2017-2018 Season and Leadership Troika, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Austin
SALVAGE VANGUARD THEATER ANNOUNCES 2017-2018 SEASON
2 premiere plays, 3 works-in-progress and exciting new leadership
This September SVT’s Florinda Bryant and Austin playwright Diana Lynn Small will join Jenny Larson at the helm of Salvage Vanguard Theater as Co-Producing Artistic Directors. Florinda Bryant, an actress, producer, and playwright, is an SVT company member and staff member. She has been an activist and artist in Austin for the past 20 years working with Rude Mechs, Teatro Vivo and many more. Diana Lynn Small, a playwright, actress, and producer, has an MFA from the Michener Center at UT Austin. Her piece Mad and A Goat performed in rep with SVT’s Guest by Courtesy in Brooklyn in July 2016 and her piece Hot Belly premiered locally with the company Paper Chairs this past fall. Larson, Small and Bryant will collectively guide the vision of the organization.
The Mainstage season:
blu by Virginia Grise
October 26th- November 11th 2017
Directed by Florinda Bryant. The story follows a queer Chicana/o family through explosive after-effects of prison and hunger, desire and war.
con flama by Sharon Bridgforth
March 15th- 31st 2018
In honor of Laurie Carlos, the late great pioneer of new American theater and African American LGBTQ arts hero, who first directed the piece in 2000, SVT presents con flama. The story of a Black gurl’s coming of age, through the stories of her family, ancestors, and her fellow commuters on a bus traveling through Los Angeles.
Works-Progress-Austin (WPA), new play development series:
WPA 1: Casta by Adrienne Dawes
Fall 2017
A work inspired by the Casta paintings of the 1700s depicting interracial families in post-colonial New Spain, by Adrienne Dawes in collaboration with visual artists Beth Consetta Rubel, composer Graham Reynolds, and director Jenny Larson.
WPA 2: HOUSE PLAY by Diana Lynn Small
Winter 2018
A play, part hospitality-ritual & part fable, made to-be-performed specifically in homes. When three deities are banished from the heavens they must decide if they’d rather live their earthly lives as wild animals or domesticated women. House Play will first be developed at the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep in July 2017 and will premiere in Austin in the fall of 2018.
WPA 3: STRIP by Amparo Garcia-Crow
Spring 2018
An epic telling of the lives of the famous stripper Candy Barr, foul mouthed comedian Lenny Bruce, and entertainer extraordinaire Josephine Baker.
About the Leadership
Florinda Bryant is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She has worked with Creative Action since 2005 and has been working with at-risk youth for over ten years. She is the Artistic Director of the Austin Project Performance Company, supported by the Center for African and African Americans Studies Department at the University of Texas. She directed and performed in the Artspark Festival 2008, award winning play “HUSH” and starred in the world premiere of Sharon Bridgforth’s new work delta dandi. She has performed with Salvage Vanguard in: In This House, Civilization (All You Can Eat), From the Pig Pile, Bright Now Beyond, and AM I WHITE.
Diana Lynn Small writes, acts and directs for the stage. She has an MFA in playwriting from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Her two-woman show Mad & a Goat has toured to 6 cities since it was developed in 2013. Her play Good Day was selected for the 2015 Great Plains Conference PlayLabs, and Kitchen Dog Theatre’s New Works Festival and she's been an artist in residence at Tofte Lake Center in Ely, MN. Diana has worked with paper chairs theatre company in Austin, TX premiering her play Hot Belly and directing Elizabeth Doss's play Mast and performing/dramaturging Doss's play Poor Herman. This summer Diana will develop a new show, HOUSE PLAY, at Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor. Diana is pursuing a Masters of Divinity at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Named Best of Austin “Theater Director” by the Austin Chronicle, Jenny Larson has been the artistic director of Salvage Vanguard Theater (SVT) in Austin Texas. She is a director, producer, and performer. Directing credits include: Rude Mechs collaboration From the Pig Pile: The Requisite Gesture(s) of Narrow Approach by Sibyl Kempson. Pig Pile premiered at the Fusebox Festival in 2014. Jenny’s devised collaboration with Hannah Kenah, Guest by Courtesy, played the Fusebox Festival in 2013, SHE MAKES THEATER festival in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2013, and the Brooklyn Yard in 2016. Jenny was awarded Best Director of a Drama from the B Iden Payne Committee for her work on AM I WHITE by Adrienne Dawes. She was awarded Best Director of a Drama by the Austin Critics Circle for her work on Voices Underwater by Abi Basch. She is an Artist-In-Residence in Kokkola, Finland this summer with the Nordic Art School and Drake Art Centre. She is also an Artist-In-Residence at the Drama League in May of 2017.
