Installment Issue One

INSTALLMENT

selected highlights

Issue 1 . . . August 2000

EDITORS' NOTE: Hello. This is the first INSTALLMENT from Audacity Productions. Our hope is to turn out something akin to a newsletter, but since we are not your traditional theatre company, this won't be your typical newsletter. Think of it as a "gazette." Sure, INSTALLMENT will have listings and information on all things Audacity: events, auditions, performances, theatre, film and video endeavors. But also, articles, interviews, columns, the occasional manifesto, and of course, original artwork by some of the brilliant artists associated with Audacity. As a valued patron, participant, or friend of Audacity Productions expect to receive INSTALLMENTs several times a year. You are now in the loop.

~ Sincerely at your service,

Jeff Hernandez & Brad McEntire, Editors-in-chief

WHERE WE ARE NOW: SUMMER 2000 REPORT

In the past year since our inception, Audacity has presented no less than 15 original works to north Texas performing arts-lovers (like you). Through an ongoing play reading series, several sketch and improvisational shows by the comedy troupe Mild Dementia, an innovative "24 hour" short play festival, a Chronic Scene Night, and an outdoor "amphitheater" production of Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT. Each of these events were presented for ticket prices not over five dollars (and in most cases, were just plain free)!

Audacity still has a few tricks in the hat to end the season off. A digital video project, entitled ARSENIC & ROSES is in pre-production as this goes to press, as well as several collaborations with other companies around the country.

Upcoming RUDNICK: THE CANDLE-HEADED BOY will mark the first "official" collaboration between A. V. Phibes' New York-based graphics/media company Evil Kid Productions and Audacity. Combining live action and animation, RUDNICK is a hilariously bizarre retelling of the Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer myth.

Audacity has also been collaborating with the downtown New York-based theatre group Pop Culture Poets all summer. They've been instrumental in helping mount the world-premiere of Lief Wood's dark satire SLICK KADMON V. GOD at this year's New York International Fringe Festival (see "Audacity Goes Fringe"). Rest assured that Audacity will continue to strive for originality, entertainment, and boldness as it moves into the future. Keep track of us. It will be a wild ride.

COSMIC OBSERVER by Fenimore Bonnigan

The Ear. . . Do you think it would have been considered a cruel joke if someone had given Van Gogh a hearing aid as a gag gift? Probably not. I bet Van Gogh liked a good cruel joke as much as the next person.

The Hippogryph. . . This guy once told me that a Hippogryph was a mythological creature that was half horse and half griffin. A griffin is a mythological creature that is part eagle and part lion. A lion is a mythological creature made up of Jolt Cola and French pastries. I said, from the description, this sounded a lot like my uncle. The person to whom I was speaking did not laugh, but teared up and then ran off, crying giant sobs. I found out later, at a dinner party in Cape Cod, that he was a Hippogryph. I thought he was just making conversation.

Style. . . Style is one of the most objective things on the planet… along with fetta cheese and yellow journalism. Some people say the Pagoda of Sung Yueh Ssu is more objective than style, but those people are probably trying to sell you something. Style has no bias, and is attainable by the most unstylish, simply by them thinking themselves stylish. One wouldn't think some things are stylish at all, like an Archimedean screw or irony. But if you think about it, really, all irony is, is hypocrisy with style. . .

First printed Sept. 23, 1997 in The CSF Independent (Santa Fe, NM)