Reviews for Sam Bass Theatre Association Performances
Review: Waiting for Godot by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 31, 2010
In his massive apprehension Benge works to master the uncertainity of the eternal, ever frustrated expectation of the arrival of Godot. Kanne's Gogo lives from moment to moment and from word to word, ever capable of surprise and enchanted by mystery.
Director Veronica Prior took on the job of directing this classic piece of twentieth century theatre despite some misgivings. She writes in the program, "I studied this play in college, as many of us did. I have seen several different productions over the years, and wondered what was wrong with me, that I just didn't 'get it.' I am a simple person, not a philosopher. To be honest, I know very little of the 'isms' that …
Review: The Dixie Swim Club by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 20, 2010
What makes this production special is that it plays to the strengths of the informal, floating company constituting the Sam Bass Community Theatre. Like the Dixie Swim Club women, these women actors resonate as a group of friends.
The Sam Bass Community Theatre celebrates friendship and nostalgia in The Dixie Swim Club, by that clever trio of writers who dropped out of the big time to devote themselves to crafting vehicles for community theatres.Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten now have residences in Asheville NC and in New York City, according to their website. After careers in television and regional theatre, they hit gold with their 2005 North Carolina premiere of Dearly Beloved, introducing the …
Review: Murdered to Death by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 09, 2009
You just know that in that atmosphere, once we get the house properly filled up, someone will wind up murdered. Or "murdered to death," as the dimly earnest acting Inspector Pratt later confides to his rather smarter subordinate.
Peter Gordon's script of Murdered to Death is a loving send-up of the British "whodunit" and in particular of Agatha Christie's drawing room murder mysteries. Dame Agatha's novels still sell vigorously today. Not so much in the United States, where we're more likely to encounter them at the public library or at used book sales along with discarded piles of Readers' Digest condensed books. But the French, the Germans, and -- presumably -- the British consume lots of …
Review: Sordid Lives by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 20, 2009
This is a revenge play. Shores acknowledges that he grew up in the mercilessly parodied town of Winters.
Round Rock's Sam Bass Community Theatre isn't a formal repertory company. It's a circle of players, techs and supporters who gather for six or seven productions a year in the plain playing space that was formerly a Union Pacific depot. As you follow the Sam Bass season, you have the pleasure of seeing familiar faces reappear in new guises and disguises. They're friendly folk; the cast always gathers outside the theatre to greet their departing …
Review: Human Sketches by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 24, 2009
Author Trey Deason's two-act piece is well crafted, peopled with sharply drawn central characters and examines serious, interesting issues -- although perhaps not those you might expect from the M.C. Escher sketch used on the poster.
This is a "world premiere," in public-relations-speak, and the folks at the Sam Bass Community Theatre once again show their inventiveness and their determination to be more than a simple source of weekend amusement for the suburbs of Austin.SBCT isn't a large group and they don't have the ample venues or resources of some other out-of-Austin theatres. But they make up for that in pluckiness. Following close on their accomplished production of funnyman Steve Martin's …
Review: Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 07, 2009
Ben Weaver sparkles in his role as Albert Einstein. Contained, naive and sincere, he has a Charlie Chaplin purity to him, a wholesome antidote to Martin's manic plotting.
Round Rock's Sam Bass Community Theatre gives us a charming production of this quirky play by America's quirky funny man Steve Martin.Here's the premise: since Pablo Picasso used to hang out at a bar-café in Paris called "The Nimble Rabbit," just suppose that one morning in 1904 Albert Einstein happened to meet him there. Einstein was a poorly paid patent examiner but by night he was working on his "Special Theory of Relativity." Two of the …