The latest sign of our local theatre scene's good health? No, it isn't the fact that everyone still has a working liver after this week's Critics Table Awards; it's the number of local productions being revived for second runs. Last week at The Public Domain, Daniel Alexander Jones gave his autobiographical soul saga
Blood:Shock:Boogie a four-day follow-up to its run at Hyde Park Theatre last summer. Next week at Hyde Park, First Stage Productions resurrects its version of Shay Youngblood's
Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery, which did so well when it was produced at The Public Domain in January. (Coincidentally, that production was directed by Mr. D. A. Jones.) Now, word comes to us that a
third show is being revived this month: the Mary Moody Northen Theatre's hit version of
Grease. The production, winningly staged by Scott Thompson and Richard Byron (who were honored with a Critics Table Award for their movement design for the show) and enthusiastically performed by a St. Edward's University cast, did, as they say, boffo box office, and MMNT Business Manager Ev Lunning, Jr. reports that the theatre was inundated with calls about the show after it completed its scheduled run. So, in response, the theatre is bringing the show back for two-and-a-half weeks, May 29-June 15. (The revival bumps the scheduled Summerstock production of
Dracula: The Musical?) For info, call 448-8484. And don't forget, there's one more revival on its way: the Zachary Scott Theatre Center production of
Dreamgirls, which will play the Paramount Theatre the first two weeks of August. Call 472-5411 for info.
Impromptu Gospel
The Critics Table Awards usually can't be counted on for much in the way of entertainment (unless, that is, you count inebriated critics wobbily warbling parody versions of old musical numbers as entertainment), but there was a breathtaking bit of musical performance at the ceremony this past Monday, one all the more astonishing for having been pulled from thin air. Director Dave Steakley was accepting an award for Best Musical for The Gospel at Colonus (an award shared with the Austin Musical Theatre production of Peter Pan), and he told the crowd how he keeps himself calm on airplane trips listening to a tape of the Gospel cast. Then he asked the cast members in attendance to sing the closing hymn, "Let the Weeping Cease." And they did. A cappella. And it was stunning. So, Dave, when do we get that revival of Gospel?
Off the Desk
Austin Access Arts provides another of its Audio Described Performances, in which trained volunteers provide descriptions of plays to patrons wearing headsets tuned to a specific FM frequency, this Sunday, May 18, at 2pm. It's for the 10th anniversary production of The Foreigner at the Paramount Theatre. Call 454-9912 for info.
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