RUDE MECHS ANNOUNCES ITS FIFTEENTH SEASON OF NEW WORKS FOR THE STAGE
Rude Mechs is proud to announce the following plans for their fifteenth season of creating, premiering and touring new works for the stage. This upcoming year includes tours of The Method Gun to five national venues; the creation of a new piece CL1000P (working title); a lark of a holiday show featuring egg-nog and Rude Mechs performing The Nutcracker As Best We Can; and the world premiere production of I’ve Never Been So Happy, our new transmedia musical performance party. I’ve Never Been So Happy will also tour to the American Voices New Play Institute festival at Arena Stage. And of course, our annual programming will include Grrl Action – our year-round arts mentoring program for teenaged girls; Rude Fusion – our co-production series to support local arts groups; and The Oyster Club (sign up now!) – our members-only culture club celebrating music, dance, food, art, architecture and oddities in Austin and the surrounding areas. We need your help to support this astoundingly full year – come to the Aye Eye Ball – or if you can’t, go to the event page and donate!
written by Kirk Lynn | directed by Shawn Sides | created by Rude Mechs
Fresh from the 34th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, Rude Mechs will tour The Method Gun in 2010/2011 to five prestigious national venues. The Method Gun explores the life and techniques of Stella Burden, actor-training guru of the 60s and 70s. Ms. Burden’s training technique, The Approach (often referred to as “the most dangerous acting technique in the world”), fused Western acting methods with risk-based rituals in order to infuse even the smallest role with sex, death and violence. The Method Gun re-enacts the final months of her company’s rehearsals for their nine-years-in-the-making production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Visceral and visually haunting, The Method Gun is a play about the ecstasy and excesses of performing, the dangers of public intimacy, and the incompatibility of truth on stage and sanity in real life.
Tour Schedule for The Method Gun
October 13-17, 2010: Emerson College (Boston, MA)
October 21-24, 2010: Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus OH)
February 23-26, 2011: Yale Repertory Theatre and World Performance Project at Yale (New Haven CT)
March 2-12, 2011: Dance Theatre Workshop (New York, NY)
June 14-26, 2011: Center Theatre Group (Los Angeles CA)
“charming… gorgeously rendered… both stunning and haunting.” – American Theatre Magazine
“If you only have time to see one show, make it The Method Gun. It is an honest, brave and often hilarious exploration of the creative process…as absurd and awe-inspiring as it can be.” – Louisville Courier-Journal
Download high-res production stills for The Method Gun here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudemechs/sets/72157623794005685/
The Method Gun has received support from Creative Capital Foundation, MAP Fund, The Orchard Project, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Humanities Institute and The Harry Ransom Center.
I’VE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY – World Premiere and National Tour!
a new musical transmedia performance party, and then some from Rude Mechs!
book and lyrics by Kirk Lynn | music and lyrics by Peter Stopschinski | directed/curated by Lana Lesley & Thomas Graves
World Premiere Production: April 2011
at The Off Center, Austin, TX
After two workshop productions at The Off Center in Austin, TX (2008 and 2009), and residencies with The Orchard Project and The Musical Theatre Initiative at The University of Texas, I’ve Never Been So Happy, will see its world premiere at The Off Center in Austin, TX in April 2011. Co-directors Graves and Lesley are pleased to announce the addition of Dayna Hanson, experimental stage artist, filmmaker and 2006 Guggenheim Fellow in choreography; award-winning animator designer and artist Miwa Matreyek, and internationally acclaimed designer Brian Scott (SITI Company) to the production team.
I’ve Never Been So Happy, with music and lyrics by Austin Experimental Punk Grand Wizard Peter Stopschinski (Brown Whornet, Golden Hornet Project), and book and lyrics by Austin Experimental Theatre Mascot Kirk Lynn, fluctuates freely between high art and Hee-Haw, treating both with respect. The music pits a “Grand Ole Opry” style West against an “El Topo” style West. The writing butts lyric poetry up against bar jokes with finesse. The evening challenges what it means to “go to the theater” in the 21st century.
National Tour: January 2011
Arena Stage, Washington DC
The American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage will feature full-length presentations and readings from the seven inaugural selections of the National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Program. I’ve Never Been So Happy was one of five productions selected for the Distinguished New Play Development Program in the first-round, 2008. Rude Mechs will present work-in-progress selections from the production.
“The Rudes continue to deepen their creative process and challenge themselves in new ways. And that results in smart, terrific theater that takes us some place new.” – Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, Austin-American Statesman review of December 2008 workshop production.
“BEST INVESTIGATION OF THE WEST: The Rude Mechs’ funny, well-informed multimedia performance was a refreshingly queer interrogation of the West. Moreover, I’ve Never Been So Happy felt like a Brechtian extravaganza for art and theater geeks, evoking everything from WOW Café camp to Bruce Nauman’s post-minimal studio practice…” – Claire Ruud, …might be good (Fluent-Collaborative’s contemporary arts e-journal Best of 2008)
Download high-res production stills for I’ve Never Been So Happy here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudemechs/sets/72157622372086808/
November 18-19, 2010 at The Off Center
THE NUTCRACKER AS BEST WE CAN – World Premiere
December 9 – 19, 2010 at The Off Center
We’ve done some pretty serious work over the last three years during the holiday season, and this year we thought we’d get into the holiday spirit with our version of the world’s favorite holiday show, The Nutcracker. We can only promise that Rude Mechs along with hordes of Austin theatre folks will do our level-best to perform The Nutcracker. There will be libations, and the audience will surely be allowed to jump in and perform as much as they can remember from their childhood. More details will come as we know them!
Our annual fundraiser to support all of the artistic activities in the 20010/11 season. The Eye Ball (named for our logo – a flaming eyeball) is our annual fundraiser to support our artistic activities. As we kick off our 15th year of making work together, we aim to launch another 15 years by giving a nau(gh)tical theme to this year’s event The Aye Eye Ball, hosted by diva mistress Rebecca Havemeyer.
date: August 21, 2010
time: 7:00pm to midnight
location: The Off Center
tickets: $70 (pairs); $40 (individuals)
reservations: http://ayeeyeball.eventbrite.com/
Rude Mechs announces registration is
open to its annual members-only culture club, The Oyster Club. With two years of smashing success under its belt, last season’s Oyster Club saw the best off-beat art in Central Texas. And this year is going to be even bigger and even better! Meeting once in every month whose name contains an “r” (September-April), the Oyster Club is a new way to find pearls of art, architecture, music, film, food, and performance in the oceans of culture in Austin and Central Texas. Rude Mechs will lead this off-beat culture club to backstage access, private tours, secret after-parties, and once-in-a-lifetime spectacles. And once again this year, Edible Austin Magazine will partner with Rude Mechs to showcase the best of Austin’s local food scene at every event! The Oyster Club will keep you active without making you busy.
tickets: $300 (pairs); $200 (individuals)
reservations: http://oysterclub10-efbevent.eventbrite.com/