Getting ready to go into the Long Center's Rollins Theater for Wolf Hall, a staged reading in full costume.  And what costumes they are! Jennifer Rose Davis has assembled from her luscious stock and from all over Austin some fabulous looks for our Tudor extravaganza.  Today our Cromwell, Erik Parillo comes to town!  If you are in the Austin area, don't miss it Thurs Fri Sat at 7:30 pm and 3 pm on Sunday and that's it.  TKTS http://thelongcenter.org/event/wolf-hall-part/

And this poster draft is NOT upside down. smile.   Austin Shakespeare rocks!

Tennessee Williams "A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE" Director’s Notes THRU Dec. 6, 2015 #austin

TKTS here! Director’s Notes A Streetcar Named Desire

I thought I knew the power of Streetcar before rehearsing it, but I've been wowed by the play’s integration of poetic motifs, contrast of character and inner conflicts, as we have rehearsed it over the past month.  Theater historians have long considered it one of America’s greatest plays, but staging a new production of a classic always offers revelations.  With each scene, you will experience Williams’ deft planting of ideas, themes and plot points.  Much like our rehearsals of Shakespeare, Shaw, and Schiller, we as a company assumed knew the power of these characters but only in bringing the script to life could we appreciate the powerful vista of a Williams’ authentic soul.

Streetcar’s themes of vulnerability, misunderstanding, and passion don’t just neatly live with Marlon Brando’s in an old black-and-white classic movie.  From Blanche’s tensile strength to Stanley’s sensitivity, we found that by bringing the page to the stage that our own presumptions were challenged. 

Williams called the theater experience itself “evanescent” … as life itself is … so delicate, so quickly gone.  In th Long Center's Rollins Studio Theater, our actors and audience experience the world that he created for a few hours and then it dissolves into memory.   I hope the actors, designers, and behind the scenes crew who touch this production of Streetcar will remember it tenderly – I hope audiences will too.

thinking about playwriting

Getting ready to put together an Artist's Way group at the Austin Museum of Art and journaling and thinking about my own playwriting or lack thereof. I am thinking abt doing a reading for Austin Shakes of my version of Antigone. That "should live" .... I have lots of drafty stuff for a play about American/freedom and the Middle East, mainly Turkey. But soo much more to do on that. Weekends are really the best time for playwriting if we don't have a show in rehearsal and that won't be for months... so ... time to dig into the journal more and do some soul searching. What do I really want to write about. what subjects do I want to live with a year or two or three. Old friends like Jason Phelps ask me about playwriting and I just have to shrug and say I haven't been doing it seriously in the three years I have been at austin shakes. But that is part of the reason the Artist's Way group can help me.. give me the jump start I need.

Thinking about Shakespeare ... and Schiller

This is Helen Merino as Mary Stuart in Schiller's play. I am now working on Midsummer.. as a 1960's rock musical.... but the text of both plays are such a gift... blissful.... this is my 5th DREAM but the language is still thrilling. We have a great team of actors... some new to Austin Shakes and that is always good. More fun to com!

Getting Ready for Austin Shakespeare 25th Anniversary Party

Getting ready to go to Mandola's Vinyard for a "masque" to raise money for FREE Shakespeare in the Park and for education programs. Should be fun with great Italian Food... an Austin-tatious atmosphere... music from the Lute and dancing from American Repertory Company from U.T. and folks in Costume and Mask. Should be fun too... 25 years of bringing FREE Shakespeare to Austin, TX.