, in the roll of Fuller Family Matriarch, Sue, sports some pretty fucking stunning duds courtesy of costumer Jillan Hanel. And let’s get a bit more about Lane on the table at the front end here. In a recent A.O. Scott review of Julie & Julia in NYT, Mr. Scott notes that Meryl Streep is so beyond outstanding in any role she takes that it’s almost a shame for those who must be in the same film—no matter how memorable they are in their own right, in Streep’s shadow, well, it’s impossible not to pale. Similarly, Lane is so enchanting, such an astonishing comic actress, such a gift to this city (nay—the stage that is the world!) that not only is she a hard act to follow, she’s a hard act to stand beside.

It's a useful reminder that creating powerful, memorable art and revering the canonical figures can be a pair of clashing objectives. It's also a lesson that Will Hollis Snider of Cambiare Productions, whose new interpretation of the story of Orestes, opens at the Off-Center this weekend, has taken to heart. Rather than simply stage a modernization of Euripedes' classic, Snider gutted the script, ripped out the boring parts, replaced the scenes in which the messenger runs on to tell the audience what's happened with new scenes that show exactly what that was, and placed it all in a post-apocalyptic setting. With that accomplished, and the show set to open, he sat down with Austinist to tell us about improving on the Greeks, the movement in Austin theater back toward the classics, and what Orestes has in common with the brave men and women of the Battlestar Galactica.

Maggie Gallant knows that there are two kinds of people in the world - those who understand their favorite band as a spiritual force that communicate important things about life to those listeners who are truly prepared to hear them, and those who don't know anything about anything.

For any Shakespeare geek residing in Central Texas, we can imagine no greater treat than to watch one of his plays performed on the “wooden O” that is The Curtain Theatre. Richard Garriott’s Elizabethan replica space is nestled on his property on the shores of Lake Austin and provided the backdrop for Austin Shakespeare’s inaugural Young Shakespeare production of The Comedy of Errors this past weekend. The all-teen cast delivered a solid performance that was pleasantly surprising in many ways.

England’s most storied and inspirational warrior king is revealed in a new, one-man adaptation of the Shakespeare history starring B. Iden Payne Award-winning actor/director and Austin Chronicle Arts Editor Robert Faires.

In Zach Scott’s biomusical Love, Janis, Janis makes sure the folks back home know she has no intention of becoming “the poor man’s Cher." This begs the audience to consider what kind of Garden Weasel churning old Pearl would be doing if she could see who passes for top female entertainers today. Hell, Janis, by way of comparison, Cher is Maria damn Callas! If you weren’t there, if you don’t know Janis Joplin’s music and story, it’s hard not to be stunned by the fact that this 23 year-old girl, without the benefit of a star machine, a manager mommy, winning a phone-in talent poll on the TV, or her own clothing line was able to ascend to the place she did and continue to be a subject of interest almost 40 years later. Love, Janis had a run in Austin originally over a decade ago and has also been successful in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago. A recent performance was impressively three-quarters full on a lovely Sunday afternoon, with an enthusiastic crowd of older people who had clearly been in their 20s at the same time Texas native Janis was. The crowd clearly indulged their catharsis. The stage is set up for a rock show with small sets to the left and right for break out vignettes. The dialogue, performed mostly by Sydney Andrews, comprises about half of the play and is taken from letters Janis wrote home and interviews she gave during her brief career. Interspersed are musical numbers, belted out with goose bump inducing grit by Andra Mitrovitch who has had the long-held honor of being the voice of Janis, performing worldwide with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin’s original band.

April 1st approaches, there's one event taking place that we hope turns out not to be a joke; on Wednesday, the Austin Mayoral and City Council candidates are gathering at the Paramount to present their position on the arts. The cast of potential leaders will have time to share their visions for the future of the arts in our city and answer audience questions. Former Austin City Council member Betty Dunkerley will moderate the event.

One spring day every year for the past five years, a procession of white costumed individuals floats through Hyde Park repetitively performing short acts for the neighborhood's residents and a small audience. Part performance art, part conceptual theater, Jaclyn Pryor's site-specific exhibition floodlines is once again set to be performed in Hyde Park on April 5th. Pryor came up with the concept for floodlines as a performance memorial in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Less a direct tribute to the specific casualties of 9/11, floodlines addresses the themes of loss and grief in broader strokes, encouraging its audience to contemplate the nature of permanence as performers appear and disappear in the familiar setting of one of Austin's most historic neighborhoods.

There are a lot of regular improvised comedy shows in Austin; here's a crash course in the Hideout Theatre's Saturday-night institution, Maestro.

Starting this Saturday, Start Trekkin’ brings fully-improvised “Start Trek” episodes back to Congress Avenue for an eight-week run. Meanwhile, Coldtowne Theater speaks to an issue more contemporary than intergalactic exploration: our tanking economy. With free shows and free beer. Yes, you read that right.

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.

We had more fun watching this show than we did seeing Chicago's famed improv group Second City. We enjoyed this more than some of the of the stuff we've seen off-Broadway! Of course, since this is an improvised show—meaning the characters and situations are created on the spot—the show we saw most certainly won't be the show you'll see. Yet we trust that any group putting on something so fresh and vibrant one weekend will be able to reproduce the magic in the next performance. Watching a comedy show like this is sort of like visiting the farmer's market. You see fresh eggs and tomatoes every week, but you don't see exactly the same eggs, now do you?

SPOILER ALERT: Art is not about a painting. Oh sure, there’s a painting at the center Yesmina Reza’s 1998 Tony Award-winning play, and a curious painting at that: it’s a completely white canvas with barely-visible diagonal brushstrokes. But Art is not about a painting.

It's good to be King, and it’s even better when that King is very, very good, or even great! That’'s why we feel so lucky that we just adored Mark Lovell as King Henry VII in The Bedlam Faction'’s production of The Brats of Clarence.

"I was initially drawn to Crawford, because I'd been effectively duped. I didn't know that Bush wasn't from Crawford."

Austin’s newest improv training center, the Merlin Works Institute for Improvisation, launched its first series of classes at the recently-opened Salvage Vanguard Theater this past Saturday.

Since appointing new AD Ann Ciccolella last fall, Austin Shakespeare has been kickin' ass and takin' names. // The director-less, self-dubbed "brats of theater," Bedlam Faction, have returned. // SVT has a trouserload of programming this month, including Twelfth Night, produced by Kadigan and Mountweazel.

With Speeding Motorcycle, Zach Scott Theater has delivered a solid product. The basic story is simple—boy meets girl; boy becomes obsessed with girl; boy really, really can’t let go. The show also deals with Johnston’s stint inside the mental hospital system. we’d recommend it for any Johnston fan, but unlike most of Zach’s offerings, bringing your granny, your momma or your baby sister might be a little problematic.

Salvage Vanguard Theater has announced its new season! // Rubber Repertory has started airing their dirty laundry in a new, recurring series called From the Dumpster, in which they confess to madcap ideas they seriously considered staging. // There's more than music to SXSW.

Arson may have damaged the studio that housed 91.7’s KOOP Radio, but they, and the Austin community at large, will be damned if they let the station go without a fight. Another benefit is happening this Saturday, presented by Church of the Friendly Ghost and Commercial Suicide, and taking the shape of Rick Reed’s 6th installment of the Toneburst series. Begun about two years ago, Toneburst is billed as “new and unusual experimental music from Austin and beyond...” and this will be its first show in The Salvage Vanguard Theater.

Accompanying the current exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center, Beat Voices delves further into the doings of Peter Orlovsky, Diane di Prima, William S. Burroughs, and Alfred Leslie. The production's four brief plays run Sat-Sun @1 & 3pm until the exhibition closes on August 3. // The rock opera Speeding Motorcycle at Zach Scott Theater is based on the work of Daniel Johnston and tells the tale of Joe the Boxer's unrequited love for an undertaker's girlfriend. We're betting it won't disappoint. Through March 23, Thu-Sat @8pm / Sun @2:30pm.

For the first time in over a year, erstwhile Sinus Show members Owen Egerton, John Erler and Joe Parsons are back together, skewering bad films like some kind of movie mocking Voltron. And this time, they're taking dead aim at Robert Zemeckis' goofy sci-fi adventure Back to the Future.