… and now it’s the first weekend of the last month of the year – and, boy howdy, we’re hoping 2017 doesn’t let the door hit it in the ass on the way out. Doesn’t mean there isn’t some great creative stuff still happening up in this burgeoning burg, though. Why, look: Here’s five recommended events for this same weekend.
1) Is December the perfect time to see a work of theatre even if you never see a work of theatre that’s not full of, like, musical dance numbers and bedazzled costumes and fireworks and so on? Let’s make that question rhetorical, because any time is a perfect time to see a show based on a script from Idaho’s favored son Samuel D. Hunter. We (and the MacArthur crowd) know that well, because of The Whale and Bright New Boise, yeah. Hunter’s body of work is staged reality, and it hurts and pleases and twists and scars just like life. So we’re looking forward to this weekend’s Austin premiere of the playwright’s Pocatello at Hyde Park Theatre, in which there’s a last-ditch “Famiglia Week” attempt to stave off the inevitable at Eddie’s failing Italian restaurant in the equally failing town of Pocatello. Serve this heart-wrenching meal of emotions up right, Street Corner Arts, and we’re your cacio e pepe huckleberry forever.
2) Speaking of theatre, you know that Salvage Vanguard as a producing company hasn’t gone anywhere like away, right? In fact, on Saturday, they’re celebrating their new Artist Guest Home in the North Loop neighborhood by providing ticketholders an elegant home-cooked meal, season previews, and live music from Austin legends Graham Reynolds, Gretchen Phillips, and Tree G. Well er ah better grab a reservation right here, citizen, get you some of that tasty house-shaped cake before stumbling back outside into what this city is moment-by-moment becoming.
3) Even if you remember the particular glories that Jennifer Sherburn and Natalie George and Troika Ranch’s Dawn Stoppiello presented at KC Grey Home during 11:11, we reckon Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company’s new show, Parade, will rewire your idea of kinetic possibilities within a South Austin warehouse space this weekend. Partly because Hamrick’s choreography works the movements of martial terpsichore, partly because Stephen Pruitt lights the show, and partly because Drew Silverman performs his original score for the spectacle. And all because those KDHDC dancers, whoa, that’s some mighty fierce embodiment of force.
4) We like design. We like women. We like the idea of the local node of international branding juggernaut Pentagram and Austin’s own badass inkstained cabal at Industry Print Shop teaming up to support Wendy Davis’ Deeds Not Words organization. And that this Saturday’s afternoon of partying fundraisery called Deeds Fest is happening at Lewis Carnegie and features live music and live T-shirt screenprinting and noms (from Lucy’s Fried Chicken and Maudie’s) and the design work of some bona fide industry legends …. We’ll be there, listening to what Ms. Davis is telling the grooving crowd, and wishing we possessed one-tenth of the superlative design talent that seems to exist in just the little finger of David Kampa’s non-dominant hand.
5) We like art. We like science. We like … trading cards? Hell, yes! So we figure that Art.Science.Gallery’s fifth annual Trading Card Show in their snazzy venue over there on Springdale, right in the same complex as Big Medium and Modern Rocks and Bale Creek Allen and all … we figure the opening reception on Saturday night will be the place to be, to score some tiny original artworks (actually affordable artworks, especially as stocking stuffers), mingle with fellow science-positive citizens, and generally check out the whole Canopy scene – now that it’s finally, post-EAST, calmed down just a skoshie.
This article appears in November 24 • 2017.