The Blanton Museum of Art
"...And their appeal is considerable in the Vortex Repertory Company's staging. Director Rudy Ramirez has cast actors whose sensitivity to these characters' emotional core makes their every feeling – concern, amusement, affection, uncertainty, charity, frustration, tenderness, grief – as natural and genuine as breath..."
"...The Vortex Repertory Company's latest world premiere, Underground, explores the different paths from marginalization to liberation and asks some very difficult questions along the way. This very timely and important work does not shy away from asking things like: How thin is the line between an activist and a radical? Must taking a stand in the face of a culture that is oppressive and violent include violence to be effective? What happens to an organization (and its participants) when violence becomes part of its manifesto? Especially when the goal of said organization is social justice?..."
"...However, in the Vortex Repertory Company's world premiere of A Perfect Robot, Diego (played by a very sincere Jesus I. Valles) is a roboticist who deals in the impossible..."
"...The Vortex Repertory Company, that provocative and often ritual-inspired theatre group helmed by Bonnie Cullum for three decades now, is not being kicked out of its longtime home on Manor Road. Damned unusual that, given the current trends of this growth-wracked city..."
"...Twenty-five years is long enough in a human's lifetime, but in a theatre lighting system's, it's Methuseluh territory. So the Vortex Repertory Company – which just hit the quarter-century milestone – isn't making light when it says it needs new illumination..."
"...Her narrator isn't relating her experience so much as reliving it, and we're swept along with her, seeing all of it through a 13-year-old's eyes. And in this Vortex Repertory Company production (part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere for Wild Horses), our link to the tale is amplified by both the close quarters and the vibrant performance of Jennifer Coy Jennings..."
"...And when the marketplace is working overtime to turn a buck on the popularity of people fashioning fantasywear, the announcement of a "Cosplay Expo" might warrant a bit of caveat emptor. Unless, that is, said Expo is produced by Vortex Repertory Company..."
"...Ethos and the Vortex Repertory Company spin a fictional history of Bathori's killing spree into a thrumming gothic opera – part folk legend and part demonic faery tale, all a delightfully macabre assault on the senses...."
"...And that was years before the company moved into their big old corrugated-steel warehouse off Manor Road, a warehouse since transformed into a fully operating theatre and an excellent neighborhood watering hole and all of it directed by the unstoppable Bonnie Cullum and her commited-to-theatre squad of creative commandos...."
"...So it was at the 42nd edition of the B. Iden Payne Theatre Awards on Monday, where the Vortex Repertory Company production of Terminus received a total of 11 awards...."
"...Capital T Theatre had a reason to crow at the Austin Critics Table Awards ceremony on Monday, winning three awards for its staging of the dark cockfighting comedy Year of the Rooster, but the night was just as exxx-cellent for the Mary Moody Northen Theatre's Mr. Burns, a post-electric play and Vortex Repertory Company's Terminus, both of which also received a trio of prizes from the association of area arts scribes at its 24th presentation of honors...."
"...Oh, our playwright hasn't a clue that that's where the evening is headed when he opens this Vortex Repertory Company production. He introduces his "roses and thistles" -- his terms for these women, the former being daughters of duty, the latter women of will -- with effusive pride; the face of actor Joseph Macdonald beams..."
"...Or maybe you think you're going to see shows you like but are in fact wasting good money seeing plays for which you aren't well-suited. Where, oh where, is the theatre company for you? Life without a theatre company to call your very own is difficult..."
"...VORTEX Repertory Company is heading into its tenth season (I know what you're thinking, "Gee, time flies when you're presenting controversial performance artists and experimental work with lots of nudity."), and it's kicking it off with a party. Enjoy free food and beer, the "Fire and Brimstone Awards," and get the skinny on the company's upcoming productions of Fur, Triskelion, Macbeth, and visits by Karen Finley, Tim Miller, Annie Sprinkle, and Rob Nash..."
"...The musical was one of 77 productions of theatre and improv recognized by the nonprofit group's committee of volunteers who see and evaluate shows throughout the year. Five other stage works were honored with nine nominations each: the musicals Atlantis: A Puppet Opera (ethos and Vortex Repertory Company) and Monty Python's Spamalot (Summer Stock Austin); the Theatre for Youth production El Paraíso de los Maniquís (Proyecto Teatro); the comedy Agent Andromeda: The Orion Crusade (Sky Candy); and the theatrical event Requiem for Tesla (Rude Mechanicals)..."
"...Funky, renovated barn where VORTEX Repertory Company artistic director Bonnie Cullum recently crowed that this year's VORTEX season was composed entirely of new works. It's indicative of Cullum's fervor for material on the far side of tomorrow and the pride she takes in her theatre's status as an incubator of new drama..."
"...But in a refreshing twist, they like it that way. Not having all the resources of a major resident theatre company forces them to be innovative in the creation of onstage realities..."