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Latest ACoT theatre-award nominations favor two Austin musicals

The dirigo group production of Sam Shepard's True West sees Corey Gagne and Judson L. Jones swapping the roles of petty criminal Lee and screenwriter Austin every other night. While both are exceptional actors, offering plenty of sharp character work, both versions bring that pervading sense of threat that gives the show the violent inevitability of Greek tragedy.

The Dirigo Group's 'Gypsy Chain' Speaks for the Trees

Like those Christmastime baskets full of cheese logs, summer sausages, miniature jars of jellies, etc., The Best Salvage Vanguard Holiday Ever features a diverse little gathering of tasty treats -- in this case, five-minute plays on a common theme -- and it's fun to snack on.

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.

The power of little things to make spirits real drives The Woman in Black, a terrifically old-fashioned ghost story in the English tradition, and the State Theater Company production employs simple sights and sounds in effective ways that make us believe and be terrified.

In the State Theater Company's new staging of The Tempest, director Scott Kanoff offers a carefully considered, vividly imagined, and vividly theatrical exploration of Shakespeare's text, sounding its themes of family, aging, freedom, justice, and mercy.

Drama with a Gothic flair scored high in the nominations for the 2005 B. Iden Payne Awards, as announced by Austin Circle of Theatres on August 15

A complete list of all Payne Award nominees.

Austin Critics Table nominations, 2004-2005

With Patrick MacDonald's dark comedy 'Pageant,' Hyde Park Theatre takes us deep into the woods to consider the nature of beauty with a quartet of low-key comic Canucks

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

The full list of nominations for the 2003-2004 Austin Critics Table Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements in local theatre, dance, classical music, and visual art

Director Ken Webster has made a career out of discovering quirky, funny scripts by young playwrights that entertain as they offer insight into our culture, and that describes Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge perfectly

Austin helps the Lysistrata Project become the Little Peace Project That Could, the Long Center says "no thanks, after all" to the $25 million in Waller Creek tunnel bond money, and Austin Shakespeare Festival launches a new reading series.

The Post-Neanderthal Diet is a slight but enjoyable satire of quick-fix culture by Hans Frank (of Lonely Highway), in which guru Nubby Farnsworth Jr., a chain-smoking huckster who seems to have taken a swim in an oil leak, promises to improve your life with bizarre insights and a gag-inducing fruit-and-raw-meat smoothie.

As produced by Hyde Park Theatre, playwright Melanie Marnich's Blur draws the audience along in a briskly-paced, dynamic ride.

While the dirigo group should be applauded for the scope of The Gypsy Chain, this ensemble-developed project about Earth First! activist David "Gypsy" Chain, who was killed defending the forests of Northern California from illegal clear-cutting, the onstage effectiveness of the work falls short of its sociopolitical message, while Gypsy's personal story is lost in the muddied construction of a play that isn't sure exactly what it wants to be.

Scott Kanoff launches his tenure as the State Theater Company's new producing artistic director with Eric Coble's Virtual Devotion, and while the performances and design work are laudatory, they're brought to bear on a lackluster script that looks poor in comparison to the least that, say, MAD TV has to offer.

The Subterranean Theatre Company production of John Mighton's Body and Soul is provocative and features a talented cast, but it never lets us get to know the play's characters.

Ada Calhoun covers Laura Somers' desire, a "reconsideration" of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms.

The Soldier Dreams: Misreading Clues Around a Deathbed

New Paintings By Sarah Higdon: Nonsense and Sensibility

A Partial Who's Who at MoMFest 2000

The Salvage Vanguard Theater production of Caridad Svich's Fugitive Pieces is a nowhere road reminiscent of the Tom Waits milieu, with vagabonds hopping trains to anywhere other than where they are now. But while it's not for everyone, it's worth the journey.

The most prosperous period in Austin's cultural history came to a painful close in 2003.

Naughty Austin makes a new home for itself on the Eastside, and Katie Pearl and Lisa D'Amour return to the Grove on Lamar.

The Year in Austin Culture

Local Arts Reviews