Arts Eclectic

Passing Strange

April 26, 2013 6:00 am by: Mike Lee

passing strange
Half and Half Productions is a brand new theater company, but its artistic directors have been working in Austin for years. Before starting Half and Half, Julianna E. Wright and M. Scott Tatum studied together in college, taught together at the McCallum Fine Arts Academy, and worked together on a number of other theater projects in town. So the company may be new, but the partnership is a decade old. 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. ...
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A Return to TRU

Arts Eclectic

A Return to TRU

Twelve years ago, Jaston Williams took on the role of Truman Capote in the one-person play TRU. To inhabit the legendary writer, Williams immersed himself in Capote lore until he had a greater understanding of the man. Now, he's undertaking the demanding role again, this time with a few more years...
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20 Years of Fringe Theater

Arts Eclectic

20 Years of Fringe Theater

Over the past two decades, Austin's Frontera Fest has emerged as the premiere fringe theater festival in the American southwest. For the next month or so, dozens of artists will take to the stages of Hyde Park and Salvage Vanguard theaters to try out new material or to showcase acts that wouldn't...
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The Nutcracker (with extra Juggling and Dog Tricks)

Arts Eclectic

The Nutcracker (with extra Juggling an...

During the holiday season, one doesn't have to look far to find a version of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. There's Ballet Austin's yearly production, of course, along with a few other stage versions and plenty of filmed adaptations to choose from. But if you're looking for a version of...
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Bah Humbug in the Barrio

Arts Eclectic

Bah Humbug in the Barrio

This holiday season, Teatro Vivo will be presenting its unique take on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Cuento Navideño re-imagines Ebenezer Scrooge as a Latina businesswoman, Evangelina Cruz. Evangelina (played by Mary Alice Carnes) is visited by the ghost of her former...
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Art, Food, and Music at Cherrywood

Arts Eclectic

Art, Food, and Music at Cherrywood

Now in its eleventh year, East Austin's Cherrywood Art  Fair is a two-day event featuring works by more than 100 artists, along with live music and local foods. Held on the grounds of Maplewood Elementary School, the fair is presented by the non-profit Chula League, which supports arts and arts...
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Pride and Prejudice

Arts Eclectic

Pride and Prejudice

Ann Ciccolella, the artistic director for Austin Shakespeare, had been looking for a suitable stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice for quite a while when she found a new version by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan. This take on the classic story struck her as just right,...
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Getting Lost in the Corn

Arts Eclectic

Getting Lost in the Corn

All this fall, the folks at Barton Hill Farms are hosting the Fall Festival and Corn Maze. There'll be food, games for the kids, tons of live music, and a five-acre corn maze, which brings us to an interesting bit of trivia: many corn mazes in the southern U.S. are actually made of sorghum. The...
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A Noir Mystery

Arts Eclectic

A Noir Mystery

The new play Invible, Inc. is making its world premiere this month at the Rollins Studio at the Long Center for the Performing Arts. It's a Depression-era noir mystery, set in the world of two dueling magicians. Invible, Inc. is produced by Hidden Room Theater, and features...
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Get Your Geek On

Arts Eclectic

Get Your Geek On

The talented improv actors at the Hideout are no strangers to the world of pop culture; they've done shows based on the worlds of Star Trek, Batman, and the Twilight Zone among plenty of others. Now they're kicking that fan-friendly improv style into high gear, by inviting superfans of eight of the...
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Palindrome Ends as It Began

Arts Eclectic

Palindrome Ends as It Began

Palindrome Theatre began life with a end date in mind; when the company was started in 2009, the founders planned to work together until December 2012 and then disband. True to that vision, Palindrome is now staging its final performance, the premiere production of artistic director Nigel O'Hearn's...
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Bah Humbug! A One-Man Christmas Carol

Around Town, Arts Eclectic, StoryboardAustin

Bah Humbug! A One-Man Christmas Carol

For many of us, the holiday season is all about tradition, and Damian Gillen's Christmas tradition involves packing a minivan full of costumes and props and hitting the road. For almost a decade, Gillen has spent a month a year taking his one-man production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol...
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A Painful and Itchy Thanksgiving

Arts Eclectic

A Painful and Itchy Thanksgiving

Just in time for the start of the holiday season, the folks at Capital T Theatre are presenting The Pain and the Itch, an ensemble dark comedy about a particularly unpleasant family Thanksgiving. The play, by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Bruce Norris, features a cast of notable...
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A Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tale

Arts Eclectic

A Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tale

The folks at Paper Chairs try to stage one show a year at a location that has never hosted a play before. For the premier of Jason Tremblay's new post-apocalyptic fairy tale Boom For Real, they're heading over to the mysterious Museum of Human Achievement, which is somewhere on the east side (you...
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Five Scenes and Seventeen Years

Arts Eclectic

Five Scenes and Seventeen Years

Agnes and Alfred, from Physical Plant Theater, is a new play that was two years in the making. Writer Steve Moore, director Carlos Trevino, and actors Thomas Graves and Hannah Kenah collaborated over that time to bring the story and its characters to life, resulting in a play that's...
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