Don’t Drown
by Rebecca Beegle | directed by Joanna Garfinkel
starring Yasmin Kittles & Carla Witt and featuring Robert Newell
January 26 – February 17, 2004 at The Off Center (Austin, TX)
Don’t Drown is an unbound adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1826 science fiction novel “The Last Man.” It’s the year 2100 – the last year of the world – and a planet-wide plague is on the verge of wiping out the human race. Judy Garland hosts this end-of-time evening and her very special guests include Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fred Astaire, Renfield… and many more. As humankind is whittled down to a lone survivor, we usher in an alternate reality in which historical and fictional characters are brought together and fused in time, live on stage. Mary Shelley, author of “Frankenstein,” and Judy Garland, star of stage and screen, are women who know a little something about the perils and pleasures of birth, love, and art. They join forces to delve into heartbreak and fame, legacy and loss—and, of course, monsters. This play about survival and creation, and the survival of your creation, features live music, uncanny juxtapositions, and the invigorating chaos of continual surprises. A musical romance about how to keep love alive when you’re the last one left.
REVIEWS/CITATIONS
“director Joanna Garfinkel and her cast succeed in animating the show’s bizarre mix of personalities with feeling and clarity…captures [playwright] Beegle’s complex emotional portraits with precision and style.” — Robert Faires, The Austin Chronicle
“Best Actress, Comedy” (Yasmin Kittles) – Austin Critics Table Awards 2003-2004
ABOUT THE SECOND STAGE
The Second Stage is an opportunity for Rude Mechs’ company members and associates from the larger Austin arts community to develop new work, present works-in-progress, and stretch their theatrical muscles. Second Stage performances are produced under a low-to-no budget and take place in a casual late-night or top-of-the-week environment.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
REBECCA BEEGLE (playwright) Rebecca Beegle wrote “hour-minute-second,” the February 2003 inaugural production of Rude Mechanicals’ Second Stage series. In addition to “Don’t Drown,” her work is featured in “300 Plays About Vladimir Putin,” also on the Rude’s Second Stage this year, and her play “BEAR,” a collaboration with Jon Watson, will close out the Second Stage season in April 2004. Last year Rebecca’s play “Honey” was part of FronteraFest’s Mi Casa Es Su Teatro in Austin, and she won honorable mention in the Austin Chronicle’s 2002 Short Story Contest with her story “Response to the Number Nine.” Her short fiction has also appeared in the electronic magazine 5-Trope. Rebecca holds an MFA in writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a 1999-2001 recipient of the Trustee Fellowship, and a BA in writing from Northwestern University, where she won the Edwin L. Schuman Award for Fiction. She is a CORE member of Austin Script Works.
JOANNA GARFINKEL (director) Joanna Garfinkel’s directing credits include Mud for iron belly muses, “Camp Queer” for the Fringe Festival, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” at the Off Center, “Gray” for Houston’s DiverseWorks, and “Infringement” at the Public Domain. She has also worked for Theatre Asylum at Theatre Passe Murailles in Toronto. Her set design for “Curieosity” was nominated for a B. Iden Payne award. She is Music Director and a DJ at KOOP radio and plays in at least one band.
YASMIN KITTLES (actor) Yasmin Kittles is a graduate of the University of Texas with a BA in Theatre and Dance. Most recently you may have seen her as “Dee” in Rebecca Beegle’s “Hour-Minute-Second” (Rude Mechs 2nd Stage) or with her former sketch comedy troupe Catch 24. Other roles include: “Green Beans”- a guardian angel emerging from a kiddie pool filled with green beans, and “Child Genius of Rocking to Benatar in Her Slip in the Basement” (both created in collaboration with Shannon McCormick), the “Mad Hatter”- (Dallas Theatre Centre), and “Blanche Dubois” in “Reefer Madness” (Bedlam Faction). Yasmin is most often recognized for karaoke.
ROBERT NEWELL (actor) Robert has been involved with the Rudes since their inception in 1996 and is currently a company member. In addition to their very first production, “Pale Idiot,” Robert has appeared in “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” “¡Gringo!,” “Ubu Roi,” “Prometheus Unbound,” “Crucks,” “Big Love,” “How Late It Was, How Late,” and the most recent staging of “Requiem for Tesla” in which he played the title role. Robert has also worked regularly at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center, where his credits include “The Illusion,” “The Laramie Project,” “The Pavilion,” “Dirty Blonde” and “Love! Valour! Compassion!” In the last two years he has been nominated for three Austin Critics Table Awards (winning once for his role in “Big Love”) and three B. Iden Payne Awards (winning for “Love! Valour! Compassion!”). Television credits include commercials for Time Warner Cable, Advance Auto Parts and the City of San Antonio, and an episode of the weekly series ?Busted? on Animal Planet. His voice can be heard in the video games, Deus Ex: Invisible War and Freelancer, and in several Japanese animated videos produced by ADV Films. Robert holds an M.A. in Communication from the University of Washington.
CARLA WITT (actor) Carla Witt is excited to be in her second Second Stage show with the Rude Mechanicals. Other plays in include, “Mouth” in Not I, “Marie Curie” in Curieosity, “First Matron” in Different Cities, Different Names and “Lil’Bit” in How Learned to Drive.
The rest of the acting ensemble includes performers Chris Doubeck (“ART,” “Mud”) Gabriel McIver (“Kentuckey Cycle,” “The Media Stories”) and newcomer Taylor Flanagan. The production team includes Scott West (Production Design), Robert S. Fisher (Sound Design), Jennifer Rodgers (Lighting Design), Jennifer Tyburczy (Dramaturg), and Jose Angel Hernandez (Production Stage Manager).