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Gnap! Theater Projects presents 69 short plays very loosely based on the songs on the The Magnetic Fields's triple album 69 Love Songs. This is a workshop production of a show we intend to mount in its final form in 2011.
Each weekend of the run, we do one album each, and then add a Thursday night show to accomodate album 1 during the fourth weekend. Confused?
Photos by Chris Shea for A Brief Narrative of an Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits by C. Denby Swanson, which features puppetry by Connor Hopkins and is based on the narrative of an 18th century English physician to the king who after investigating the matter believed that countrywoman Mary Toft had given birth to a stillborn rabbit.
It's directed by Jenny Larson with music by Graham Reynolds. The cast includes Robin Grace Thompson, Nitra Gutierrez, Halena Kays, Shaun Patrick Tubbs, Connor Hopkins, and Matt Hislope - with Josh Meyer as "The Stork."
Video design is by Lee Webster, light designs by Megan Rielly, sound design by Buzz Moran, and costumes by Jessica Gilzow.
A Brief Narrative of an Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits
by C. Denby Swanson
February 11 –March 6, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m.
Directed by Jenny Larson, set designs and puppetry by Connor Hopkins, original music by Graham Reynolds. Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 E Manor Rd $15 admission For reservations and more information, call (512) 474- SVT6 or visit www.SalvageVanguard.org.
In England in 1725, a young woman named Mary Toft was several weeks pregnant with her third child, and the family was hungry. She chased rabbits through her fields, hoping catch one and cook it. But the rabbit always got away.
Soon after, she went into labor - and miscarried a rabbit. During the course of the next four months, Toft claimed to give birth 18 times to rabbits, or pieces of rabbits. Two of the three prominent physicians who examined Mary Toft believed that her rabbit pregnancy was scientifically possible.
A Brief Narrative of an Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits retells the story, where characters live on the edge of the imagined and the real. Mare, a surrogate for her infertile sister Kitty, has just given birth to her first…rabbit. And there will be 24 additional rabbit births. The lingering questions are "how" and "by whom"?
The show also includes video design by Lee Webster, light designs by Megan Rielly, sound design by Buzz Moran, and costumes by Jessica Gilzow. The cast includes Robin Grace Thompson, Nitra Gutierrez, Halena Kays, Shaun Patrick Tubbs, Connor Hopkins, and Matt Hislope - with Josh Meyer as "The Stork."
In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus (Ulysses) made his sailors block their ears with wax so they could not hear the song of the Sirens who lured ships onto the rocks. Ulysses had them tie him to the mast so that he could hear the song.
From the promotional video:
"You will come to be entertained. . . [to have] something to chat about, an excuse to shallowly socialize. Capitalism has reduced art to this: a stylish pastime for a society that wants to stay distracted, pacified, and blind. No matter how meaningful and honest the content of this drama is, it is still Fashion. I do not want to participate in this kind of art, and I don't have to. I can produce drastically different art. We can create a new mode of production, a new economy for art. This is the best way I know of to escape fashion, and to say what we mean honestly and with integrity . . .(from the play:) The profound hypocrisy of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes. . . ."
"Insurgent Theatre has been producing radical plays since 2003 and touring the country since August, 2008. Insurgent was founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but is now located in Philadelphia. Our current project is Ulysses' Crewmen, an hour long radical minimalist play that's been touring non-traditional theatre spaces across the midwest and east coast since September 2009."
Salvage Vanguard Theater Puts Artists to Work with "Works Progress Austin 2010," including
Over The Garden Wall by Ruth Margraff a staged reading of the new parlor play directed by Jenny Larson
The production features actors Robert Pierson, Mark Stewart, Jamie Rhodes, La Tasha Stephens, and Jason Hays.
Nationally acclaimed playwright Ruth Margraff's band Café Anastarsia will perform before the play.Tickets are $10 at the door.
The Salvage Vanguard's annual Works Progress Austin (WPA) - the development project that gives artists a playground to develop new works - returns on January 8th through 24th.During the course of three weeks, a variety of actors, writers, directors, dramaturges, and musicians are given the opportunity to incubate and experiment. Inspired by Roosevelt's Works Projects Administration, Salvage Vanguard's program aims to put artists to work.
