Culture Flash!

• C. Denby Swanson's spooky Gothic drama Death of a Cat got its second life in Providence, R.I., on March 15, as part of the TexTplosion play reading series at the Perishable Theatre. Swanson credits the exposure to Salvage Vanguard Theater, which not only gave the play its world premiere last fall but brought in literary manager Mead Hunter from Portland Center Stage to see it. Hunter was so taken with the script that he talked it up to 13 other theatre companies around the country. For more information, visit www.perishable.org, where the company's next show is listed as The Cataract, a new play by once and future Austinite Lisa D'Amour.

• The Austin Arts Commission has a new member: Adriana McWilliams, director of tourism for the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau. She got her baptism by fire at a public hearing on Monday, March 21, as the commission fielded comments on a recommendation by a committee to suspend the panel reviews in the FY 2006 Cultural Contracts application process. (More on that next issue.) McWilliams reports being honored to accept this appointment "because of the role the arts and cultural performances play in defining a city and attracting visitors." There's still a vacancy on the nine-member commission. For information about applying, call 974-9310.

• Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company is spinning off to San Francisco early next month to premiere a new work, Spin, with music commissioned from Austin composer Tim Kerr. The troupe joins Alma Esperanza Cunningham Movement at the Jon Sims Center for the Arts for a program in which Hamrick will also give the West Coast a peek at Framed, the dance that Hamrick premiered on the East Coast last October when KDHC performed with KDNY. Austin audiences will get their look at Framed and Spin, as well as Alma Esperanza Cunningham Movement, in KHDC's spring concert April 30-May 1 at the State Theater, 719 Congress. For more information, visit www.kdhdance.com.