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James Pinkowski's MINT JULEPS

As part of the 4th Annual Festival of Independent Theatres

THE PRESS PAGE

FIT returns for three-weekend run

Quality, growth the keys for 9 participating Dallas companies

06/18/2002 By TOM SIME / The Dallas Morning News

The Festival of Independent Theatres (FIT) returns to the Bath House Cultural Center on July 11, promising to build on its three years of explosive growth in popularity and quality. Nine small Dallas companies will showcase their work over the three-weekend run. Most of the groups from previous festivals are back, although Our Endeavors Theater Company is instead working with the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas this summer.

Audacity Productions, the newcomer, will perform Mint Juleps , James Pinkowski's story of secrets between old friends.

Beardsley Living Theatre presents Sonny Deree's Life Flashes Before His Eyes by Bill Bozzone, about a man who owes money to the mob.

Bucket Productions performs Fit to be Tried, Georges Feydeau's farce about adultery and mistaken identity.

Cara Mia Theatre Company offers El Presidente y la Máscara de Oro by Danny Daniels, the story of an assassinated Mexican president.

Core Performance Manufactory presents Fish by Cyndi Williams, about a woman who loses "her balance, her routine, and her cat."

Echo Theatre will stage Vita and Virginia, based on the letters of writer Virginia Woolf and her friend and lover Vita Sackville-West.

Ground Zero Theater Company will perform Bad Roof by Tim Hatcher, about an Appalachian coal miner's search for a better life.

Theatre Quorum will produce Angela Wilson's Perchance, about two modern women who bring home a pair of Shakespearean men.

WingSpan Theatre Company presents Art on the Fridge, Valerie Brogan Powell's comedy about psychological secrets on ice.

. . .

FIT PROFILE

Four years ago, a group of Dallas' smallest theater companies joined forces and discovered that collectively, they're big. The Festival of Independent Theatres has proven to be one of the reliable highlights of the year on stage, and an increasingly popular hit with the public. This year, nine companies are participating: Audacity Productions, Beardsley Living Theatre, Bucket Productions, Cara Mia Theatre Company, Core Performance Manufactory, Echo Theatre, Ground Zero Theater Company, Theatre Quorum and WingSpan Theatre Company. The companies present one-act plays in "blocks" of two or three, with rapid set changes in between. The plays range from proven classics to world premieres, and FIT has evolved from a risky experiment to an absolute must-see for theater fans.

- TOM SIME / The Dallas Morning News Profile [07/05/2002]

. . .

Lightning strikes

Festival of Independent Theatres opens with a jolt amid storm

07/13/2002 By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News

Despite last-minute cast changes and a spectacular lightning display outside that made the stage lights flicker from time to time, the fourth annual Festival of Independent Theatres got started with a bang on Thursday. The four-week rotating array of offerings from nine local companies has become one of the Dallas theater's most eagerly anticipated events. The opening one-act on the first night's roster of three demonstrated why.

Core Performance Manufactory, heretofore the most experimental (and sometimes most pretentious) of the groups, came down from its tower of abstraction to produce the gut- wrenching Fish. Austin playwright Cyndi Williams has packed a novel's worth of psychological action into a tight hour in this tale of two haunted people interacting fatefully.

Laura (Maxine Shapiro), a middle-aged woman in crisis, has sought out a young hustler, Charlie (Chris Cantrell), for services unnamed. For Charlie, visions of his drug-addicted, abusive mother (Lydia Mackay) are more vivid than moment-to-moment reality. A college student, herself high on drugs (Shanna Riddle), keeps wandering through Laura's head. Ms. Williams has structured her play lucidly by having her two principal characters play scenes with three bartenders (all played by Scott Meek) and three convenience-store clerks (nicely differentiated by Christopher Burnett). Director Elizabeth Ware elicited brilliant performances from all six actors, who give Fish an unexpected emotional wallop.

Audacity Productions, the only newcomer to the festival this year, takes up surprisingly similar themes in James Pinkowski's Mint Juleps. Two old friends (played by Amy Seale Moore and Laurel Whitsett) are meeting for tea after a year out of touch. Mr. Pinkowski scatters clues to indicate that all may not be as it seems. Neither play nor production seemed as sure-footed as Fish, but that might have been partly because director Brad McEntire had stepped in unannounced for the actor listed in the role of an enigmatic waiter.

Two of the four actors originally scheduled to appear in Wingspan Theatre Company's Art on the Fridge had been replaced by Thursday's world premiere. The substitutions didn't seem to faze Valerie Brogan's comedy, the lightest thing Wingspan has ever done. The script might almost be the transcript of an hour of improvs on a refrigerator prop. Cynthia Hestand directed, and the performers got their laughs by nailing the characters.

E-mail ltaitte@dallasnews.com

The Festival of Independent Theatres continues through Aug. 3 at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther Drive at Northcliff. Performances Thursdays through Sundays. Tickets $12 to $20, festival pass $45. For tickets by phone, call TITAS at 214-528-5576. For schedule and reservations, call 214-670-8749 or go to www.bathhousecultural.com.