Articulations
Austin artists and arts companies continue to hit the road at a breathless pace.
By Robert Faires, Fri., May 4, 2001
On the Road Again
Austin artists and arts companies continue to hit the road at a breathless pace. Among the latest to tripping beyond the Austin city limits:
Andra Mitrovich: The Beehive belter is in New York doing her Janis Joplin thing in the off-Broadway production of Love, Janis. According to Zachary Scott Theatre Center Artistic Director Dave Steakley, who was up for the show's opening weekend, Mitrovich is "rockin' the house." The night he saw the show, "the audience was going crazy for Andra -- four standing ovations."
Dan Dietz: The Salvage Vanguard Theater co-artistic director is off to Seattle May 12-27 to participate in Annex Theatre's "HotHouse," a play development lab in which he'll spend two weeks creating an entirely new play, which will then be shown as a work-in-progress. "It's kind of like jumping off a cliff with about 11 days to grow a pair of wings," says Dietz. "Pretty cool."
Jason Neulander: Salvage's other co-artistic director is headed east to direct a reading of a new play, The Clouds, the Ocean, and Everything in Between, by Michael Premsrirat, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York. The reading takes place Sunday, May 13, as part of the Public's New Work Now festival.
John Walch: Also at the New Work Now festival will be playwright Walch, author of The Circumference of a Squirrel, currently held over at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center and soon to open in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum. The now bicoastal writer will get a reading of his Kennedy Center-funded epic The Dinosaur Within on Saturday, May 19.
Austin Babtist Women: The all-male volunteer comedy troupe that raises money for AIDS, HIV, and breast cancer charities is just back from New York where their Broadway debut at the "Night of a Thousand Gowns" charity gala earned them a photo and notice in Soap Opera Weekly, but they plan to return in October for a string of performances including a stop at Stonewall.
Ballet Austin: The dance company is going to the nation's capital in January to show off its priceless comic version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Kennedy Center. The center's vice-president for education saw the company's Hamlet last fall and invited BA to D.C. to present Stephen Mills' Midsummer as part of the center's youth and family performance series.
All the Way to State
Meanwhile, here in the city, young theatre artists are performing their hearts out in the annual State One-Act Play Contest. This year, the schools of Central Texas are making an extraordinary showing: Six have made it all the way to state, a fairly rare occurrence. They are Temple High, with The Marriage of Bette and Boo (5A Conference); Pflugerville High, with Once on This Island (5A); Johnston High, with A Lie of the Mind (4A); Taylor High, The Voice of the Prairie (3A); Wimberley High, The Trojan Women (3A); and Salado High, The Shadow Box (2A). Performances will be held May 3-5, in sessions at 4pm and 8pm, at Bass Concert Hall and the McCullough Theatre. For more information, visit www.utexas.edu/admin/uil or call 471-1444.
Incubation Station
Deborah Hay announces that for the next eight Mondays, starting May 7, her dance company is renting the Austin Yoga School, 1122-C S. Lamar, from 9:15-11:15pm, so that choreographers, performers, actors, writers, and composers can come together to incubate new ideas with others artists. Works-in-progress will be shown and discussed. Everyone is welcome.
