During the height of the streamed performing arts portion of the pandemic, I thought a lot about the difference between being a viewer and an audience member.
The Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts contains artifacts dating back centuries, and its exhibitions sometimes revel in that broad historical panorama. But The Great Stage of Texas, running through July 24 at San Antonio’s McNay Art Museum—the collection’s home—could hardly be more contemporary.
If the 2021-2022 theater season was about getting back on stage for many Texas performing arts companies, Theatre Under The Star’s 2022-2023 season might be best described as a season ready to take that big breath, then sing, dance and celebrate life renewed.
Society for the Performing Arts is now Performing Arts Houston, but Meg Booth, chief executive officer, makes it clear that their mission to bring the world of music, dance, theater as well as cultural speakers to the city is still fundamental to who they are after 50 years.
Nothing says summer in Dallas quite like Shakespeare in the Park. For 50 years now, the Bard of Avon’s fans have been unfurling blankets, laying out picnics, and popping the corks on glistening bottles of chilled wine before enjoying an evening of iambic pentameter under the stars.
Describing herself as “relentlessly optimistic,” Khori Dastoor officially took over the reins as Houston Grand Opera (HGO)’s General Director and CEO in January 2022, becoming the first woman to lead the prestigious company in its 67-year history.
Damaris Ferrer describes a bridge as a portal and any path or structure that serves as a connector. The Crossings is her global project which uses a massive, red fabric with eight elastic waistbands for eight movers as a catalyst.
“Sonic partnerships.” If we had to describe the return of Austin’s Fusebox Festival in 2022 after its pandemic interruption, a plethora of sound performances and projects emerging from very unique partnerships leads to such a description.
During an immersive dance production the line between audience and dancer can blur, but in an Annie Arnoult Open Dance Project performance that blurring expands from the space between dancer and audience to the line between theater and dance, history and story, viewing and autonomous experiencing.
Flash forward deep into the pandemic and the height of streaming theater while lying on a couch, I thought a lot about live, in-person stage chemistry.
Opera’s grandeur will at last come back to the Winspear Opera House on Feb. 18, when TDO revives its production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (through Feb. 26).