Reviews for Ground Floor Theatre Performances
Review #1 of 2: Jenna & the Whale by Ground Floor Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 14, 2023
Magical realism meets the devastating emotions left by loss and suicide in this brilliantly acted and designed work. The vastness of the ocean, the web embracing all life, the making and breaking of connections—all are here.
Stories of a single complicated life achieve complexity when they intersect thecomplicated lives of a whole community. Any absurd story with these qualities takes on the immensity of the ocean and marine life large enough to swallow one’s own. This summer of 2023 with its excessive heat and many reports of shark attacks humbles us with its oceanic immensity. The vastness bears down on us, creates pain in us, and changes us. This may be …
Review: Sanctuary City by Ground Floor Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 29, 2023
The SANCTUARY CITY of urban New York is anything but a refuge; playwright Majok portrays a dark world lit only by the tenuous flame of friendship. Her ninety-minute piece grips and provides an unexpected, devastating twist.
Ground Floor Theatre's Sanctuary City plays on a starkly bare stage where the principal set pieces are metal scaffolding units and the principal decoration is a dark urban mural with random tagging. This set could represent anywhere or nowhere. There's a sense of brooding about it. It looks like a prison or a random inhabited space in a wasteland. In a sense, it is both. The lives here are those of "B" and "G," prisoners …
Review: Dot by Colman Domingo, Ground Floor Theatre
by Justin M. West
Published on May 31, 2022
Colman Domingo's flawed script for DOT and Lisa B. Thompson's direction hinder, over-shout the talents onstage.
The Ground Floor Theatre has a solid reputation for producing progressive and thought-provoking pieces. The last show I reviewed here, Some Humans Were Harmed…, left a lasting impression on me in a way that few have. So, too, did writer Lisa B. Thompson’s prior production, The Mamalogues, though I failed spectacularly to produce a review. I was therefore beyond disappointed to find that Thompson’s work as a director on Coloman Doming's Dot so widely misses …
Review: Unexpected Joy by Ground Floor Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on December 09, 2021
Musical theatre is back in Austin. In this homecoming story set about 2016, tension in this family of rock singers starts high and launches higher. It gives the pandemic its final stomping into the ground.
Musical theatre is back in Austin. The Ground Floor Theatre (GFT) production of Unexpected Joy reestablished the place as a venue for well-produced musical theatre in Austin. In the hands of director Lisa Scheps and the design and production team at GFT, the musical with book and lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Janet Hood, gave us an evening of entertainment and thoughtfulness that could and should be seen everywhere in our nation. It …
Review: rain falls special on me by Ground Floor Theatre, Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 28, 2021
Wheelchair-bound, Mikey seems touched, creating a pseudo-home from nothing amid all his problems . . . but before long, we see that Mikey's only problem is that his heart is larger than his head.
After years waiting for the Covid 19 pandemic to blow through so we could go back to live theatre, rain falls special on me premiered at the prestigious Ground Floor Theatre on the east side. And Covid 19 hasn’t even blown through yet. The play is a literary telling of homeless stories through six human characters and one dog character. All seven are homeless and needed to address the hydra we label homelessness before we …
Review: Next to Normal by Ground Floor Theatre
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on December 13, 2019
This collaboration between Ground Floor Theatre and Deaf Austin Theatre is unique, and it's groundbreaking in the effectiveness of both concept and execution. Highly recommended; one of the must-see theatrical performances of the year.
Diana, portrayed simultaneously by Megg Rose and Kerry McGinnis, is suffering from bipolar disorder. Her psychic struggles spread out and ensnare all those near and dear to her. First affected are her husband and daughter; from there her crisis reaches her doctor, her daughter’s boyfriend, and — most frightening of all — the ghost of Gabe, her long lost first born. The brilliant dual casting of most parts with two distinct performers, one singing and …