Suzanne Balling News

The 2025–2026 Austin theatre season was bold, adventurous, thought-provoking, and funny as heck. I haven’t cried in public as much as I did this past season!

Fair warning: Jackie Sibblies Drury's FAIRVIEW isn't your typical night at the theatre. The play starts out looking like a normal family comedy but quickly turns into something else entirely. Imagine sitting down for what seems like a standard TV sitcom about a Black family, and then suddenly everything you thought you knew gets turned upside down. It's funny, shocking, and confronting.

Ground Floor Theatre has announced casting for the Austin premiere of Fairview directed by Anderson. Written by Jackie Sibblies Drury Fairview plays beginning next month.

Ground Floor Theatre has revealed the cast for the Austin premiere of Fairview directed by Anderson, and written by Jackie Sibblies Drury Fairview. Learn more and see how to purchase tickets.

Just in time for election season, Jarrott Productions has smartly put one of Austin’s finest directors, Karen Jambon, at the helm of their latest offering of POTUS: OR BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE. Full of sharp wit from the first line and an obvious political satire throughout, POTUS is stuffed with contemporary adult humor and fun.

SWEAT is a 2015 play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. It won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2017 Obie Award for Playwrighting. The play premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015 and subsequently was produced Off-Broadway in 2016 and on Broadway in 2017. The play is centered on the working class of Reading, Pennsylvania. Nottage began working on the play in 2011 by interviewing residents of the town, which at the time was, according to the United States Census Bureau, officially one of the poorest cities in America, with a poverty rate of over 40%.

Doctuh Mistuh Productions and Penfold Theatre Company are pleased to bring Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe back to Austin. Nevermore made its regional premiere in Austin in October 2016 and subsequently was the winner of five B. Iden Payne Awards, including Best Musical. The Nevermore revival will run October 25 - November 10 and plays at the Ground Floor Theatre.

NEVERMORE: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe is a Canadian musical that was written and composed by Jonathan Christenson which follows the rather dismal life and internal struggles of Edgar Allan Poe that later on inspired his work as an author. The script contains references to both his poems and short stories. While most of the script dramatizes true events in his life, other aspects are entirely fictitious. The musical was originally produced at the Catalyst Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta and went on to be performed across Canada, and at the Barbican Theater in London, and the New Victory Theatre in NYC. The current production now playing at Ground Floor Theatre is a remount of the original Doctuh Mistuh production, produced in conjunction with Penfold Theatre, and features most of the original cast.

Doctuh Mistuh Productions and Penfold Theatre Company are pleased to bring Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe back to Austin. Nevermore made its regional premiere in Austin in October 2016 and subsequently was the winner of five B. Iden Payne Awards, including Best Musical. The Nevermore revival will run October 25 - November 10 and plays at the Ground Floor Theatre.

Doctuh Mistuh Productions and Penfold Theatre Company are pleased to bring Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe back to Austin. Nevermore made its regional premiere in Austin in October 2016 and subsequently was the winner of five B. Iden Payne Awards, including Best Musical. The Nevermore revival will run October 25 - November 10 and plays at the Ground Floor Theatre.

Doctuh Mistuh Productions and Penfold Theatre Company are pleased to bring Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe back to Austin. Nevermore made its regional premiere in Austin in October 2016 and subsequently was the winner of five B. Iden Payne Awards, including Best Musical. The Nevermore revival will run October 25 - November 10 and plays at the Ground Floor Theatre.

Inviting guests to enjoy MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING in the open air amphitheatre in downtown Round Rock, Penfold Theatre presents a delightful adaptation of this Shakespearean classic. Traditionally classified as a comedy, the comedic elements were matched note for note with somber country western style songs - making this interpretation a dramedy for your viewing pleasure. At the heart of our story are two couples, thriving in desperation and desire at any given time in respect to their ingenue and sarcastic style of speech, they echoe classic Shakespearean qualities. As the character's continue intertwining, Claudio (played by Nathan Daniel Ford) declares his affection for fair Hero (played by Emily Christine Smith) these two are quickly swoon and a wedding date is set. A trick is hatched to play on funny man Benedick (played by Nathan Jerkins) and fiery Beatrice (played by Jennifer Coy Jennings) to falsely reveal the others affections through not-so-private conversations from other characters. Resorting back to childish tactics apparently has worked on people for centuries as their attraction for each other begins to bloom. However a more tricky foil comes to fruition when Don John (played by Suzanne Balling) falsely reveals Hero's infidelity the night before her wedding to young Claudio. Outraged by the thought of an unfaithful partner, Claudio rages away from the wedding altar cursing Hero's name for her promiscuity. The stage is set, the plot is hot and the characters are clamoring to protect one another and come out on top.

Penfold Theatre Company celebrates its tenth anniversary at A Marvelous Party: Delovely, a fundraising gala on Sunday, April 29th.

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.

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.

With the current production of this show at Austin Playhouse the company requires, or even demands, that the audience leave the theater with a multitude of thoughts whirling in their mind. I left the theater in two minds about what I have seen. There were elements and moments that viscerally affected me and gave me a multitude of things to think about, and there were also moments that just as noticeably didn't land for me, and that gave me a multitude of things to think about too.

Different Stages continues its 2016 - 2017 season with Jeffery Hatcher's Mrs. Mannerly.

NEVERMORE: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe is a Canadian musical that was written and composed by Jonathan Christenson which follows the rather dismal life and internal struggles of Edgar Allan Poe that later on inspired his work as an author. The script contains references to both his poems and short stories. While most of the script dramatizes true events in his life, other aspects are entirely fictitious. The musical was originally produced at the Catalyst Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta and went on to be performed across Canada, and at the Barbican Theater in London, and the New Victory Theatre in NYC. The current production now playing at Austin Playhouse is a regional premiere.

I first discovered Mike Bartlett when I saw Cock last season. I have been eagerly waiting for more from him because of his wit and his skill at writing dialogue. He has come from relative obscurity 10 years ago to now being a force at the BBC and at England's National Theatre; but at first exposure you know this is a writer whose work is worth seeing. Bartlett is a master at writing realistic dialogue in that black comedy style that is both extremely uncomfortable and hilarious simultaneously. In a way, this work harkens back to The Theatre of Cruelty. The Theatre of Cruelty is a form of theatre developed by avant-garde playwright Antonin Artaud, in The Theatre and its Double. When Artaud spoke of cruelty it was not in the sense of violent behavior, but rather the cruelty it takes for actors to show an audience a truth that they do not wish to see. BULL is very much like that in that when you leave the theater you can expect to question your reasons for laughing… and trust me, you will laugh.

RECKLESS, by Craig Lucas, wants to be a black comedy. The script, written in a cinematographic style, poses some serious problems in staging. For something so paper thin to work, the audience needs to go on the same nightmare downhill sleigh ride as the protagonist. We need to feel as buffeted by the play itself as she does by the events of the play. Unfortunately, the staging of this production is weighed down by numerous lengthy scene changes on what is a minimalistic set. These numerous changes bog the evening down and what should be a barrage of insanity ends up being a few humorous moments. The cartoon craziness this script cries out for never really happens.