The Cruel Circus is the newest play from Trouble Puppet Theater Company. It’s a darkly whimsical work set in the world of a collection of strange circus performers, who are embodied onstage entirely by original puppets. Trouble Puppet never has a shortage of unique and interesting puppets in their works, but this show let them create characters that are interesting and different even by their standards. The misfit circus performers that make up the cast aren’t traditionally human-shaped creatures; there’s a guy with a unicycle for legs, a living cannonball, and a few animals (among others). Most characters are performed by three puppeteers at once, so the performers have to work together very closely, in both the mental and physical sense.

The Cruel Circus is written by Trouble Puppet artistic director Connor Hopkins and features original music by Justin Sherburn.

The Cruel Circus

At Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road

Thursdays – Saturdays at 8:00 pm, Sundays at 6:00 pm

Through May 25

After selling out the cafetorium for last year’s musical (The Wizard of Oz), the kids of Rawson Saunders School for children with dyslexia are moving to a larger venue this year – the Stateside at the Paramount. They’ll be staging the musical Peter Pan, with not just a student cast, but also a student crew. It’s the first time the Stateside has partnered with a school; the young actors will get a chance to perform on a real-deal stage while the student tech crew will get to work with the professional staff of the Stateside.

Peter Pan stars Surya Garcia-Crow in the title role, Ruth Black as Captain Hook, and Emmett Griffin-Baldwin as Hook’s right hand man, Smee. All the ensemble parts (pirates, lost boys, etc) are played by younger students at the school, and the show is directed by Rawson Saunders drama teacher Emily Beatty.

Peter Pan

At the Stateside at the Paramount, 719 Congress Ave.

Thursday May 23 and Friday May 24 at 7:00 pm

The Austin Sketch Fest (which producers describe, in a brazen lie, as “Austin’s only Festival”) is now in its fourth year. Every time out, the fest gets a little bigger; this year it takes place on Memorial Day weekend, which, for the purposes of the festival, begins on Wednesday.
Dozens of sketch troupes from Austin and around the country will be on hand for the five-day fest, including Superego with special guest Paul F. Tompkins, Ennis and Kaye featuring Mr. Show alum John Ennis, and Beige from the Upright Citizens’ Brigade. Plus local favorites like Stag!, Your Terrific Neighbors, Master Pancake, and many more.

Austin Sketch Fest
May 22 – 26
At ColdTowne Theater (Wednesday night)
and the Spiderhouse Ballroom (Wednesday – Sunday nights)

The new show from Loaded Gun Theory, The Brothers Merlin, was collaboratively written by nine members of the theater troupe. It’s a comedic play set in the world of a carnival, an environment which extends off the stage to include a working midway outside the Off Center. Before the show, audience members can enjoy some cotton candy, play some games, and even win prizes.
The show itself features (among other characters) a cross-dressing knife thrower, a bearded lady, and the mysterious Aligator Man. There’s also comedy, freaks, carnage, and original music from Anna Larson and Her Sleight-of-Hand Sideshow Band.

The Brothers Merlin

May 17 & 18, May 23-25 and May 29 – June 1
Midway opens at 7:30, Showtime is 8:00
At the Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street

For their debut as Half and Half, Wright and Tatum are staging Passing Strange, a comedy/drama rock musical by Stew. It’s a coming-of-age piece and a tale of the self-discovery of a young artists. With a live band and music that spans genres from soul to gospel to punk, the energy of the show is something like a rock show crossed with a stage play. The show will be staged at Half and Half at Highland Mall, a new black box style theater in what used to be a clothing store at Highland Mall.

Passing Strange

At Half and Half at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd, Suite 1020

May 2 -12, Thursday – Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 6:00 p.m.

A decade ago, A Chick and a Dude Productions burst onto the Austin theater scene with their play HIT., directed by the chick (Melissa Livingston-Weaver) and written by the dude (Shannon Weaver) of the company’s name. Now, to celebrate their ten year anniversary, they’re restaging the show, with a mostly new cast and a few tweaks to the script. When the play was first staged, first-time playwright Shannon Weaver was still young and fresh-faced enough to play both the teenaged and adult versions of the character Asher. Now that a few years have gone by, he’ll still be playing the adult Asher, but he’s passing the role of teen Asher down to actual teenager Gary Livingston-Weaver, who happens to be the son of the chick and the dude.

HIT.

At Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W 43rd St

May 2 – 18

Thursday – Sunday at 8:00 p.m.

Author Owen Egerton’s latest book, Everyone Says That at the End of the World… is (spoiler alert) about the end of the world. That’s a topic that seems to be on everybody’s mind these days, which, according to Owen, is much as it’s always been. The idea that mankind has always been preoccupied with theories about and stories of its own ultimate demise is a key theme of the novel, in fact.

It’s set in Austin, and keen-eyed readers will recognize fictionalized versions of people and places from around town. The hermit crab who’s central to the plot, though, is a wholely original creation. Comedic elements such as that crab (whose name is Click) found their way into what was originally conceived as a more dramatic work, resulting in a comic novel that has been getting great reviews, and that Owen himself considers it his funniest work yet.

Everyone Says That at the End of the World…

by Owen Egerton

available in paperback and as an e-book wherever fine readables are sold

At first glance, the choral singing of Conspirare might seem far removed from the world of slam poetry, but that didn’t keep Conspirare’s Craig Hella Johnson from planning a show that fuses the two art forms. Their roots date back to a similar time in Austin history, with Conspirare forming just a year before the first Austin Poetry Slam. And Johnson also sees a similarity in the way singing and spoken word poetry use the human voice to express emotion and communicate with an audience.

That’s why he tapped three of his favorite local slam poets — Lacey Roop, Kevin Burke, and Danny Strack — to appear in Fusion: Choral Song Meets Slam Poetry. When I spoke with the four artists recently, the show was still in the planning stages; no one was sure yet how the show would come together but everyone was excited to find out.

Fusion: Choral Song Meets Slam Poetry

Friday, April 26 at 8:00 pm

Saturday, April 27th at 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm

At The North Door, Austin.

There are two exhibitions currently on display at Austin’s Mexic-Arte Museum, exploring different but connected aspects of Latin American, and specifically Mexican culture. In the main gallery, Masked takes a look at the history of Mexican dance masks, which for years have been tied to cultural and religious celebrations. The colorful masks are steeped in history but have also become popular more recently as souvenirs and wall decor.

In the back gallery, Unmasked celebrates a more pop culture version of the Mexican mask: those worn by luchadores, or Mexican wrestlers. Luchadores have been popular in Mexico for decades; they’re sort of a combination of athlete and super hero, appearing not just in the wrestling ring but also in dozens of popular movies and television shows.

Masked/Unmasked

Through May 25, 2013

Mexic-Arte Museum, 419 Congress Avenue

Austin’s Fusebox Festival is now in its ninth year, and the thing just keeps getting bigger. This time around, it’ll span 12 days, take place in twenty-something locations around town, and feature dozens of artists from Austin, the U.S., and abroad.

This is a hybrid art festival, so you can expect to experience and discuss arts of all disciplines, including the popular Digestible Feasts series partnering artists and chefs and Cue China, a performance piece so intimate that the audience is only the two people (which could be you and friend or stranger) who are performing the piece.

There’s far too much going on during Fusebox to list here, but you can find a full schedule of events and a map of venues at the Fusebox site.

Fusebox Festival

April 17 – 28