Articulations

It's getting so's you can't make a move in the Big Apple without running afield of some Austin artist. Week before last, it was playwright/performer/director Amparo Garcia -- author of A Roomful of Men, played Luz in Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre's Unmerciful Good Fortune last summer -- enjoying the Off-Broadway premiere of her play Under a Western Sky, at INTAR. (The Women's Project production runs through May 18). Last week, it was visual artist Jack Nichols -- he of the huge painting Passionate Circles now in the lobby of the Omni Hotel, Eighth & Brazos -- was attending the $1,000-a-ticket black-tie benefit for the Zachary Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research at Le Cirque 2000, where he presented a new painting, Dignity of the Human Spirit. And this coming week, honorary Austin artist Ruth Margraff -- whose latest play, The Battle of San Jacinto, written for Salvage Vanguard Theater, just finished its world premiere run at Planet Theatre -- will be there for a staged reading of said play, now titled Centaur Battle of San Jacinto (an extended barroom brawl) at the Public Theatre (that's May 13, 8pm, if you can make it). And there's talk of more theatre types heading that way for another RAT Conference later on...

. Watch out, New York!

AMOA Gets Major Gift

The Austin Museum of Art has won another important show of support in its big expansion campaign. On May 2, AMOA Chief Executive Officer Sid Mallory announced the receipt of a $1.5 million donation from Dr. & Mrs. Ernest C. Butler. The Butlers have long been active in the arts locally -- she is currently on the board of Ballet Austin, he's on the board of the Austin Symphony Orchestra -- and their connection to AMOA runs especially deep. According to Mallory, $1 million will be placed in endowment for the permanent museum slated to be built at Third & San Antonio Streets, and the remaining $500,000 will go to a "New Visions/New Audiences" initiative for programming at the museum's current two sites.

Off the Desk

Austin Access Arts provides another of its Audio Described Performances, in which trained volunteers provide descriptions of plays to patrons wearing headsets tuned to a specific FM frequency, this Sunday, May 11, at 3pm. It's for the tour of The Odd Couple at the Paramount Theatre. Call 454-9912.

Worthy Causes

A special screening of the film Twilight of the Golds, starring Garry Marshall, Faye Dunaway, Jennifer Beals, and Brendan Fraser, will be held at the Paramount on Friday, May 9, at 8pm, to benefit the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival and the Federal Club/Human Rights Campaign/Lesbian & Gay Rights Lobby. On hand will be producer Charles Duggan, who backed the production of Jonathan Tolins' play that played here and on Broadway, and helped develop the film. Tickets are $10; $35 for preferred seating. Call 476-2454.