What just happened on stage, and why are my arms all goose-bumpy? One of the most delightful aspects of Dallas’ Festival of Independent Theatres is recognizing elements of pure risk-taking in certain productions and the artists who create them. Unrelated elements combine in unique ways. Uncomfortable moods sustain, creating prolonged suspense or examining the human … Continue reading »
Tagged with upstart productions …
Almondine Antidote: Upstart’s Un-melancholy Play
Nothing melancholy about Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play. It’s mostly exuberant. Billed as a contemporary farce, this whimsical fairytale romance for adults with a hint of mystery rolls merrily along in dreamy absurd-ville. What a relief to realize it exhibits none of the pretentious gimmickry of Ruhl’s highly praised and uninteresting domestic device dramedy The Vibrator … Continue reading »
Get Your Summer FIT On!
Ready to get FIT? Every summer for the past twelve years an array of intrepid theatre artists from all across north Texas converge on White Rock Lake, but it’s not to bike its perimeter or run a marathon. They meet to create, invent, percolate, explore, perform and produce some of the region’s most unusual, seldom … Continue reading »
FIT Announces 2011 Line-Up
Festival of independent Theatres opens July 15, 2011 DALLAS, TX-The summer’s hottest event returns to the historic Bath House Cultural Centerfor its thirteenth exciting season. The 2011 Festival of Independent Theatres coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Bath House Cultural Center and the 100th anniversary of White Rock Lake. So we’re throwing a party! … Continue reading »
Best on Stage 2010: criticalrant.com
Ten Top Productions: Literary merit. Imaginative staging. Sophisticated direction. Cohesive ensemble performance. Comprehensive technical vision and execution. Delightful, viable realities. Our Town (Water Tower Theatre) August: Osage County (Oklahoma City Repertory Company) Much Ado About Nothing (Trinity Shakespeare Festival) The Dog Problem (Undermain Theatre) Umlauf’s Bicycle (The Ochre House) The 39 Steps (Stage West) Charm … Continue reading »
Upstart’s Pinter: Prime Time Performance
With PINTER: Art, Politics, Truth, Upstart Production’s three one-act evening by celebrated British playwright Harold Pinter, the company sprouts wings and soars into uncharted artistic ether. Three challenging one acts, spanning twenty years of the playwright’s creative life — three young directors, none with extensive directing credentials, each attempting to establish their third of the … Continue reading »
2009-10 Honorees: DFW Theater Critics Forum
Spirited conversation and congenial laughter, give and take, sober observations and impassioned advocacy over a tasty potluck lunch at Martha Heimberg’s stately Lakewood home made two hours simply fly by. Here’s the consensus of what worked well in regional theatre since September 2009, what we critics saw of it. DALLAS-FORT WORTH THEATER CRITICS FORUM AWARD … Continue reading »
Righteous memory: Contemporary Theatre of Dallas
Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs pulls back a magical nostalgic curtain. It reveals a slice of life moment, in a 1937 Brooklyn flat, told from the perspective of a mature man reliving that moment through the experiences of the young boy he once was. It’s not a documentary; it’s not a drama. It’s not pure … Continue reading »
Upstart’s Suburbia: R. Andrew Aguilar Raves
Suburbia by Eric Bogosian Presented by Upstart Productions Inaugural review for Emerging Rants & Raves by UNT Senior and Broken Gears Theatre producing partner R. Andrew Aguilar Alienation, apathy, ambition, despair, disillusionment, racism, competition, envy, social myopia, decay, and the American Dream are all themes which are present within Eric Bogosian’s whirlwind of a play … Continue reading »
No Slacking Off: Upstart Productions’ subUrbia
Feel like getting sucker punched by a velvet-gloved fist? Watch Upstart Productions’ subUrbia, Eric Bogosian’s 1994 dystopia drama about a group of slackers malingering outside a Pakistani owned convenience store, and you’ll get so caught up by the curiously engaging drama you might just miss its hard cold facts. Don’t worry—they’ll grab you when the … Continue reading »
