"...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..."

"...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..."

"...In fact, one of the things that's distinguished her most in our arts scene is her exploration of myth and ritual in a theatrical context. In the earliest years of the Vortex Repertory Company, when it was housed in an abandoned three-theatre cinema on East Ben White, Cullum was tapping the power of myth in works such as Metamorpheus and Kassandra, and she's kept at it for 16 years and counting, right through 2003's Holy Well, Sacred Flame and the phenomenally popular Dark Goddess series..."

"...Iden Payne, who spent his later years in Austin at the University of Texas. This year, 59 productions by 30 different companies were honored with nominations, the most favored shows being the Austin Musical Theatre production of The Music Man (10 nominations) and the VORTEX Repertory Company production of Despair's Book of Dreams and the Sometimes Radio (eight nominations)..."

"...When director Bonnie Cullum is doling out the nude roles at the Vortex, Dear is the first to raise her hand. She has disrobed for a number of VORTEX Repertory Company productions, including the cyber-operas of The X & Y Trilogy, Chad Salvata's film The Tetragons, and the recent ritual theatre piece Dark Goddess, in which she played the very naked Sumerian Goddess Inanna..."