Rude Mechs News

This year's star-studded Orchard Project Gala, A TASTE OF SOMETHING NEW, a star-studded celebration of the best of the new - from new food to new work - is set for May 1 at the Diamond Horseshoe in midtown Manhattan. The event, raising funds to expand Orchard Project's programming, will also honor acclaimed playwright, screenwriter, and Exchange Board Member Robert Schenkkan.

Yale Repertory Theatre, the multiple Tony Award-winning theatre dedicated to the production of new plays and bold interpretations of classic works, has announced its 2017-18 Season.

Asia Society Texas Center will host Representation and 21 st Century Responsibilities in the Performing Arts, a free panel discussion and public forum in collaboration with Houston Grand Opera (HGO) on Friday, March 31, at 7 p.m.

The Harbor Stage Company, the artist-run ensemble that produces intrepid, live performance on the shores of Wellfleet Harbor, will celebrate their sixth season with another summer of ambitious, authentic theater.

Join the Asian American Arts Alliance for a thought-provoking conversation with artistic staff administrators who run labs for emerging writers and directors in 'Roundtable for Theatre Artists: How to Approach and Engage Gatekeepers in the Theatre.'

Kathryn Lott and Allison Lott founded Lott Entertainment Presents in 2015 to fill a void in Houston's performing arts scene by bringing provocative artists and deliberately different works from outside Houston to push theatre boundaries within it.

Actor/performer April Matthis is the recipient of the 2016 Ruth Maleczech Award, created last year to honor the memory of the legendary and beloved downtown actress and director who passed away in 2013. The award ceremony takes place tonight, July 26, at 7pm at the Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project gallery in the East Village.

New play incubator Brooklyn Yard returns with Austin Exchange featuring East Coast premieres of two fiercely funny two-woman plays by Hannah Kenah, Jenny Larson, and Diana Lynn Small.

Actor/performer April Matthis is the recipient of the 2016 Ruth Maleczech Award, created last year to honor the memory of the legendary and beloved downtown actress and director who passed away in 2013. The award ceremony takes place on July 26 at 7pm at the Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project gallery in the East Village.

Kathryn Lott and Allison Lott founded Lott Entertainment Presents in 2015 to fill a void in Houston's performing arts scene by bringing provocative artists and deliberately different works from outside Houston to push theatre boundaries within it.

New play incubator Brooklyn Yard returns with Austin Exchange featuring East Coast premieres of two fiercely funny two-woman plays by Hannah Kenah, Jenny Larson, and Diana Lynn Small.

Lott Entertainment Presents' second season begins with a new home and a slew of new works guaranteed to raise the bar-and some eyebrows-in Houston's performing arts scene.

Sex, death and violence. Full-frontal nudity. The incompatibility of truth on stage and sanity in real life.

Lincoln Center Theater, under the direction of Andre Bishop, has announced that Evan Cabnet has been named the new Artistic Director of LCT3, effective July 1.

The Exchange today announced the artists and companies selected to participate in the 2016 Orchard Project summer residency program in Saratoga Springs, NY. Twenty-six artists and ensembles were selected from nearly 800 theatre artists to develop their big, new ideas at the Orchard Project this coming summer.

FIELD GUIDE, a work-in-progress by Rude Mechs, is currently in a second draft performance at the Off Center. Rude Mechs creates new works collaboratively, and with FIELD GUIDE they are actively engaging their audience to get feed back on what works and what doesn't in order to help shape the piece. FIELD GUIDE, commissioned by the Yale Repertory Theatre, is a mash-up of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, stand-up comedy, dance and some frankly uncomfortable direct audience addressing confessions. How much of the direct confessions are fact or fiction we'll never really know. What we do know is this is an excitingly different evening of pure theatricality… an evening that you, as an audience member, are being asked to help define. Along the way during your 90 minute journey the Mechs cover topics from the longest Russian novel written such as intellectualism, spiritualism, sensuality and hedonism. While it is ostensibly an adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov, it really just uses the characters in the briefest Cliff Notes sense. This approach allows the performers to riff on the underlying themes present. There is even an unaccredited moment by Tom Lehrer when Robert S. Fisher performs 'They're Rioting in Africa'. What you are treated to is highly experimental in nature and at moments what ensues is truly magical.

One of the more clearly visible technical aspects of a show for average theatre-goers is the set. What isn't quite as clear is just what goes into the creation of the world the characters inhabit in the play you are seeing. Set design, sometimes called scenic design, is the art of designing and creating the sets used in plays or movies. At times, designing can be as simple as arranging a few pieces of furniture on a stage. That type of set design is not what one things of, however, when one talks to set designer, Lisa Laratta, the subject of this edition of Tech Talk.

Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare is one of his plays that scholars either group with his tragedies or as one of the so-called "problem plays". FIXING TIMON OF ATHENS is part of an on-going attempt by the Rude Mechs to make more accessible and usable pieces of theatre out of the canon of Shakespeare's problem plays. With FIXING TIMON OF ATHENS Kirk Lynn has essentially cleaned-up and streamlined the play into a ten character piece that functions as a modern and timely parable about greed.

Actors Theatre of Louisville Artistic Director Les Waters and Managing Director Jennifer Bielstein are delighted to announce the three ten-minute plays chosen to be performed during the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Signature Theatre's Board of Trustees announced today the appointment of Paige Evans as Artistic Director beginning July 1, 2016. She succeeds Founding Artistic Director James Houghton, who will step down at the end of June. Ms. Evans comes to Signature Theatre from Lincoln Center Theater, where she has served as Artistic Director of LCT3 since its inception in 2008.