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The 27th annual theatrical smorgasbord of local productions (comedy! drama! dance! improv! performance art! multimedia! diverse shenanigans!) opens this decade with its slate of five 25-minute-long Short Fringe shows each night at Hyde Park Theatre (Jan. 14-Feb. 15), with the usually sold-out Best of the Week show each Saturday night. Coming up:Dueling Playwrights: Battle in the Grocery Aisle by Marianne Serene & James E. Burnside; Posse Power by Jomo and The Possum Posse; Please Help Me! Confessions Of A Self-Improvement Junkie by Tom Booker; St. Stephen's Pier by Heath Allyn; and The #2 Sacrifice by Sandy Maranto; Thu., Jan. 16, 8pm.99 Facts About an Immigrant by Leng Wong; A Series of Open Letters to My Teenage Son by Max Langert; Honey, I'm Home! by Jolyne Garza; I Sleep/ I Live/ I Wake by Ryley Valenti; and Three Tragedies in 25 minutes or Less by Shakespeare (with modifications by Beth Burroughs); Fri., Jan. 17, 8pm.14 Si! by PoetKen Jones; Catawampus by Cliff Miller; I Am Not The Person You Have Made Me Out to Be by Marianne Serene; Liftoff by Ben Polega; and Maid/Man by Rich Rubin; Tue., Jan. 21, 8pm.A Bird, a Dog, and a Wave by Kayur Patel; A Dance Piece by Dmo Acheka, Danielle Bogle, Maira Montes, and Philip Weaver; Dueling Playwrights: On Porn by Marianne Serene & James E. Burnside; I Knew Him Well by Trace Turner; Lightning Girl by Rita Anderson; and The Misplays by Aaron Rubin, Adrian Gwarzalez, Derek Cornelius, and Spencer Bloom; Wed., Jan. 22, 8pm.Science Fails: The Human Side of Science by Nichole Bennett; Flashmandments by CB Goodman; Flawed by Sandy Maranto; How To Say You’re Afraid of Commitment in 140 Characters Or Less by Valerie Nies; and Who Sits Next to Wilma by Janna Garza; Thu., Jan. 23, 8pm.Note: FronteraFest is a unique collaboration between two of Austin’s most venerable arts organizations – that aforementioned Hyde Park Theatre (an award-winning professional company in central Austin) and ScriptWorks (a playwright development and service organization with members in Texas and across the nation).

Jerónimo Reyes-Retana's newest work is an interactive 24-track sound installation that's responsive to the process of data transmission among local internet servers. The installation utilizes an array of digital modules of data-collection that react to the activity of local Wi-Fi networks, materializing data traveling in the form of electric charges, radio waves, and light pulses imperceptible to human senses.

The king returns, as we like to say, as Roi James presents this new solo show of recent paintings that encompass several different bodies of work, including variations of his abstract oils, his Construct series, and his Floral array of wonders.

You realize, of course, that this is "the universally acclaimed smash that NPR calls 'the best show of the year," right? And that director Jerry Zaks' "gorgeous” new production" is "making people crazy happy," yes? And Paul Beutel wrote this about it in the Austin Chronicle. That's why you're clicking to get tickets now, n'est-ce pas?

The Brazilian artist Lucas Simões "thinks of his new works as drawings, even though they carry no graphite and have some dimensionality. He draws with an industrial laser, cutting angular or curved shapes into blackened steel plates, essentially turning them into elaborate paperclips that pinch, pull, and compress his trademark stacks of tracing paper." It's like … a little metal shibari for sheets of pulp? Ingenious, to be sure, and visually intriguing.

In which the UT-based author and social media wizard warns of an imminent tech-abetted information disaster and argues for a new culture of invention, one built around accountability and especially transparency. Bonus: See our interview with Woolley right here.

The 2020 Texas Biennial Open Call is open to artists currently living and/or working in Texas, to Texas natives/expats working anywhere in the world, and to artists who have produced significant work in Texas over the last three years. Applications accepted online through Feb. 7. See website for details, yes.

Each of the artist's narrative lithographs contains dozens of her unique symbols – flames, needle and thread, logs, prickly pear pads, helicopter seeds, tattoos, and spilled milk – expressing a visual language for the Southern female experience, a voice of beauty and strength that reminds us of how far we've come and how far we have yet to go.

In meticulous paintings and watercolors of leaves, of rain, of mud, of other objects in the natural world, Mihee Nahm seeks to capture the ephemeral in all its transience.