Meet The Dudleys!

The Full-Stage Premiere of

The Dudleys!: A Family Game

by Leegrid Stevens

Directed by Gary Jaffe

6 – 22 May 2011

Wednesdays – Saturdays, 8:00 p.m., Sundays, 7:00 p.m.

The BLUE Theatre [916 Springdale Road, Austin, TX 78702]

Fridays and Saturdays: $15 General Admission
(GACA/Senior/Student: $12 & Priority Seating: $20)

Wednesdays & Thursdays are Pay-What-You-CAN
Name Your Own Price w/ Donation
of Non-Perishable Canned Food Item(s) to benefit
Hope Food Pantry at Trinity United Methodist Church
[Price without donation is $12]

Featuring the artistic contributions of Actors: Alex Cogburn, Katie Dahm, Robert Deike, Spencer Driggers, Braden Hunt, Jenny Keto, Rachel McGinnis, Blake Smith, David Meissner, and Erin Treadway; Set Designer: Chase Staggs; Lighting Designer: Natalie George; Choreography: Zenobia Taylor; Original ChipTune Music Composed and Performed Live by: Steven Gridley.

This evocative, new play translates the adolescent memories of a young man into a malfunctioning 8-bit video game, the kind he used to play as a child. A life-size video game onstage provides the setting in which the characters must score points and overcome obstacles as they navigate their way through the dangers of their own family. The Dudleys! features original video and a live 8-bit band of Atari's, Gameboy's, and Commodore 64's performing original chiptune songs, a new genre of electronic music in which old video game consoles are hacked and reprogrammed as synthesizers. The Dudleys! pits the two dimensional side-scrolling world of fun and happy endings up against the confusion and aimlessness of real life.

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www.TuttoTheatre.org

* * * * *

Austinist.com Really Gets I Witness...

Review: I Witness at The Blue Theatre [Dance]

I Witness
Thursdays - Saturdays, 20 August - 4 September 2010
Blue Theatre (916 Springdale Ave)
8 pm, $15
[info] | [tickets]

When one thinks of meditation, often the image that comes to mind is someone sitting in the lotus position with their eyes closed. However, meditation can take many forms. In some Eastern traditions movement can be a form of meditation. Tutto Theatre Company's new dance and spoken word show, I Witness is, in many ways, a meditation on the concepts of awareness, reality and dreams. However, it isn't simply to be watched. The show engages the audience directly, and brings them into a collective meditation on truly being awake and aware.

While many shows have a chatty atmosphere when the audience is being seated or waiting for the performance to begin, this show is different. Instead, there's a tone of reverence in the theater. The performers are on stage, sitting, lying, still. Then they move, seeming to improvise a brief glimpse of a dance, before again remaining still. They make eye contact with the audience, who is unusually quiet. There's a sense that although the performance has not begun, it is already starting.

I Witness

This serious tone of reflection and ambivalence continues throughout the entire show. The show itself mimics a dream. One of the performers is lying on stage, as if sleeping, at the very top, and at the end we see him again in this position. Hazy images are projected onto the wall, which has a crumpled fabric spread across it. It is as if one could almost make out the images, but not quite, much like remembering a dream. I Witness is a mix of dance and spoken word. Some of the spoken word is original material while other parts you might recognize if you're familiar with Hindu texts or quantum physics. It's divided into 10 parts, 10 original dances choreographed by Amanda Oakley, Shawn Nasralla, and Jennifer Micallef.

The texts and the dances present a call to pause and be mindful of deeper currents, of the connection of all things, of the presence of a deeper reality. There are direct references to quantum theory, pointing out that the observer cannot be taken out of our understanding of the universe. In the beautiful movements there are at times a sense of struggle. A struggle to remain aware, to remain connected. A struggle against loneliness, against the biological and cultural imperatives that make us into walking automatons, robots or puppets. The show seems to be saying that though we are individuals, we are not individuals living in isolation. We are part of a greater system, and that system is part of us. There is a unity at work in the world. The audience is part of the experience. Without the audience, the show does not exist. Without a witness, an event does not take place. Thus the audience is called to reflect upon the meaning of the dances, called to be aware, throughout the show, but is also a part of this meaning and awareness. The show sets out on an ambitious journey by dealing with concepts such as the subconscious, the nature of reality and resistance to the machinations of modern life. While it doesn't give any sort of solid resolution to these questions, it instead asks one to struggle, to strive, to pay attention--to be aware. That is itself, in many ways, a comfort.

In a world where so many people seek quick and easy answers to complex questions, it is nice to see a performance directly access the mystery and paradox present in our lives and accept it on its own terms.

By Patrick Knisely 

MURDER BALLAD MURDER MYSTERY, Last weekend, last 4 shows and basta, finito, you missed it!

"[...Murder Ballad Murder Mystery's] set designer Lisa Laratta's transformation of the Vortex space, which I've never seen used more effectively."

"[...] I can't recall seeing many Austin theatre productions in the last 20 or so years so seamlessly perfect as this one [Murder Ballad Murder Mystery]."

-Barry Pineo, The Austin Chronicle

Tutto Theatre Company

& VORTEX Repertory Company

presents

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery
by Elizabeth Doss | Directed by Dustin Wills

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery unearths a host of dank and dirty bayou bandits whose names once marauded headlines, wanted posters, and LP sleeves. Watch these corpses whittle out new murder tools to make mincemeat of fair maidens and turn your sweetest dream into your worst nightmare. This psychedelic bluegrass symphonic romp through the swamp spins infamous southern-gothic tales of torture and true crime into a circus massacre of whodunits. A blast from the past straight up from the grave.

Featuring an amazing cast including: Alex Cogburn, Andy Tindall, Ben Schave, Cami Alys Frederic, Content Love Knowles, Elizabeth Doss, Emily Tindall, Florinda Bryant, Hilah Johnson, Kelli Bland, Mark Stewart, Phillip Emanuel, and Robert Pierson.

Also Featuring: Set Design by Lisa Laratta, Lighting Design by Megan M. Reilly, and Costume Design by Kim H. Ngo.

CLOSING WEEKEND November 4th - 7th, 2009

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday 8:00 p.m.


The VORTEX
2307 Manor Road; Austin, Texas 78722
To View A Map Click Here

Tickets:

$30-$25 Priority Seating, $20-$15 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists

Wednesdays: BUY-1-GET-1-FREE with donation of non-perishable food item.
(Donations to benefit Hope Food Pantry of Trinity United Methodist Church)

Tickets for Murder Ballad Murder Mystery
are available NOW at
www.tuttotheatre.org!!!


For reservations call: Available at 512-478-LAVA (5282)
www.TuttoTheatre.org

You can now Follow Tutto Theatre Company on Twitter & Facebook.

Tutto Theatre Company is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

CHRONICLE REVIEW!!!!!

Arts: October 30, 2009

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=901610

Arts Review

By Barry Pineo

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery

The Vortex, through Nov. 7

Running time: 2 hr

The older I get, the more I seem to enjoy plays and films that have no obvious linear, narrative plot. When I first saw Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, I thought it was the finest, deepest, greatest film I had seen in many years, so I was surprised to read reviews that excoriated it for its shallowness and its indulgence. It only goes to show, there really is no accounting for taste.

I have a feeling that some might react to this Vortex Repertory-Tutto Theatre Company co-production of Elizabeth Doss' original musical with similar confusion and, perhaps, even derision. But I can't recall seeing many Austin theatre productions in the last 20 or so years so seamlessly perfect as this one. I'm tempted to give most of the credit to director Dustin Wills, but I hesitate to do so. While certainly Wills was the guiding hand, every element of the production contributes mightily to its overall effect.

Take Doss' original script, which seems set in some unnamed part of Appalachia. Its focus is death, and it's filled with it. Sister kills sister, father kills daughter, mother kills father, strangers kill strangers, and that's just the first act. But rather than stirring horror and revulsion, the deaths are perversely loving or revoltingly comic, and all are set to music. Two of the songs particularly stand out: Content Love Knowles stops the show in the first act with her rendition of "You Got What You Deserved," and Mark Stewart, accompanying himself on guitar, fascinates in the second act with the strange ballad "The Night I Didn't Kill You."

Or look at set designer Lisa Laratta's transformation of the Vortex space, which I've never seen used more effectively. Ramps and platforms span the walls. Actors splash through a pool of water center stage. Rope and spookily glowing lanterns hang suspended from the ceiling, and shanks of rope adorn the walls. Actors crawl onto the stage, slide onto it, scamper up and down ladders, and are hoisted to the roof. And the background for all of this – well, I just don't want to give this delightful surprise away. If you want to know what major scenic element dominates the stage, you'll just have to see it for yourself.

Or consider Mark Stewart and Andy Tindall's original, evocative bluegrass music, which accompanies most of the action, played by a band of four on banjo, guitar, mandolin, and fiddle. And while, for me, Robert Pierson's growling father Tom and Hilah Johnson's detached and weary Agatha stand out, the entire ensemble of actors commits completely and utterly to this broad, bizarre vision of a backwoods community gone completely and utterly mad.

In writing all this, I don't want to imply that the production is transcendent. Nothing is, really. Even I found it self-indulgently ridiculous when Caden Cotard used a dropper to put fake tears in his eyes in Synecdoche, New York. But that moment was the exception that proves the rule: In order to achieve greatness, great risk must be undertaken, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a riskier production in Austin this year than this strange string of ballads and mysteries, best summed up in the final lines of the final song of the show: "How lucky to be dead. How lucky to be singing ... tonight."

www.TuttoTheatre.org

You can now Follow Tutto Theatre Company on Twitter & Facebook.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery Opens with a BANG! BANG! BANG!

A lowdown & dirty load-in followed by a fast & furious tech week were well worth the dark circles meticulously covered with concealer by the cast. Thank god for adrenaline, ‘else asses would have been draggin’. A sold-out opening crowd witnessed one hell of show! Fourth of July fireworks shot straight from the swamp last Friday night. We wore our inner animals on our sleeves, tackling every scene & song with guts & gumption. Were they mishaps? Sure. Deviations from our best-laid plans? Hell, yes. And shit-ton of heart, too. And some tired, happy tears at the opening night soiree as Bonnie Cullum, toasted the incredible efforts from both Tutto Theatre Company & Vortex that brought this beast of a musical into being.

And there were no “second night blues” on Saturday when we met, once again, a solidly packed house. We were up to tricks old & new, hollerin’, line dancin’, and brandishing plastic pistols. Enough entrances and exits to make your head spin. No time hem and haw! This breakneck play requires an A game. The ensemble on their toes at all times. All except our sweet harp, Agnes, suspended in her swing like upside down anchor, defying gravity. From Lincoln Lady’s gritty ditty “I Killed You”, to the Sleuth’s bad-ass rendering of, “Why’s Everybody Gotta Die?” Murder Ballads ran, yet again, on greased lightening.

And we didn’t stop there ‘cause we packed ‘em in again on Sunday! And we even amped it up a notch for fiddle player and musical director, Andy Tindall’s birthday. We met with surprisingly responsive crowd. Jay and I managed through our rapid fire text with fewer slip-ups than ever before. Some took issue with the Indian Summer heat, but I must say it made the water fight feel like a pool party. So, I couldn’t complain. They say a cold front’s comin’ next week.

In a nutshell? Great stuff all around. The design rocks. The cast rules. The direction from Tutto Theatre Company's Dustin Wills reeks of genius. Who could ask for more? Not me. I’m as happy as a pig in you-know-what.

xoxo

B

www.TuttoTheatre.org

You can now Follow Tutto Theatre Company on Twitter & Facebook.

REVIEW of Murder Ballad Murder Mystery on KOOP Radio...

Two weeks ago we were featured guest on the 91.7 KOOP radio show Off Stage and On The Air hosted by Lisa Scheps. As part of this week's show Lisa interview live and on the air the Murder Ballad Murder Mystery ticket winner.

Click play below and listen to what the winner had to say about Murder Ballad Murder Mystery.

ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT!!!

Tickets for Murder Ballad Murder Mystery

are available NOW at:

www.tuttotheatre.org!!!

For reservations call: Available at 512-478-LAVA (5282)

www.TuttoTheatre.org

You can now Follow Tutto Theatre Company on Twitter & Facebook.

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery

Tutto Theatre Company & VORTEX Repertory Company

presents

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery
by Elizabeth Doss | Directed by Dustin Wills

Murder Ballad Murder Mystery unearths a host of dank and dirty bayou bandits whose names once marauded headlines, wanted posters, and LP sleeves. Watch these corpses whittle out new murder tools to make mincemeat of fair maidens and turn your sweetest dream into your worst nightmare. This psychedelic bluegrass symphonic romp through the swamp spins infamous southern-gothic tales of torture and true crime into a circus massacre of whodunits. A blast from the past straight up from the grave.

Featuring an amazing cast including: Alex Cogburn, Andy Tindall, Ben Schave, Cami Alys Frederic, Content Love Knowles, Elizabeth Doss, Emily Tindall, Florinda Bryant, Hilah Johnson, Kelli Bland, Mark Stewart, Phillip Emanuel Smith, and Robert Pierson.

Also Featuring: Set Design by Lisa Laratta, Lighting Design by Megan M. Reilly, and Costume Design by Kim H. Ngo.


Three Weeks Only!

23-25 October 2009 (Friday-Sunday 8:00 p.m.),

28-31 October 2009 (Wednesday-Saturday 8:00 p.m.)

& 4-7 November 2009 (Wednesday-Saturday 8:00 p.m.)

with BONUS Halloween show on Friday, October 30th, 11:00 p.m.




The VORTEX
2307 Manor Road; Austin, Texas 78722
To View A Map Click Here

Tickets:

$30-$25 Priority Seating, $20-$15 General Admission, $10 Starving Artists

Wednesdays: BUY-1-GET-1-FREE with donation of non-perishable food item.
(Donations to benefit Hope Food Pantry of Trinity United Methodist Church)

Tickets for Murder Ballad Murder Mystery
are available NOW at
www.tuttotheatre.org!!!


For reservations call: Available at 512-478-LAVA (5282)
www.TuttoTheatre.org

You can now Follow Tutto Theatre Company on Twitter & Facebook.

Tutto Theatre Company is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

Murder Ballad Murder Mystey on KOOP Radio

Want to hear a little of Murder Ballad Murder Mystery? Then you'll want to tune into 91.7 FM KOOP's radio show Off Stage and On The Air at 1:00 pm on Monday October 12th to hear an interview with director Dustin Wills and a sneak preview of the show!!!


- Tutto

The Chronicle is still talking about Tutto...

Black Snow is wrapped but The Chronicle is still talking Tutto Theatre Company. Read what they have to say:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A810626

Did you get to see Back Snow... what did you think?

A Q&A with Dustin Wills...

TUTTO's Artistic Director, Dustin Wills, is the subject of an Alumni Profile by the Department of Theatre & Dance at The University of Texas at Austin.

Click here to read the profile

Its a great little Q&A that gives you a sneak peek into Dustin's creative world.

- Tutto Theatre Company

Tutto Theatre Company is going global...

TUTTO THEATRE COMPANY is featured in a Roman publication!!!! Page 30. And how lovely that La Dolce Vita is on the front cover. INDEED!





We truly are going global because this July Tutto Theatre Company will be producing in collaboration with The English Theatre of Rome. The production will be written and directed by Tutto Theatre Company's Artistic Director, Dustin Wills. The show opens in July 2009 at the Teatro L'Arciliuto in Rome, Italy.


If you are thinking to yourself, "Damn, I wish I could get to Rome!"


No worries, because you can catch our Austin production of Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgakov.



Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgakov
Adapted by Keith Reddin
Directed by Dustin Wills
26 June – 12 July 2009
Thursdays – Sundays 8:00 p.m.
(No Performance on Saturday, July 4th)
Salvage Vanguard Theater [2803 Manor Road]

You can get tickets now at a special advanced purchase discount price at:

Tickets Tickets Tickets



- Tutto Theatre Company
www.TuttoTheatre.org

All Tutto can think right now is WOW!!!

Tutto Theatre Company received an amazing SIX Austin Critics Table Award Nominations for Ophelia:

Production, Drama

Direction (Dustin Wills)

Ensemble Performance

David Mark Cohen New Play Award (Dustin Wills)

Scenic Design (Lisa Laratta)

Costume Design (Kim H. Ngo).


Tutto would also like to congratulate all of the other amazingly talented companies and artists in there nominations. Thank you Austin!

- Tutto

A message from Tutto...

We're on the move and in more than one way, this is all that I can say for now but believe me when I say that it will be worth the wait Its going to be a beautiful Summer!

- Tutto

Ophelia In The News!!!

Tutto Theatre Company took Ophelia to The John Aielli Show!!! Check it out:

http://kut.org/items/show/14746


Read what the Austinist.com, Austin Chronicle and the Austin American Statesman had to say at:

Austinist.com Review

Austin Chronicle Preview

Austin American Statesman


For more information about Ophelia as well as to purchase tickets visit:

http://tuttotheatre.org/

We'll see you at the theatre.