Frank Benge - Page 5

Frank Benge

A Kansas native, Frank Benge has been involved in the Austin area theatre scene as a Director, Designer, Writer and Performer for the past 20 years. He holds a double BA in Theatre and English from Washburn University.






BWW Review: Jennifer Coy Jennings Dazzles in WILD HORSES
BWW Review: Jennifer Coy Jennings Dazzles in WILD HORSES
November 19, 2017

Allison Gregory's WILD HORSES is a wickedly funny examination of the heady early teenage years. It is a stunning one woman monologue about the struggle for identity, independence and authenticity. It delves deeply into youth's search to find where and how you fit in a complicated world. Set in the 70's, the play is about one summer that forever alters an adolescent girl, as related by her grown-up self. This is related as a complex bar story and yet is essentially timeless. WILD HORSES is a coming-of-age story for all genders and generations. This production is the 72nd Rolling World Premiere of the National New Play Network, an alliance of nonprofit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays. WILD HORSES has already been produced in West Virginia and New York and will finish in New Jersey after the Austin production.

BWW Review: THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND Celebrates the Songs of Kander and Ebb
BWW Review: THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND Celebrates the Songs of Kander and Ebb
November 18, 2017

THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND is an award winning musical revue showcasing the songs of John Kander and Fred Ebb. It won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Revue. The revue takes its title from a tune the songwriting team wrote for Liza Minnelli to sing in the film New York, New York. The revue features a combination of upbeat, unfamiliar songs from the team's lesser known musicals: The Happy Time, The Rink, The Act, Flora the Red Menace, Kiss of the Spider Woman, 70 Girls 70, and others as well as their two blockbuster hits Cabaret and Chicago. The show is an eclectic collection of love songs, ballads, and witty comedic numbers.

BWW Review: I HATE HAMLET is Great Escapist Fun
BWW Review: I HATE HAMLET is Great Escapist Fun
November 12, 2017

I HATE HAMLET is a 1991 comedy by Paul Rudnick, who is best known as the author of Jeffrey and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. It is a supernatural fantasy inspired by the time when the playwright was living in an apartment in New York that was John Barrymore's old apartment. The play is a throwback to those classic fantasy comedies like Arsenic and Old Lace, Goodbye Charlie and Bell, Book and Candle. There's no real deep message here, just witty and fun escapist entertainment.

BWW Review: ACT ONE An Epic Theatre Tale Beautifully Told
BWW Review: ACT ONE An Epic Theatre Tale Beautifully Told
November 10, 2017

ACT ONE is the story of famed playwright-director Moss Hart, from his poor Bronx beginnings to his first Broadway hit Once in a Lifetime. Hart's autobiography, considered by many to be the best book ever written about show business, has been stylishly adapted for the stage by James Lapine, Tony Award winning writer and director of Sondheim on Sondheim, Into The Woods and Falsettos, among others. Lapine has done a beautiful job translating Hart's sprawling book into a taut and entertaining evening of theatre...that is all about the theatre. This stage work has a great big heart and is ultimately funny, informative and touching. ACT ONE premiered on Broadway in 2014.

BWW Interview: Robert King, Jr.  and THE VOICES OF DONNY HATHAWAY
BWW Interview: Robert King, Jr. and THE VOICES OF DONNY HATHAWAY
November 6, 2017

On January 13th, 1979, the world lost singer Donny Hathaway. Austinite Robert King Jr. has written a new, thought provoking musical, in which he introduces the audience to a side of Donny Hathaway that has never been explored before. Most people are unaware Hathaway battled with voices that haunted and tormented him, all caused by his paranoid schizophrenia. King's new musical suggests that the night prior to Donny jumping off of the 15th story of the Essex hotel that he had a conversation at the bar with a non-fictional charter by the name of Pamela Robinson (Samone Murray). Pamela asks him if he knew that he had one last time to perform in a one night only concert, what songs would he perform? This new show takes the audience inside the hallucination that is that last concert. This new show, THE VOICES OF DONNY HATHAWAY will play at Ground Floor Theatre, Friday & Saturday , January 12th &13th ,2018 at 7:30 pm. The show is written and directed by King, who will be playing Donny Hathaway. The show is produced by Ground Floor Theatre. Broadway World had a chance to talk to King about the new show.

BWW Review: A TUNA CHRISTMAS Proves Sometimes Less is More
BWW Review: A TUNA CHRISTMAS Proves Sometimes Less is More
November 5, 2017

It's Christmas in Tuna, the third smallest town in Texas where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies! Between the holiday yard display contest and the Little Theatre's 'A Christmas Carol' on the brink of cancellation, it's a miracle anyone gets tinsel on a tree. Three actors play all 25 colorful citizens of Tuna, including OKKK Radio hosts Thurston Wheelis (Will Mercer) and Arles Struvie (Ryan H. Bailey) who report on the small-town festivities. A TUNA CHRISTMAS is a satirical ode to the season spiked with sass and shenanigans.

BWW Review: THE SEAFARER First Rate Irish Tall Tale
BWW Review: THE SEAFARER First Rate Irish Tall Tale
November 5, 2017

THE SEAFARER is a 2006 play by Irish playwright Conor McPherson. Set on Christmas Eve in Baldoyle, a coastal suburb north of Dublin city, the play centers on James 'Sharky' Harkin (Steve Wright), an alcoholic who has recently returned to live with his blind, aging brother, Richard Harkin (Rick Felkins). Sharky's attempts to stay off the bottle are sorely tested by the hard-drinking, irascible Richard. Tension between them is evident from the start and exists mostly from Richard's constant sniping and excessive demands on his younger brother. A source of early conflict stems from Richard's inviting Nicky Gilbin (Scot Friedman) to join the men, along with Ivan (Rick Smith), for a game of poker. Nicky, as romantic rival of Sharky's, unexpectedly arrives for the card game with the mysterious Mr. Lockhart (Garry Peters). The play was nominated for multiple Tony Awards as well as the Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award for Best Play.

BBW Review: STEEL MAGNOLIAS Familiar But Fresh
BBW Review: STEEL MAGNOLIAS Familiar But Fresh
October 31, 2017

Robert Harling's STEEL MAGNOLIAS is a 1987 comedy drama about the bond amongst a group of Southern women in northwest Louisiana and is based on his experience with his sister's death. The title suggests that while women may be as delicate as magnolias they are also as tough as steel. The magnolia also specifically refers to a magnolia tree they are arguing about as the play begins.

BWW Review: ZOMBIE PROM A Camp Charmer
BWW Review: ZOMBIE PROM A Camp Charmer
October 27, 2017

ZOMBIE PROM is an Off-Broadway musical that was later adapted into a short film. It was first produced at the Red Barn Theatre, Key West, Florida in 1993. It opened off-Broadway in 1996.

BWW Review: WAIT UNTIL DARK Toothless Thriller
BWW Review: WAIT UNTIL DARK Toothless Thriller
October 26, 2017

WAIT UNTIL DARK is a 1966 play by Frederick Knott that was revised in 2013 by Jeffrey Hatcher. Hatcher's revisions backdate the story to 1944, making Sam and Mike Marine buddies who served together in Italy, and the doll that is the object of search now contains diamonds instead of heroin. It also slightly tightens the text, most noticeably at the end of the first act.

BWW Review: RENT Touring Production A Near Perfect Presentation
BWW Review: RENT Touring Production A Near Perfect Presentation
October 15, 2017

RENT is a rock musical with music, lyrics and book by Jonathan Larson. It won the 1996 Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize. The Broadway production closed on September 7, 2008 after a 12-year run of 5,123 performances, making it one of the longest running musicals of all time. The success of the show led to several national tours and numerous foreign productions and in 2005, it was adapted into a motion picture featuring most of the original cast members. This current touring production is the 20th anniversary production of Larson's re-imagining of Puccini's La Boh me. RENT follows an remarkable year in the lives of seven impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in New York City's East Village during the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, while under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. With its inspiring message of joy and hope in the face of fear, RENT is a timeless celebration of friendship and creativity, and a reminder to measure our lives with the only thing that truly matters love.

BWW Review: RHINOCEROS St. Edwards Stages Smartly Stylish Satire
BWW Review: RHINOCEROS St. Edwards Stages Smartly Stylish Satire
October 9, 2017

RHINOCEROS was written by Eug ne Ionesco in 1959 and staged for the first time in 1960. Considered by many scholars as one of the best examples of The Theatre of the Absurd, this label was, in later years, rejected as too interpretatively narrow. Over the course of three acts, the inhabitants of a small town in France turn into rhinoceroses. Only one human resists this mass metamorphosis and that is the central character, B renger, portrayed in this production by Blake Browning. He is an everyman figure who is criticized first for his drinking, lateness, and unkempt appearance and later for his paranoid obsession with the rhinoceroses. The play is widely considered a criticism of the spread of Fascism and Nazism in Europe preceding World War II. It examines such themes as conformity, mass political movements, mob mentality, logic and morality.

BWW Interview: Bernadette Nason and TEA IN TRIPOLI Stage Work Becomes Book Memoir
BWW Interview: Bernadette Nason and TEA IN TRIPOLI Stage Work Becomes Book Memoir
October 4, 2017

In 2011, Bernadette Nason wrote and performed her one-woman show, TEA IN TRIPOLI, which was about the fifteen months she spent in Libya in 1984-85. The overwhelmingly positive reaction led to four award nominations: Best Actress, Best Original Script, and two for Best Production. This encouraged Nason to turn the show into a book. The end result is 'Tea in Tripoli: A Memoir' which is now available in paperback and electronic form from Amazon.

BWW Review: SINGIN' IN THE RAIN Tap Happy Film Classic Delightfully Reimagined
BWW Review: SINGIN' IN THE RAIN Tap Happy Film Classic Delightfully Reimagined
October 4, 2017

Who isn't familiar with SINGIN' IN THE RAIN? The classic MGM film musical is arguably a perfect film musical, full of great songs, amazing dancing and memorable characters. Setting out to put this film on stage is a monumental task that requires a faithful enough recreation that it doesn't disappoint a legion of fans, yet has to be it's own original stage creation. Now playing on ZACH Theatre's Topfer Stage is a delightful version that manages to pay just the right amount of tribute while being thrillingly entertaining in its own right.

BWW Review: THE WOLVES A Powerful Tale of Female Camaraderie
BWW Review: THE WOLVES A Powerful Tale of Female Camaraderie
October 2, 2017

THE WOLVES is a 2016 play by Sarah DeLappe that looks at the experiences of nine high school girls during their soccer warmups. All of the play takes place during these successive warmups, where they navigate big questions and wage tiny battles like a pack of adolescent warriors. This portrait of life for this group of girls who just want to be winners at soccer is wise, witty and ultimately, heartbreaking. This is DeLappe's first play and it received the American Playwriting Foundation's inaugural Relentless Award and was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

BWW Review: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN Plagued By Problems
BWW Review: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN Plagued By Problems
September 29, 2017

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN is a musical with a libretto by Terrence McNally and a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. It follows the story of con artist named Frank Abagnale, Jr. The plot borrows heavily from the 2002 film of the same name, which in turn was based on Abagnale's 1980 autobiography. The musical received four 2011 Tony nominations. The current production is directed by Joshua Denning.

BWW Review: GIBBERISH MOSTLY Has a Lot to Say at Ground Floor Theatre
BWW Review: GIBBERISH MOSTLY Has a Lot to Say at Ground Floor Theatre
September 28, 2017

GIBBERISH MOSTLY, a new play by Max Langert, is an examination of a family dealing with a child suffering from a neurological disorder. In this case, we are talking about severe autism, and what is being examined is how and why choices are made. In the case of severe autism, it isn't that communication has broken down, but, rather that it is almost impossible.

BWW Review: CATALINA DE ERAUSO a Delightfully Wacky and Witty Feminist Adventure
BWW Review: CATALINA DE ERAUSO a Delightfully Wacky and Witty Feminist Adventure
September 22, 2017

CATALINA DE ERAUSO, a new play by Austin playwright, Elizabeth Doss (Mast, Poor Herman), is a rollicking, comic adventure tale currently receiving its world premiere production. Doss's script crackles with wit and word play, with the occasionally recognizable contemporary phrase or saying thrown in. At heart, this is a grand satiric offering that reminds one of Voltaire's Candide, with its tongue firmly planted in its globe trotting cheek.

BWW REVIEW: BUILDING THE WALL Just Offers More Questions
BWW REVIEW: BUILDING THE WALL Just Offers More Questions
September 9, 2017

Robert Schenkkan, who has created a name for himself as a chronicler of American politics with his plays All The Way and The Great Society, is currently having a Regional Premiere of his new play BUILDING THE WALL at UT in the Oscar G. Brockett theatre. However, unlike his historical plays, this new offering ventures into the realm of Political Fiction, and while it asks all the right questions, it doesn't offer any answers, or, really, even any insights into why we, as a nation, are where we are right now.

BWW Review: Jason Phelps Charms in TITLE AND DEED
BWW Review: Jason Phelps Charms in TITLE AND DEED
September 5, 2017

TITLE AND DEED has much the same structure as playwright Will Eno's brilliant Thom Pain, but what it doesn't have, is the same degree of anger. Instead, this solo performance piece is a sharply funny meditation on life in all of its absurd glory. In ways, it seems the sole character, Man (brilliantly essayed by Jason Phelps), is a visitor, perhaps not just to this locale but maybe even to this planet.



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