Strange Visitor From Another Planet

If you ever get a chance to talk with Zell Miller III, you should. He's special, one of those people who radiate energy like the brightest of stars breaking through clouds on the darkest of nights. Well-known locally and nationally as a spoken word performer – he won the Chronicle's 2004 Best of Austin Readers Poll for Best Author/Poet – Miller broke into the Austin performance community as an actor with Frontera Productions. This weekend at the Vortex, for three nights only, he'll be performing my child, my child, my alien child, his original hip-hop theatre piece about his 5-year-old son, Zell Miller IV.

Says Miller, "Last year during FronteraFest a spot opened up, and they asked me to fill it. I didn't really have anything, but I'd been thinking about writing something about my son since he was 2 or 3 years old, and I woke up on that Friday morning and I started jotting notes. I left work a little early and blocked it in my living room, walked into Hyde Park that night, set three light cues, and did it." Like Miller, it must have been something special because it made Best of the Fest, no small feat for anyone familiar with the FronteraFest format.

So why "alien child"? "Because I don't think he's from here. He's from some other planet, like Mercury? I think he's just visiting for a minute. When he was first born – and this story is told in the play – we had this really rude, nasty nurse. She's taking him to the table, wiping him off, and his head kinda turns towards me, and he smiles, and then he turns back to the nurse and pees right in her face. And then he smiles at me again!"

While you may not get the chance to talk with him, you do have the chance to listen. So open up your ears and let his light brighten the darkness that you can't help but carry in this far-too-often dark world. Without a doubt, it will be his pleasure to light up your night.