Articulations

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Adios, ALAA

After 21 years, one of the city's most valuable arts service organizations, Artists' Legal and Accounting Assistance of Austin (ALAA), has closed up shop. On November 3, the venerable nonprofit, dubbed "Best Artists' Safety Net" in the Chronicle's 1998 "Best of Austin" issue, was dissolved -- another victim of the changing character of Austin, according to organization acting president Blair Dancy. "Although ALAA functioned well in Austin's old economy," she says, "it did not do so well recently." A sad irony that, at a time when more local accountants and lawyers are reaping the benefits of the current economic upswing, fewer of them are interested in helping out the artists who helped make Austin a place where people wanted to be yet who aren't sharing in the city's prosperity. But to leave this casualty of the New Austin at a "sad irony" would be an injustice. After all, as former ALAA Executive Director Michelle Polgar says, "ALAA provided Austin's arts community with a unique and valuable service for so many years." For two decades, the organization offered legal and accounting services to Austin artists, from simple one-on-one advice on arts-related business matters to numerous educational programs -- most inexpensive, many free -- aimed at protecting artists from major business hazards. Considering that ALAA's clients included such individuals and groups as Richard Linklater, Kacy Crowley, Austin Film Society, Ponty Bone, Austin Musical Theatre, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Austin Circle of Theatres, Austin Visual Arts Association, and Hot Club of Cowtown, you gotta figure this was an organization that was instrumental in helping many of the city's best-known artists navigate the treacherous waters between starvation and success. Polgar pointedly offers "ALAA's thanks to the scores of very busy volunteer lawyers and accountants who gave tirelessly of themselves over the years to support Austin artists." I share her gratitude and her hope that, "as times change and the economy shifts again, there will be another agency to take ALAA's place." In the interim, Austin artists in need, and accountants and lawyers who want to volunteer their services, should contact Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts (TALA), a sister agency in Houston, at 800/526-TALA or www.talarts.org.

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Jess Walters Service

A memorial celebration for Jess Walters, the celebrated singer, director, teacher, and advocate for the operatic arts who passed away on October 8, was scheduled for this Saturday, Nov. 18, 3pm, at One World Theatre. Unfortunately, it has had to be postponed. Walters' son Emil, an actor and director who had planned to attend, suffered an injury recently which made it impossible for him to make the trip here from his home in England. The event will be rescheduled.

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Political Theatre

The Zachary Scott Theatre Center's production of Evita ended its nine-week run this past Sunday, and according to the show's director, Zach Artistic Director Dave Steakley, the closing-weekend crowd enjoyed the show on a whole new level, following the drama of the presidential vote. When Dan Sullivan, as Juan Peron launched into the song "A New Argentina" and hit the line, "It's annoying that we have to fight elections for our cause, the inconvenience of having to get a majority ...," the audiences "howled and applauded," Steakley says. The ensemble received a similar response when it sang, "We have ways of making you vote for us, or at least of making you abstain." And they say theatre has lost its relevance ...