December 2012 Q Award Winners

Through the amazing response from artists and the Austin community, The Creative Fund’s Q Rental Subsidy Program awarded a total of $19,250 in it’s three rounds to 25 local performing arts groups with upcoming productions – all funds raised within the first year.

Applications ranging from theater, dance, music and comedy were reviewed by a panel of three judges who were selected based on their experience in the field and the types of applications received. This review panel was comprised of:

1. Travis Bedard– Artistic Director of Cambiare Productions
2. Drew Harris– Attorney and art fan
3. Brooke Dorrien– CPA and dancer

Q Rental Subsidy Grant Award Winners:

Physical Plant Theater
ADAM SULTAN
Salvage Van Guard Theatre
March 17 – April 13, 2012

The play is a kind of speculative biography. It’s an attempt to imagine Adam’s life about forty years in the future. Adam’s in his eighties, many of his dearest friends have died, including his wife, and the world of theater and performance in Austin have changed. Adam has changed, too: Over the years he’s gone from happy and adventurous to cranky and withdrawn.

One day, seemingly at random, an exact puppet version of Adam arrives at his apartment. Adam can’t communicate with the puppet, but it behaves as if it lives there. For reasons we don’t at first understand, the puppet is in the midst of a very heavy grief — a grief which alternately fascinates and frightens Adam.

By the end of the play, the puppet has inadvertently (and un-intuitively) shown Adam a path back toward the self he feared was gone forever.

Jennifer Sherburn
Rhododendron Descend
St. Elmo Soundstage
May 3 – May 12, 2013

Rhododendron Descend is a dance-based, multi-disciplinary work Inspired by Mt. Everest Climbing Expeditions. It is the culminating, evening length performance of a series of dances directed and choreographed by Jennifer Sherburn. The final production will incorporate an elaborate set of moving ramps, an accumulating forest of rhododendron trees and surrounding projections of a star-filled night sky. The dancers will perform with climber’s rigging on and around the ramps, suspended in the air inside of sleeping bags, and on ground-level. An original sound score created by Justin Sherburn, Steve Bernal and John Nelson, is mixed live during every performance.

Glass Half Full Theatre
Once There were Six Seasons
Salvage Vanguard Theater
February 21 – March 3, 2013

Glass Half Full Theatre will produce a workshop performance of a new, original show entitled Once There Were Six Seasons. The associated artists are collaboratively constructing a narrative that addresses the impact of global warming on societies around the world. This project, inspired by a true story our lead artist encountered while in India, will show how communities and families are undone when their cultures are irrevocably altered by these external environmental changes.

The Hidden Room Theatre
Invisible Inc.
Rollins Studio at The Long Center of Performing Arts
January 11 – 20, 2013

Invisible Inc is the world-premier of a play by Paul Menzer (Brats of Clarence) and centers on two feuding magicians in 1930 New York. Filled with real stage magic and a noire mystery flair, Invisible Inc appears glitzy and sleek on the surface, but its thematic underpinnings tackle emotional self-deception and the pain of letting personal artifice go.

One of the more innovative aspects of the show is its meta-theatricality, as we build a theatre inside a theatre (the Rollins) complete with its own ticket booth, separate stage and curtains, and additional seating. We are having fun with the notion of the audience’s suspension of disbelief when it comes to theatre and magic. We are creating sets within sets, and so, worlds within worlds to explore and engage in. This immersion extends into interactivity at many points of the play. The audience takes on the role of an audience in the magic shows within the play, and are able to volunteer to be a part of illusions.

No Idea Festival
10th Annual No Idea Festival 2013
The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center + Salvage Vanguard Theater
February 14 – 17, 2013

No Idea is a one-of-a-kind festival in Texas (and arguably the US) in that it functions to connect artists without compromise while building the infrastructure (connecting curators, venues, organizations/institutions, writers) to facilitate artists’s continued collaboration and ability to generate creative, contemporary work together.

For No Idea 2013 we will celebrate our 10th year as an active, vital organization. Special emphasis will be given to connect artists from Mexico City with Texas-based musicians and sound artists. No Idea Artistic Director Chris Cogburn recently spent 4 months in Mexico City in the fall of 2012 researching contemporary artistic trends while in residence at UVA, an arts college in Tlatelolco, Mexico City. Cogburn is curating much of No Idea 2013 to facilitate the connection and collaboration between Mexico City and Austin’s most innovative sound artists. Similarly, Cogburn is curating several artists instrumental in No Idea’s success over the last 10 years to return to Austin and perform their most recent works.

Fusebox Festival
Fusebox Festival
Salvage Vanguard Theater
April 14 – 28, 2013

Steve Moore: “Adam Sultan”
This world premiere play by celebrated Austin Playwright Steve Moore was developed at Fusebox and included a sneak-preview presentation in 2012. Moore describes the play as a Speculative Biography – looking into the life of local artist Adam Sultan in the year 2051.

Carla Goodman: “Playing With Failure”
This work-in-progress presentation features Austin and national performers working with the theme of failure using the performance techniques of modern clown theater. The starting point for exploring failure will be using a bad theater review, and from this review the ensemble will recreate the failed play based only on what the review provides and what the clowns discover in telling the story. At the end of the workshop showing, the audience will be asked to submit their own reviews that will generate material for future work on the project.

The Forrest Fringe
Inspired by the Forrest Fringe, a venue for experimental and emerging performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, Fusebox will present six exciting artists from the UK presenting performances in the SVT main stage, studio space, lobby and parking lot. The performance in the Forrest Fringe is edgy, adventurous, and fun. The pieces are diverse and include more familiar theater settings as well as unique performance experiences for only two people at a time inside a car parked in the SVT parking lot.