theater

Blooming Where You're Planted: Robot Memory Play Finds Home in Tim Faulkner Building

Erin Keane — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:47:04 +0000

Sometimes beautiful theatre happens in unlikely spaces. When Tim Faulkner Gallery moved from East Market Street to Butchertown last spring, the new digs gave the gallery room to breathe. A whole building on the intimate, tree-lined Franklin Street showcases not only to the many artists Faulkner represents, but also the art parties the gallery has become known for. Tim Faulkner Building also houses studios rented to artists, Matt Anthony's Record Shop, a used bookstore and other small enterprises.

Watch | 'Friend Factory' Streaming Through HowlRound TV

Erin Keane — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Louisville playwright Brian Walker is having a busy week. The revival of his 2006 comedy "Great American Sex Play" opens Thursday at the Kentucky Center's MeX Theatre, and tonight, his new play "The Friend Factory" will receive a staged reading at Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville.

'Great American Sex Play' Explores Sexuality, Common Ground

Erin Keane — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:29:30 +0000

Louisville Repertory Company closes its 20^th season this week with a titillating revival. Louisville playwright Brian Walker’s “Great American Sex Play,” which premiered in 2006 with Walker’s own Finnigan Productions, opens in the Kentucky Center’s MeX Theatre Thursday.

REVIEW | Immerse Yourself in 'O Guru Guru Guru'

Erin Keane — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:53:45 +0000

Playwright Mallery Avidon had an unconventional upbringing. As a kid and young teen she lived, on and off, in an ashram -- the same ashram that later cropped up as a setting in Elizabeth Gilbert's nonfiction book "Eat Pray Love," later made into a movie starring Julia Roberts. Avidon mines those experiences in her engaging autobiographical play, "O Guru Guru Guru or why I don't want to go to yoga class with you," an attempt to reconcile several complicated, competing emotions about contentment, identity and spirituality.

An Audience of One: Playwright Mallery Avidon on Writing for Herself

Erin Keane — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:31:41 +0000

Playwright Mallery Avidon mines her unconventional childhood for her new play, “O Guru Guru Guru, or why I don't want to go to yoga class with you.”

"Part of that unconventional upbringing has to do with the ashram that Elizabeth Gilbert goes to in the book 'Eat Pray Love,' that Julia Roberts goes to in the movie 'Eat Pray Love.' The play is an investigation of the way that unconventional spirituality affected my life," says Avidon.

REVIEW | 'Cry Old Kingdom' a Promising Debut

Erin Keane — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:57:33 +0000

“Cry Old Kingdom” is playwright Jeff Augustin’s professional debut, an examination of how artists function in times of oppression set in his family’s native Haiti. Directed by Tom Dugdale, “Cry Old Kingdom” is the ambitious story of three individuals searching for a clear pathway through a terrifying political climate. It’s a strong, if slightly uneven, debut from a young playwright with great potential.

What If Abraham Lincoln Was Gay? New Play Explores LGBT Teen Issues

Erin Keane — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:07:50 +0000

Pandora Productions opens the world premiere of Bixby Elliot's "Abraham Lincoln Was a Faggot" tonight. The production is the winner of Pandora's New Play Project, in which audience members voted for the new play they'd most like to see produced.

"Abraham Lincoln Was a Faggot" is directed by artistic director Michael Drury and runs in the Henry Clay Theatre (604 S. Third St.) through March 24. The company will host a “Meet the Playwright” opening night reception with Elliot immediately following the opening night performance at The FAF Gallery on the first floor of The Henry Clay Building.

I spoke with Elliot about his serio-comic play, how we perceive our political icons, and the new play process.

Grad Student Makes Playwriting Debut at Humana Festival

Erin Keane — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:11:19 +0000

Playwright Jeff Augustin won the Kennedy Center's prestigious Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award in 2011, but "Cry Old Kingdom," which opened Sunday at Actors Theatre of Louisville, is his first professional production. Augustin is a student in the Master of Fine Arts theater program at the University of California, San Diego.

'War Horse' Joining Slate of All-New Broadway Series Season

Erin Keane — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

The acclaimed Broadway drama “War Horse” is coming to the Kentucky Center in November. The Broadway in Louisville series announced their next season today, which includes the popular musical “The Book of Mormon.” All of the shows scheduled for next season are new to Louisville.

Rounding out the season are musical adaptations of two early-Nineties films, “Ghost” and “Sister Act,” and “The Addams Family,” which opens the season in October.

Exploring the American Family Tragedy: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Erin Keane — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:00:00 +0000

The second play to make its world premiere in this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville is “Appropriate,” a family drama about adult siblings who reunite to sort through their deceased father’s estate.