the arts

ARTS REVIEWS

The Happy Couple

This Last Act Theatre show depicts a couple's nice life unraveling with equal parts tension and release

The Cruel Circus

Though often entertaining and quite humorous, this Trouble Puppet show seems to be missing something

Body & Soul

The flamenco artists worked to build the energy and tension throughout, but that goal proved hard to achieve

MORE REVIEWS »

all over creation

Joey Waldon: In Memoriam

Popular stand-up comic and cartoonist has died at age 57
Jokers Wild  1 day ago

this week

recent features

  • SUMMER FUN 2013

    • The Great Artdoors

      Summer's here, and the time is right for outdoor performances all over Central Texas

      By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., May 17, 2013

  • Funniest Person in Austin 2013

    From 209 contenders, the final 12 emerge to duke it out for this year's comedy crown

    By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., May 17, 2013

  • The Winter's Tale

    Tango and samba fit quite well in Austin Shakespeare's production of this romance, but the actors can't quite find the beat

    By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., May 17, 2013

  • Passing Strange

    Half & Half Productions' debut about a young black man's journey of self-discovery was hampered by its mall storefront location

    By MATTHEW IRWIN, Fri., May 17, 2013

  • Giselle

    Several Ballet Austin dancers rose to the challenges of this classic of romantic ballet

    By JONELLE SEITZ, Fri., May 17, 2013

  • Up at VIII

    With its heartbeat pulsing at Austin's tempo, choral group Ensemble VIII continues to climb

    By ADAM ROBERTS, Fri., May 10, 2013

  • Studio Visits: Akirash

    This intermedia artist from Nigeria isn't satisfied unless his studio includes his backyard

    By ANDY CAMPBELL, Fri., May 10, 2013

  • The Art of Moving Books

    The Nobelity Project taps Baylor Estes to put his art all over a bookmobile in Honduras

    By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., May 10, 2013

  • The Chimponauts and the Mechanical Phantom

    It may help to know sci-fi B-movies, but this space spoof by Electronic Planet Ensemble is silly fun for everyone

    By MATTHEW IRWIN, Fri., May 10, 2013

  • HIT.

    Shanon Weaver's play puts a spin on the hit-man genre with some unusually gentle and refined assassins for hire

    By ELIZABETH COBBE, Fri., May 10, 2013

  • 'Everything'

    Observations on the artist in this group show who doesn't give an eff what I think

    By MATTHEW IRWIN, Fri., May 10, 2013

  • Studio Practice

    Canopy tenants love the Eastside artist studio complex, even if they aren't from the Eastside ... or artists

    By MATTHEW IRWIN, Fri., May 3, 2013

  • West Austin Studio Tour

    Another weekend in which to go WEST, young man

    By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., May 3, 2013

  • Free Comic Book Day 2013

    The 11th giveaway of four-color fun runs the gamut from 'Archie' to 'The Walking Dead'

    By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., May 3, 2013

  • Austin Arts Hall of Fame: Class of 2013

    The Austin Critics Table has honored five more pioneers in the Austin arts community

    By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., May 3, 2013

  • Noises Off

    Austin Playhouse stages this chaotic, ridiculous backstage farce with precision and fun

    By ELIZABETH COBBE, Fri., May 3, 2013

  • Good People

    In wrestling valiantly with David Lindsay-Abaire's tough play, the artists of Different Stages prove themselves good people

    By ADAM ROBERTS, Fri., May 3, 2013

  • Faust

    Austin Lyric Opera closed its season with a haunting and powerful production of Gounod's devilish work

    By NATALIE ZELDIN, Fri., May 3, 2013

  • MOONTOWER COMEDY & ODDITY FESTIVAL PREVIEW

    • A Lot of Chatter

      Things change, but Janeane Garofalo still loves to stand up on a stage and talk

      By ROBERT FAIRES, Fri., April 26, 2013

    • Both Sides Going for Her

      Inside Amy Schumer, there's still plenty of teenage girl, but there's also a highly focused comic

      By RUSS ESPINOZA, Fri., April 26, 2013

  • Face to Face With Fiction

    Five notable authors come to New Fiction Confab

    By AMY GENTRY, Fri., April 12, 2013

  • Full Hearts Can't Lose

    The 21st annual 'Austin Chronicle' Short Story Contest

    By MONICA RIESE, Fri., Feb. 8, 2013

  • The Writing's Not on the Wall Yet

    Austin's print culture gets a boost from a new batch of indie presses and literary magazines

    Fri., Dec. 14, 2012

  • Yes, Chef: A Memoir

    By KATE THORNBERRY, Fri., Aug. 3, 2012

  • The Overthinking Man's Fighter

    Floyd Patterson biographer W.K. Stratton explains the appeal of boxing's gentleman eccentric

    By JOSH ROSENBLATT, Fri., July 6, 2012

  • Tashlinesque: The Hollywood Comedies of Frank Tashlin

    A look at the unsung filmmaker, whose collaborators included Jerry Lewis, Jayne Mansfield, and Porky Pig

    Fri., May 25, 2012

  • Benjamin and Byron's Long-Term Affair

    An émigré author, a bad-boy poet, and an epic trilogy at its end

    By ROBERTO ONTIVEROS, Fri., Sept. 30, 2011

  • Antifogmatic

    Novelist Dominic Smith and the glow of the particular

    By SARAH SMITH, Fri., Sept. 16, 2011

  • Darkness, Then Light

    Amanda Eyre Ward on the story she always knew she would tell

    By KIMBERLEY JONES, Fri., July 15, 2011

  • Review: After Midnight

    The rise of Nazism slowly affects a partying 19-year-old in Germany

    By SARAH SMITH, Fri., June 17, 2011

  • New in Graphic Novels

    These are two books so ripe with sex, it's as if the subject has fermented in the pages

    By WAYNE ALAN BRENNER, Fri., June 10, 2011

  • Read Local!

    Summer books by Austin authors

    Fri., May 27, 2011

  • National Treasure

    Reflections on John Sayles' America

    By LOUIS BLACK, Fri., May 13, 2011

  • Stickmen With Ray Guns

    Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Steam

    By MARC SAVLOV, Fri., April 29, 2011

  • Review: The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books

    A refreshing surprise in these days of lit-scene doom and gloom

    By WAYNE ALAN BRENNER, Fri., April 15, 2011

  • Meat and Greet

    Texas Book Festival and 'Texas Monthly' to pair writers with barbecue

    By KIMBERLEY JONES, Fri., March 18, 2011

  • Review: Penthouse F

    A kooky, metafictional page-turner that doesn't entirely pay off

    By SARAH SMITH, Fri., March 4, 2011

  • Sad But True (Well, Mostly)

    Tapping real-life crisis for comedy in 'Drinking Closer to Home'

    By MARION WINIK, Fri., Jan. 14, 2011

  • Her Fair Ladies

    Cristina García's antidote to the so-called 'spicy señorita'

    By BELINDA ACOSTA, Fri., Nov. 26, 2010

  • On the Seventh Day

    Judith Shulevitz considers the Sabbath at the Austin Jewish Book Fair

    By KIMBERLEY JONES, Fri., Nov. 12, 2010