Marie Gordon News

With traditional theatre performances cancelled indefinitely as covid-19 continues to ravage the world, companies must think differently about bringing performances to their audiences. Through THE VORTEX ODYSSEY, they've created a flawed but utterly unique reimagining of the journey of Odysseus.

BWW Review: GLIDERS Soars at Trinity Street Playhouse with a story that illustrates the unimaginable pain, courage, and strength required by generations of women to overcome misogyny and abuse. Beautifully performed by an outstanding 'mostly' female cast that fits together as a true family.

HowlRound has announced that they will livestream the Regional Premiere of Click by Jacqueline Goldfinger, presented by The VORTEX in Austin, TX.

As it did when it originally premiered, the drama holds a mirror up to what is considered acceptable in a society, without judgment or bias. The show's observant nature starkly highlights the place and power of women, a topic which still audibly resonates with audience members today.

LAST: AN EXTINCTION COMEDY is a truly unique show about how a troupe of comedic actors copes with the apocalypse.

THE MAGIC FIRE, by Lillian Groag, is a 1997 memory play set in Buenos Aires during the 1950s regime of Juan Peron. This cross cultural immigrant family finds their personal refuge from the fascist politics of Argentina in art, theatre and opera. Events eventually bring them to the point where they are forced to confront not only politics, but also, their own moral obligations. The play first premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and still contains a powerful message that mirrors some of this country's current disturbing political trends.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS is Charles Dickens' thirteenth novel and depicts the personal growth and development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. It has been adapted into a multitude of films, television programs and stage productions. The adaptation by Barbara Field is currently on stage at The Vortex as produced by Different Stages.

ATLANTIS: A PUPPET OPERA, is a mesmerizing experience for the senses. Running just at an hour long, the production transports audiences into a world of myth, madness, and magic. In a culture of reboots and revivals, this original work is truly a rare gem and is an event that Austin theatre lovers should not miss.

Gilbert & Sullivan Austin has a long, glorious past of traditionally amazing shows. Unfortunately their current production of RUDDIGORE is a mixed bag and doesn't come off as well as it likely could.

PERFORMANCE PARK is an interactive and immersive theatre piece, conceived and directed by Bonnie Cullum, that transforms the Vortex compound into a choose-your-own-experience environment where you are free to wander and pick what you will watch, what games you will play and the order in which you experience them. It is entirely unlike most other theatrical experiences in that you have the option to take a break to digest what you have seen and try to figure out what it all means and what you should do next.

When We When Are Married is the first production of 2018 from Different Stages. Penned by J.B. Priestly, the original production opened in London in 1938 and the 1985 West End revival went on to win the Oliver Award for Best Play. It also holds the distinction of being the first play to be televised unedited when it was broadcast by the BBC in 1938. In addition to receiving film and TV adaptations over the years, the play has also been broadcast several times by radio across the U.K.

HOLY CROSS SUCKS! is Rob Nash's solo show that is a combination of four earlier separate plays: Freshman Year Sucks!, Sophomore Slump, Junior Blues and Senioritis. All of these earlier plays made their premiere at The Vortex between 1997 and 2000. HOLY CROSS SUCKS! played Off-Broadway in New York in 2005 where it was the recipient of a top ten award from Time Out New York magazine. Based on Nash's time at a Jesuit high school in Texas, HOLY CROSS SUCKS! is a hilarious and heartwarming look back at the 1980's. By combining the four earlier plays into one work, Nash has created a touchingly funny coming of age story of three friends that is rich in detail and made even more memorable by Nash's lightning fast character changes. Nash plays a grand total of 29 characters in the course of two hours making each character distinctly different all the way down to body language in a performance that is frankly remarkable.

THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING was a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took her five years to complete, although she did interrupt the writing for a few months to write the short novel The Ballad of the Sad Caf . The novel has been adapted for the stage, motion pictures, and television. McCullers herself adapted the novel for the Broadway stage in 1950. The film version followed in 1952 and a stage musical version, F. Jasmine Addams, was produced Off-Broadway in 1971. The work examines why people exclude others and the resulting consequences. The central figures also talk about how they wish the world was more fluid and changeable in terms of race, gender and identity, all of which runs thematically through McCullers body of work.

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.

VAMPYRESS is a near perfect production of the highest caliber.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE is a well-executed, tight, and engaging production.

THE DRESSER by Ronald Harwood is a powerful piece by itself, but in the hands of Different Stages it is a rare and perfect gem.

Since 1976 the Gilbert and Sullivan Austin has dedicated itself to providing the city with the works of Gilbert and Sullivan not so much by reinvention but by recreating how a production might have been staged originally. There is a respect due this sort of commitment, and the audience in attendance this last Saturday when I viewed the production, showed theirs in a true sense of a special occasion. I can recall the respect I was expected to display, and the authentic excitement I felt anytime I attended a play or musical back in the day. Back in the Ice Age, when I simultaneously became a teenager and discovered theatre, it was considered an event just shy of your cousin's wedding to attend the theatre. People got dressed up, showed up on time and applauded civilly after each musical number back then. Why, no one stood for an ovation even unless the production was spot on literally flawless.

UNDERGROUND, a taut new psychological and political thriller by Lisa B. Thompson, is currently in its World Premiere production at The VORTEX. UNDERGROUND examines African American activists, artists, and intellectuals and how they have responded from the Civil Rights Movement to the Black Lives Matter movement and beyond. The play takes a head-on look at where we are in the long fight for equality in our current political climate and what survival may look like over the next four years and beyond. This is an unflinching look at the possible aftermath of the appointment of white supremacists to high-ranking positions in the executive branch. This two person drama is set in the very near future and flashes backto their first encounter. At the core, UNDERGROUND asks the question: how far would you go to protect your people?

MRS. MANNERLY, a memory play by Jeffrey Hatcher, takes inspiration from the playwright's memories of a childhood etiquette class that he took at the tender young age of ten. Walking with an etiquette book balanced on your head, learning complex table settings with a confounding array of flatware and stemware, and dropping a quarter in a jar each time you interrupt...those were the ways of Mrs. Mannerly's classes in 1967. Mrs. Mannerly (Jennifer Underwood) has high standards; so high, in fact, that not one student in her thirty-six years of teaching proper deportment has ever achieved perfection. Young Jeffrey (Suzanne Balling) wants to be the first and he has a trick up his sleeve that he thinks makes him a shoe-in to achieve that sought after goal... he has discovered Mrs. Mannerly has a secret past.