Throws Like A Girl 2008
“Throws Like A Girl” is a provocative performance festival that celebrates the contributions of original female theatre artists to our cultural landscape by presenting the nation’s most influential female performance artists bringing works never before seen in Austin.
“Throws Like A Girl” is co-presented by Rude Mechanicals and Jill Dolan at The University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance, and is sponsored in part by the Zachary T. Scott Family Chair in Drama at the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for African and African American Studies at The University of Texas, The Marie and Joseph D. Jamail Senior Regents Professorship at The University of Texas.
Blue State Rants – Reno
Wong Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – Kristina Wong
Sugar – Robbie McCauley
THROWS LIKE A GIRL 2005 was co-presented by Rude Mechanicals and The University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance, the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies, the College of Fine Arts, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.
written and performed by Reno presented by Rude Mechs February 7 – 9, 2008 at The Off Center (Austin, TX) In her traditional stream of consciousness style, the tangents Reno will skillfully connect in Blue State Rants include hedge funds, loan bundling, and the global economy; history’s unfortunate tendency to repeat itself; our purpose here on earth; her current position on the Democratic candidates; and a piece of optimistic news recently given to her by Howard Dean, to be revealed in the show. “Rush Limbaugh’s vision of the Anti Christ.” – New York Newsday “If Sandra Bernhard and (Lea) DeLaria produced a demon spawn, it would be Reno: too flamboyant to be butch, too strident to be femme. She pulls out limber pratfalls and oddball associations – like the quip that men wear neckties to keep their penises out of their faces.” – The Village Voice ABOUT THE ARTIST A comedic provocateur who started performing in the mid ‘80’s at various dives in New York City’s East Village, Reno has performed Rebel Without A Pause, her critically acclaimed, Drama Desk Award nominated (Elaine Stritch won) personal/political rant about the events of September 11th that opened October 4th, 2001. Her first full length show, Reno in Rage and Rehab began at P.S. 122, and was done Off-Broadway, later adapted into an ACE Award nominated HBO comedy hour. Other full length shows done Off-B’way and toured extensively include Reno Once Removed and Citizen Reno. In 2001, her non-fiction sit-com, also called Citizen Reno premiered on Bravo. Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner exec-produced that as well as the film she made with Lydia Pilcher for HBO, Reno Finds Her Mom, co-starring Mary Tyler Moore and Lily. Nancy Savoca’s performance film of Rebel Without A Pause received the 500 year old Florence (Italy) Peace Prize. May she never return to The Off Center, and her little dog too. CitizenReno.com written & performed by Kristina Wong presented by Rude Mechs February 14 – 16, 2008 at The Off Center Incisive writer and performer Kristina Wong mixes sharp humor and psychology in Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a swear-to-god-not-autobiographical, serio-comic portrayal of the high incidence of anxiety, depression and mental illness among Asian American women. Tangling, spinning, and mixing yarns, she asks: Which came first? The sky-high suicides of Asian American women? The maddening world? And when the heck do we get to climax? Wong’s irreverent and provocative work has given her a national cult following for “politically charged art with unapologetic humor.” –Bitch Magazine. Knitters, cuckoo and not, are invited to knit in the audience during the show. Free yarn giveaways from ArtYarns (flash your sticks and hooks!). “One woman show keeps the laughs coming as it tackles issue of depression.” – Philadelphia Metro ABOUT THE ARTIST Kristina Wong is a nationally presented solo performer, writer, actor, educator, activist, and filmmaker. Described by the East Bay Express as “brutal but hilarious… a woman who takes life’s absurdities very seriously,” her body of performance work includes short and full-length solo performance works, outrageous street theater stunts and pranks, subversive internet installations, and plays and sketch comedy. She was recently awarded the Creative Capital Award in Theater and a Creation Fund from the National Performance Network. She was also selected to be part of the 2008 CBS Multicultural Sketch Comedy Showcase. Her mail order bride site is www.bigbadchinesemama.com. More at http://www.kristinawong.com. written and performed by Robbie McCauley well, it would have been performed by her, but she canceled via email the day before she was supposed to arrive it was supposed to have been presented by Rude Mechs February 21 – 23, 2008 at The Off Center (Austin, TX) ABOUT THE ARTIST An OBIE Award winning playwright for Sally’s Rape, and a nationally recognized performance artist and director, McCauley’s directing credits include the premier of Daniel Alexander Jones’ Bel Canto co-produced with The Theater Offensive and Wheelock Family Theater, and developed at the Sundance Theater Lab; and Kamal Sinclair Steele’s Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome at the New Federal Theater in New York City. Her recent acting credits include Circles of Time by Shirley Timmerck at the Lyric Theater, and her performance work in progress, Sugar. An active presence in the American avant-garde theatre for three decades, she appeared on Broadway in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. Ms. McCauley went on to write and perform regularly in cities across the country, striving to facilitate dialogues on race between local whites and blacks. Robbie McCauley is on the Performing Arts Department faculty at Emerson College.
