Vontress Mitchell

concludes its 2015-16 season with the musical comedy Lysistrata Jones, by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn.  This hit from the 2012 Broadway season is the story of the Athens University basketball team who hasn't won a game in 30 years. But when spunky transfer student Lysistrata Jones dares the squad's fed-up girlfriends to stop "giving it up" to their boyfriends until they win a game, their legendary losing streak could be coming to an end.

There are very few long-running play festivals/competitions in North Texas and the fact TeCo Theatrical Productions, Inc. has been able to successfully produce their event for 12 years speaks volumes about their ability to sustain programming in the midst of reduced arts funding nationwide.

Directed by Becki McDonald, who makes some excellent directing choices with her large cast of fifteen adult and children actors by combining brief oratory, traditional dialogue, and injecting cast members into the audience to DRAW viewers dead smack into the action. This created a theater experience that is equally educational, entertaining, and thought-provoking. Use of mixed media was also a component but the limitations of the performance space really hampered full immersion into the subject matter created by Robertson and Spencer in their script.

Local playwrights compete for a chance to win $1,000 cash and bragging rights for an entire year. SMU/Meadows Prize Winner Will Power facilitates.