Review: Make Believe by Chris Fontanes, Bottle Alley Theatre Company

by Jessica Helmke
Published on July 15, 2013

Experiencing Make-Believe was like watching a painter fresco a wall in lime plaster. Tension mounted as the plot was slowly revealed.

A Commentative Search for Truths    I ended up parking two blocks away by accident and only once had to stop and ask for directions to the Grayduck Gallery [click for map]. I was really excited to watch the premiere of Make-Believe, a new work by Chris Fontanes of Bottle Alley Theatre Company. I'd received an early version of the full length play from Chris a couple of months earlier, so I'd gotten an actresses's inside view …

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Review: The Ivy House by Chris Fontanes, Bottle Alley Theatre Company

by Michael Meigs
Published on February 28, 2013

Memoryspeak by these characters informs us of a pregnancy, an accident that was really a suicide, a fierce breakup and abandonment and a despairing effort to reach beyond the grave.

The very venue is a dream catcher.  This tidy wood-frame two-story house is situated on Garden Street -- hence its bed & breakfast title The Eponymous Garden -- and it's saturated with atmosphere.  Owner Sterling Price-McKinney has written scripts for performance here in connection with the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, and this is the location for the SVT's annual fundraiser.   This isn't the Austin of of the politicians and high rollers who used the Driskill Hotel just …

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Review: Stage by Chris Fontanes, Bottle Alley Theatre Company

by Michael Meigs
Published on September 19, 2012

Stage doesn't give us the finished sculpture; what we have is the exterior of an awkward and unformed mold. We don't even really see the sculptor at work, since the script does not provide the back stories to provide motivations or establish relationships for these actor-ch

Austin has lots of 'seat-of-your-pants' theatre, the sort in which a group of friends or acquaintances or newly recruited players get together for a single project.  They band together for the satisfaction and the thrill of performance, and as often as not their audiences are constituted of friends and family.  Chris Fontanes and associates terming themselves the Bottle Alley Theatre Company showed courage and initiative in publicizing their four-night run of his script Stage, and they …

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