Tarra Gaines
Rude Mechs Take Texas (for a Change)
Whether they’re airily dodging swinging theatrical lights or brawling in the melted cheese of an overflowing gold-plated queso fountain, Austin’s Rude Mechs have some serious (and seriously funny) moves.
Albee on Edge: A Visceral Virginia Woolf at Stark Naked
The morning after seeing Stark Naked Theatre’s new production of Edward Albee’s classic marriage horror story Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (through March 26), I woke up exhausted, with a mild headache, dry mouth and a stomach churning with anxiety (a.k.a a hangover).
Virginia Grise’s Poetic Manifesto at Meca Performing Arts
Your Healing Is Killing Me, written and performed by award-winning New York and San Antonio playwright Virginia Grise and making its world premiere as part of the MECA Performing Arts 2016 season on March 4-5, seems less like the performance manifesto of its subtitle and more like a poetry manifesto, maybe even an epic poetry manifesto.
Privilege & Unnamed Anxiety at Work in Straight White Men at Stages
Four straight, white men walk into a rumpus room somewhere in suburban America. This isn’t the beginning of a dumb joke but the setting and most of the plot of Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, through March 6, making its regional debut at Stages Repertory Theatre.
Merging Music & Literature: A Proust Sonata at Da Camera
Sarah Rothenberg, artistic director of Da Camera and Houston’s great maestro of performances that blend music, literature and art, believes that to encounter the works of the great French author Marcel Proust is to begin a life long relationship.
Love and Loss: The Bridges of Madison County at TUTS
I might very well be the last American woman over the age of 25 who has neither seen the Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood movie The Bridges of Madison County nor read the 90s zeitgeist novel by Robert James Waller that it’s based on.
Becoming Nannerl: The Other Mozart
The story begins with a portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce of a family: father, son and a daughter with spectacularly big hair.
The Rat King has Spoken: Holiday Foes Pick Faves
I was blindfolded, thrown into a car and driven for hours before we reached their secret lair, which I now believe might be a sub, sub basement floor underneath Houston Galleria Macy’s or inside a volcano, whichever.
Tumbling Through Time and Memory: Sharr White’s The Other Place at the Alley Theatre
Somewhat lost amid all the hullabaloo and celebrations surrounding the Alley Theatre’s grand reopening and the major renovation of the Hubbard Stage was the little-fanfared return of performances to the smaller Neuhaus Stage, where many of the Alley’s more quirky and contemporary play picks are placed each season.
Ringside Emotional Head Butt: Stages Repertory Theatre’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
I have a (admittedly unoriginal) theory that sooner or later, no matter what the perceived subject matter, every writer ends up writing about the act of storytelling, and every playwright ends up writing about acting during the act of storytelling.
Song of Houston: Story of HGOco
In the September world premiere of O Columbia, the new chamber opera from HGOco, a young Houston girl dreams of being an astronaut journeying to the stars.