The New Electric Ballroom
by Renaissance Austin
May. 22 - Jun. 06, 2015
Thursdays-Sundays
Breda smears her lipstick, Clara waits for tea and cake, and Ada cans fish in the local cannery. Three sisters trapped in time endlessly relive their past in a crumbling Irish seaside town. Their raison d’être is to rehearse and tell the story of their glory days. But just how glorious were those days? What happened that made the sisters imprison themselves in their own house? One day the local fishmonger steps into the house for the very first time. That was the day everything changed. Was the fishmonger really a fishmonger at all? Maybe he was Jesus in disguise. Then again, maybe he wasn’t. Find out at The New Electric Ballroom. Three weeks only at The VORTEX, May 22-June 6, 2015.
Starring Jennifer Underwood, Karen Jambon, Lorella Loftus, and Andy Brown. Directed by Kevin Yancey. Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon. Lighting Design by Patrick Anthony. Costume Design by Elisha Alderman. Sound Design by David DeMaris. Stage Management by Suzanne Smith. Production Support by Diane Christopherson.
Enda Walsh is a prolific and multi-talented Irish playwright and screenwriter renowned for his dark, lyrical voice. His work is always daring, imaginative, openhearted and fierce. Walsh’s book for the musical Once won a Tony Award in 2012. His work on the short film Hunger earned him Best First Film at the Cannes Film Festival and The Discovery Award at the Toronto Film Festival. His plays The Walworth Farce, Penelope, Bedbound, and The New Electric Ballroom have won Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Awards. The New Electric Ballroom also won an Obie in 2010, and an Irish Times Best New Play Theatre Award in 2008. The play has been produced throughout the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. This is its first time in Texas.
The New Electric Ballroom is funded and supported in part by VORTEX Repertory Company and by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.
“The New Electric Ballroom” is a companion piece to Mr. Walsh’s “Walworth Farce,” seen at the same Brooklyn theater two seasons ago. In both plays the bonds of family are kept pulled tight — to the point of strangulation, more or less — by the continual re-enactment of a shared mythology that has become a sort of sacred text, although in the case of the newer play, the tone is bleaker, and the family is female.
-- from review by Christopher Isherwood, New York Times, November 2, 2009
The New Electric Ballroom
by Edna Walsh
Renaissance Austin
May 22 - June 06, 2015
Thursdays - Sundays at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $30-$10: $30 Priority Seating, $20 General Admission, $10 Artist/Student/Senior
www.vortexrep.org or 512-478-5282
Limited seating. Advance Reservations Recommended.
2-for-1 admission Thursday and Sunday with donation of 2 cans for SafePlace
Radical Rush offers limited free tickets each performance in the spirit of sustainability, accessibility, and the gift economy. Radical Rush tickets released at 7pm each night--first come first serve! In-person only.
