Devon Hoffman

Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh--the portrayal of a dysfunctional bunch of rock-bottom alcoholic barflies and the salesman who tries to 'save' them from their futile pipe dreams: This show is an extraordinary symphony--nineteen excellent actors all piping in and out, rising and falling collective undercurrents of sickness and hope.

This was our first ever 'tour,' our first time outside the dome theater where we conducted our Monday-Wednesday after-school drama program. The beautiful Moving Arts Performance Center where we rehearse (a transformed casino gambling hall) is a testament to what is possible in Española, but our theater remains a distinct contrast to UWC's sprawling high-tech campus just outside Las Vegas, New Mexico. This campus features a gigantic castle on a hill, a gym, a fully-equipped big proscenium theater…and is home to several hundred students and teachers from throughout the world.

I moved back home to Albuquerque after serving with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. A guy called to ask if we could meet and talk about the museum I had established on the island where I'd served. He wanted to start a museum too, in New Mexico. Would I be interested in helping him?

In the mountain village of Peñasco, New Mexico, to an audience of youth and adults where everyone seemed to know each other, four actors (two of them, teenagers) performed powerfully a style of theater that I had never seen before-yet which seemed so natural, an organic expression of that unique community. The theater has harvested its strengths-acrobatics and circus camps for youth, collaborations with multiple artistic communities locally and abroad, political activism-for a fresh version of a popular show: The Gaza Monologues, 31 personal stories written by Palestinian youth who lived through the '08-'09 war on Gaza.

The Festival's primary purpose: to actualize the necessary positive response to a tragic global epidemic of hopelessness. The festival was founded by Lyla June Johnston as a response to a spike in an already-bleak trend of youth suicide and drug abuse-the goal of the event is to end this trend. 

Dancing Earth takes contemporary dance a step further-because they root within their immemorial indigenous identity. Theirs was not a dance of abstract gestures through undefined space; their movement was growth, upon a dancing earth.

It takes guts to do a show like Priscilla Queen of the Desert, a drag-queen pop musical based on a popular Oscar winning movie-in a venue like the National Hispanic Cultural Center's grand and elegant Journal Theater.  To do it right, the show needs to be big.  Big glitz, big musical numbers, big choreography, big audience.  Last Saturday, Albuquerque's Drag-queen performance group 'the Dolls' went as big as they could.  But because of the natural limitations that come with community theater, the show could not be enormous.  And because there wasn't enough character development to distract from these limitations, the empty spaces between each vamping glitzy drag queen began to detract. 

The Whiteheaded Boy drags along the bottom of the Adobe stage with poor pace and too many clumsy performances. The energy picks up, eventually-the second act has a good clip to it, but much too late. Already the Stage Manager, sitting uselessly to the side of the stage, has introduced to every character in the large ensemble (multiple times, for whatever reason). And already, each of these introductions has failed to contribute much more dynamism than the furniture could.

The Cell, where Duke City Repertory is performing this show, is just two blocks from the Central nightclub strip full of young people.  Can that crowd please attend the theater too?  Tickets are less expensive than a couple drinks, and there's catharsis instead of a hangover. Besides, here is a play that shines a light on your exact ritual, O young people:  The 'night out on the town.'

As a theater geek, I'm predisposed to enjoy Immortal Longings, the Vortex' latest production, which brings a pantheon-ensemble of Shakespeare's greatest female characters from his greatest plays onto a single stage, to perform their greatest scenes. This is a geek's dream. Yet I don't feel like I'm taking a risk when I recommend the show to everyone.

A family mourns the recent death of their beloved sister/daughter/wife/mother (and famous actress), Kathy.  This melancholy premise is a fitting frame for self-involved character reflections, but not for dramatic energy-especially because the manner of Kathy's death is totally unrelated to the characters's lives.

What is the FUSION forum? A 'cultural collider,' as Dennis Gromelski (Executive Director of FUSION, New Mexico's longest-running professional theater company) explains: Similar to the goals of the particle collider in CERN, the Fusion Forum will bring charged artists together to unfold the secrets of the universe.

Terra Nova's elegant staging and technical elements created an engrossing poetry of action for the brooding tale of men dying in Antarctica. I can't say I warmed-up to all the choices, but warmth wasn't the point of this play. I'll leave it to my reader to see the show and feel the effect of these choices for themselves-yet my own experience lingers in my chest like a shard of ice:

The ensemble of the Aux Dog's Graduate --especially the leads--so thoroughly possessed their characters that I soon forgot entirely 'how Hoffman, et al did it in the movie.' But they went further, delving through the expansive script with raw and ruthless energy so not only did I stop comparing to the film, I stopped comparing to reality--this performance was singular.

The Elevated Soapbox is a monthly speaking event, held in Therapy Gallery Downtown: Each Soapbox has a theme, and is curated by a different guest, who chooses six people from the community to each speak for six minutes about their personal life, passion, and profession.

The women of Las Meganenas, a local troupe of storytellers, are showing their latest piece at the VSA North Fourth Arts Center: 'The Chupacabra Cantina,' a galvanizing expose on the imbalanced global structures of power that, like the vampiric Chupacabra of Mexican and Hispanic legend, suck the life out of local communities' shared heritage.

The next show in the Vortex Theater will be Terra Nova, by Ted Tally.  Opening March 25 and running until April 17, the play covers the last leg of the ill-fated 1912 Terra Nova South Pole expedition, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott.  Co-directed by Mark Hisler (left, in below image) and Aaron Worley (right), this show is a cunning balance between a thoughtful social commentary and a visceral human trial.  Mark Hisler and I met to discuss this balance, and the history behind it.

Basque school puts on a big show: Costumes, props, sets--all, impeccably done. Their chief assets are the students, whose talent gives this show life.

Renee Peña's simple, vibrant autobiography--her childhood in Gallup, NM, her family relationships, her travels throughout 27 countries--is like a laid back aunt telling stories at a family reunion. Yet Peña's not just any old aunt--she's an actress of extraordinary skill; with craft and care, she elevates her life: You will be captivated.

Locally produced one act, 'Bedtime Stories With Popplewell,' should've seen a lot more revision before opening in the Tricklock Performance Laboratory, but the community came out to support it anyhow.