Columns

‘39’ cheers

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 2/3/2010

Types: The Arts

It’s loosely based on a Hitchcock thriller, but the hilarious The 39 Steps is nothing less than a valentine to theater; indeed, this zippy quick-change comedy manages to turn everything — film, politics, war — into a hellzapoppin’ celebration of all things thespian. Like the...[MORE]

That voodoo that you do: Tim Hedgepeth & Co. conjure a bayou at the Woodlawn

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 1/27/2010

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts, Theater

If you’re at all interested in the local theater scene, and its heartening and hard-won Great Leap Forward of the last several years (think: AtticRep, the Classic Theatre, the scrappy Overtime, and the avant-mainstay Jump-Start), you probably already know who Tim Hedgepeth is. He directed the much-l...[MORE]

Minority wit: New rule:Bill Maher should come to town more often

By Elaine Wolff

Published: 1/27/2010

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

Political satirist and comedian Bill Maher returns to San Antonio this week on one of his last visits to the provinces before his live Friday-night talk show, Real Time With Bill Maher — the antidote to the wishy-washy faux-liberal compromise that’s killing America — kicks off its eighth season Febr...[MORE]

Uncomfortably numb: Rose and the ultra-theater experiment

By Ashley Lindstrom

Published: 1/20/2010

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

It’s a harebrained idea to describe the debut play of the Rose Theatre’s second season, Alice and the MKULTRA Experiment, as “an adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with LSD” in conversation. Such oversimplification on my part has only yielded the following vexing response: “So … basicall...[MORE]

That's not gray, it's silver: Still Jump-Starting trouble at 25

By Elaine Wolff

Published: 1/20/2010

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

San Anto’s own Jump-Start Performance Company begins celebrating its 25th anniversary this week with a revival of its very first production, Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Request Concert, which will be performed in four different homes here and in Austin over the next few months. First up is company Artistic...[MORE]

Damsels in distress need not apply: New noir at Overtime

By Ashley Lindstrom

Published: 1/13/2010

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

In a murky apartment, a muscular gent clad in trousers and slung-down suspenders plays the trumpet for a dark-haired vixen tied to a chair. He takes the instrument from his lips, but its tune blares on — yes, just as it would in Mulholland Drive’s Club Silencio. The man traces lines over the body of...[MORE]

A tale of two X-mas Carols: Deconstructed Dickens for your holiday diversion

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 12/16/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Professional taxonomists of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol have now identified several thriving subspecies of Carol, including musical Christmas Carols (such as at the San Pedro Playhouse), spectacular Christmas Carols (such as at Houston’s Alley Theater), and 3D Christmas Carols (invading megaplexes e...[MORE]

Groping Greatness: Austin's Rude Mechs cop a feel in 'Dionysus in 69'

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 12/9/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Nudity, cannibalism, intoxication, fellatio, dismemberment, and a howling scream of protest against the forces of governmental control: in many ways, just an ordinary evening of theatre-going in Austin. In other respects, however, the Rude Mechanicals’ recreation of the Performance Group’s Dionysus ...[MORE]

The 2nd annual Current Holiday Events Flowchart

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 12/2/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

From the dept. of "Dammit, we'll find something for y'all to do." We present this years guide to Holiday fun in San Antonio. Click here to download the full flowchart, or answer the question below to get started. Want to see a holiday show or not? Yes or No ...[MORE]

The power of pocho: A conversation with playwright Octavio Solis

By Gregg Barrios

Published: 12/2/2009

Types: Cover Story

Octavio Solis’s breakthrough drama, Lydia, has made the El Paso-born playwright a national sensation in the theater world. But for the 50-year-old Solis, who has toiled in the theatrical trenches for half his lifetime, the idea of overnight success chafes a bit. He’d prefer to be described as a...[MORE]

Richard Lewis can’t be curbed: The comedian “from hell” on his status as a gay icon (?)

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 11/18/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

Earlier this month, fellow Current writer Bryan Rindfuss and I enjoyed a running joke based on two upcoming celebrity interviews: Bryan’s was with Peaches, the fantastically graphic feminist rapper [read it online at sacurrent.com], and mine was to be with Richard Lewis, the standup comedy legend. W...[MORE]

A light, creamy center: Almost, Maine is a cold holiday trifle

By Ashley Lindstrom

Published: 11/11/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

To find yourself in the fictional, titular town of Almost, Maine, at 9 p.m. on one fated, frigid Friday night is to find yourself in a state of ubiquitous climax. All at once, things have come to a head, you might say, for nearly 20 of Almost’s residents. Everyone is finding and losing love. Mostly ...[MORE]

The sun'll come out

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 10/28/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

With Lyle Kessler’s Orphans, the Vex has mounted a sentimental production of a perverse play, and the evening lumbers under the weight of that fundamental contradiction. In some senses, the play’s potential couldn’t be greater: It originated at the epicenter of American theater in the 1980s — Chicag...[MORE]

Guided by voces: Mario Bosquez looks homeward (angel) with Los Duendes

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 10/21/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

Mario Bósquez’s bio reads like a screenplay: The playwright of Los Duendes grew up Tejano in tiny Alice, Texas. He reported on-air for KSAT in San Antonio, and co-hosted our chapter of P.M. Magazine for seven-and-a-half years. Next, the smart, handsome joven headed for la Gran Manzana, where he work...[MORE]

A woman of miens: ‘She Stoops,’ she scores

By Ashley Lindstrom

Published: 10/14/2009

Types: The Arts

If, like the poet, you believe the most wasted of all days is one without laughter, count on the Classic Theatre’s production of She Stoops to Conquer to help you get your giggle on. This production of Oliver Goldsmith’s 18th-century “laughing comedy” is the best argument I’ve seen to date against p...[MORE]

Globes under ATAC

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 10/14/2009

Types: The Arts

Yeah, I hadn’t heard of them, either, but apparently ATAC is the Alamo Theatre Arts Council, a non-profit founded in 1990 to recognize, support, and stimulate San Antonio theater and the artists therein. Founders included Jasmina Wellinghoff of the San Antonio Express-News, former SAEN arts writer D...[MORE]

Another gold star!: How to make the Globes more like the Tonys, less like school attendance awards

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 10/14/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

In the past, one could usually count on the annual Alamo Theatre Arts Council’s Globe Awards for Excellence to eventually recognize just about everyone involved in San Antonio theater. (My favorite example: the 18 awards for “Lead Actress” in the storied year of 2006-7. They were joined by an equall...[MORE]

When bad ain't good: It takes more than brain power to bring camp to life

By Rachel Joseph

Published: 10/7/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Joseph Green’s 1962 low-budget cult classic The Brain That Wouldn’t Die offers an awkward blend of uneasiness with science and fascination/revulsion with the female form. The film (unevenly) tells the story of brilliant surgeon Dr. Bill Cortner, who keeps the severed head of his bride-to-be alive af...[MORE]

A shooting star is born: She's a real slasher, too. This girl is talented

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 10/7/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Ruthless! ain’t toothless, and for that we can be grateful. In a city largely inundated with anodyne musicals (exhibit A: Mamma Mia!), Ruthless! opens as a refreshingly amoral take on such sappy tuners as 42nd Street and A Star Is Born. Penned with obvious glee by Joel Paley and Marvin Laird (and in...[MORE]

Eva's ascension:

Webber’s tarnished saint shines through Playhouse glitches

By Greg Morrison

Published: 9/30/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Maybe if someone made Barack Obama’s story into a pop opera, this whole sociopolitical transition — with its town-hall uprisings and halls-of-power histrionics — would seem like a less unpleasant affair. But until that wizard of the Great White Way, Andrew Lloyd Webber, turns his unique gifts toward...[MORE]

Don’t polish the Sterling: SA’s beloved playwright shines most brightly in the dark

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 9/16/2009

Types: The Arts

This month, Jump-Start celebrates the art and leadership of Sterling Houston, who guided the performance company through its formative years before his untimely death in 2006. By everybody’s definition, Houston was a quintessentially “San Antonio playwright,” a designation that now seems a double-ed...[MORE]