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The new APD oversight agreement is a first for Austin -- but will it do what it's supposed to do?

Beverly Sheffield, the longtime director of the Parks and Recreation Dept. and a local visionary and civic leader, has died.

Veterans of the Zilker Summer Musical recall enchantment on the hillside

Drifting in the history of Barton Springs

The 2011 class of the Austin Arts Hall of Fame

The SilverStar Theater Group production of Fame -- the Musical can't rise above the triteness of the script, but its rewards are multitudinous, with some energetic, and truly talented, young people as well.

Is Barton Springs Pool Losing Its Soul to Algae?

Although several performers are excellent, the orchestra is good, and the Austin summer-night atmosphere is as laid-back and fun-loving as ever, Zilker Theatre Productions' staging of Into the Woods is fraught with problems, from technical glitches to set-design issues to actors' difficulties handling the musical demands of the show.

October is Art in Public Places Month, and the Austin Shakespeare Festival invites you onstage

Austin prints bought by a Missouri museum, Cookie Ruiz honored, and the city calls for artists' work

Three highly amusing and personable comic actors skewer, pun, and cook their way through all 37 of Shakespeare's plays in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), a show that launches the Austin Shakespeare Festival's 20th anniversary season with a bang, a few whacks, and a lot of laughs.

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days

Barton Springs history needs your crowdfunding help

The final exhibit of this public art project shows how every district in Austin has had artists working for it

Big events in Austin's enviro history, pre-SOS

Why art that actively engages audiences is quintessentially Austin

Austin Shakespeare Festival's second bout with 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in four years offers much by way of manic disposition, but not much by way of substance

Despite its seemingly morose story, Zilker Theater Productions' The Secret Garden is most assuredly uplifting, even moving

Despite the presence of a talented ensemble, the Austin Shakespeare Festival production of what most of the English-speaking world considers the greatest play ever written is a thin Hamlet of watered-down performances and even more diluted directorial choices.

In the wake of last week's terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., Austin theatre artists are doing their part to help out: raising funds for disaster relief from audiences attending their shows.

More than the life of Will Rogers, The Will Rogers Follies is about production values, singing, dancing -- entertainment with a capital "E" -- but with its poorly executed set, distracting costumes, problematic lighting and sound, the 43rd annual Zilker Summer Musical production is unable to deliver.

Though it shows evidence of higher aspirations, the Austin Shakespeare Festival production of Julius Caesar, directed by Ev Lunning Jr. is a one-dimensional melodrama, lacking the rhetorical firepower and guiding vision that gives this drama its political punch.

In his Austin Shakespeare Festival staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream, director Robert Tolaro creates a fantasy world of superheroes with a strong hint of modern Chicago 'burb, that pulls up a bit short conceptually, but is still a fun, rambunctious evening.

You don't hear much about Wayne Bell when the Long Center for the Performing Arts is discussed. That may be because this honored Austin architect is low-key, modest, the consummate team player. But he's the point man on this $60 million project and arts writer Robi Polgar reveals how integral he is in getting it built in a calm, orderly, informed, and successful way.

Off the Desk:

Summer's here, and the time is right for outdoor performances all over Central Texas

News Shorts

Newly elected Council Member Danny Thomas is in a position to end the fighting over the Place 6 council seat.

May