Recent Reviews
Review: The One-Minute Play Festival by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 31, 2014
Seventy one-minute plays by forty-plus local playwrights presented in one evening-length work sounds very difficult to accomplish. It certainly is, but producers One Minute Play Festival and ScriptWorks pulled it off with skill at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin. Dominic D'Andrea of the NYC-based organization promotes one-minute play shows around the country. The premise is simple. Local playwrights write several one-minute plays, group them into similarly themed 'clumps,' and find actors to perform all …
Review: Bright Now Beyond by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 06, 2014
The original musical theatre production Bright Now Beyond, created by Daniel Alexander Jones, is one of the finer efforts of the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. The successful and complex work may well serve to vault playwright Jones to higher levels of recognition in the national musical theatre community. Multi-talented theatre and performance artist Jones concentrates on the issues of sexual politics, sexuality, and identity writ large. His cross-gender persona of Jomana Jones seems to offer a career …
Review: All's Well That Ends Well by 7 Towers Theatre Company
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 28, 2014
All’s Well That Ends Well by Shakespeare is not often produced but is commonly referenced by anyone with an interest in the Bard. Now 7 Towers Theatre Company, that small band of Shakespeare specialists, has dropped it into its watch glass for all to examine in performance. Director Christina Gutierrez, co-founder of the company, returns to Austin from her academic post in Arizona and chooses to reset the play in World War I in recognition of the …
Review: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying by Archangel Community Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 27, 2014
Archangel Community Theatre at St. Michael’s Catholic Academy in West Lake Hills has produced in its theatre facility the Broadway musical theatre show How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. A production of musical theatre is perfect for showcasing a relatively new theatrical facility and a growing fine arts program, and St. Michael’s has achieved a spectacular success, albeit with a vehicle having a few deep-seated issues in its material. How to Succeed. . . is …
Review: Lysistrata by The Baron's Men
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 13, 2014
Aristophane’s Lysistrata is the world’s first anti-war play, and it is not produced often enough in the modern world for us to learn its lessons. It is also a play about love, with a lot of kissing, hugging, nuzzling, and feeding each other grapes. This is somewhat ccounter to its theme, but, eh, the play has its complexities. The Baron’s Men give it a lusty go at Richard Garriott’s The Curtain Theatre in far west Austin. The …
Review: Pygmalion by Different Stages
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 09, 2014
Different Stages’ production of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion at the Vortex in East Austin is low on the radar in this summer of spectacular productions, but theatergoers should search out this classic play, updated and made fresh as the violets in Eliza Doolittle’s basket by Director Norman Blumensaadt. Different Stages has much to be proud of, at most levels, in this new production of an older and well-known play. The play derives ultimately from the Greek …