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Dallas Solo Fest 2014

'Number One, Baby': Brad McEntire launches the Dallas Solo Fest

                                                                             [Credit: Robert Hart for TheaterJones.com]

Number One, Baby

How Brad McEntire, founder of Audacity Theatre Lab and a performer with lots of fringe festival experience, started the first Dallas Solo Fest, which begins Thursday.

TheatreJones.com | by Mark Lowry | May 15, 2014

Dallas — Brad McEntire has many interests at which he excels, from his longtime talent for cartooning, to performing improv and sketch comedy, to, at one point, being a birthday clown. These dovetail with his love for the art of clowning and shadow puppety, which he learned in Hong Kong when teaching ESL and vocabulary to Chinese students; and it all plays into his greatest passion—solo performance—an art form that allows him to have the ultimate, multi-hyphenate theatrical job description. 

“Solo performance blends together all of my interests: directing, acting, playwriting, producing and even designing,” he says. “It all comes together so that I can present an uncompromised version of my own kind of theater.” 

Now, his kind of theater has grown into something that has been a dream for years: the first Dallas Solo Fest, which opens May 15 and runs for two weeks at the Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park. He’s not performing in it, but rather producing it under the umbrella of his company Audacity Theatre Lab. 

In the DSF, eight performers will present solo shows, each running about an hour long, with three on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, four on the first Sunday and two on the final Sunday. There will also be workshops with some of the artists. 

Three performers are Dallas writer/performers: John Michael, premiering his fifth solo show, Crossing Your I’s; Danny O’Connor, with his Bouncing Ugly, about his days as a bouncer at Coyote Ugly in New York; and theater critic-turned-playwright Elaine Liner, giving the Dallas premiere of her Sweater Curse: A Yarn About Love, which she debuted at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and ran earlier this year in Lewisville. The five others come from around the country: Veronica Russell (New Orleans), A Different Woman: A True Story of a Texas Childhood; Alexandra Tatarsky (New York), Beast of Festive Skin; Deanna Fleysher (Los Angeles), Butt Kapinski; David Mogolov (Boston), Eating My Garbage; and Zeb L. West (Austin), Innocent When You Dream. (Descriptions of all shows, along with a schedule, can be seen at the bottom of this article.) 

The event is a welcome addition to the growing list of performing arts festivals in Dallas, which include the Festival of Independent Theatres (July), WaterTower Theatre’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival (March), and the Dallas Dance Council’s new Dallas Dance Festival (August). 

“If this goes successfully, my hope is to do one every year or every two years, depending on the feasibility of it, and make it a new ongoing festival” says McEntire. “I think Dallas is a great town, and it’s a large town—it should have more theater festivals.” 

SOLO ROOTS 

McEntire, a Texas native, discovered theater at Carrollton’s Newman Smith High School because he had a crush on a girl in the drama department. He then went to the College of Santa Fe on a scholarship, hoping to major in art, but ended up doing more theater there. He returned to Dallas and acted in shows at the now-defunct Plano Repertory Theatre, and started Mild Dementia, an sketch comedy troupe, where he met someone who has become an important collaborator in the past decade, actor/director Jeff Swearingen. He co-founded "garage-band sized" Audacity Productions in 1999, and his group performed original work in the Festival of Independent Theatres, Out of ther Loop and Austin’s FronteraFest. 

He spent the last few years of the 1990s, and the early part of this millennium, between Dallas and New York, with some teaching gigs, including high school theater at R.L Turner High School in Carrollton ("I developed a newfound respect for the teachers I had growing up," he says). 

In the Big Apple, he interned with Aquila Theatre Co. and produced at the 2001 New York International Fringe Festival—one of four appearances at FringeNYC. He left New York to perform in an Austin festival, catching a flight out on the evening of September 10, 2001. He originally intended to stay home in Texas for two weeks.

"That changed when some planes hit some buildings," McEntire says.

With the following day's events in New York, he "kind of got stuck back in Dallas" and decided it was time to stay in his home state. 

After a few more years of having a go at being an independent theater producer, director and performer in Dallas, he found the Hong Kong opportunity, and in 2006, headed east and filed to dissolve Audacity Productions. In Hong Kong, he gravitated to like-minded artists, and before he knew it, was creating theater, including a “shadow puppet funk musical” take on Rapunzel with expat artists from Australia and England. He developed a taste for international travel and far-flung collaboration. He even traveled to Australia to catch a performance by one of his theater idols, legendary director Peter Brook ("I thought he was retiring and I would have kicked myself if I missed seeing one of his shows."). 

He returned to Dallas in 2008, and restarted his group as something familiar but new: Audacity Theatre Lab, arriving just in time for the beginning of a new era in Dallas's theater scene. 

Kevin Moriarty had been hired as the new Artistic Director at Dallas Theater Center and began making important changes and opening up the city’s biggest theater to the local artist community. And as the Great Recession was getting underway, a new group of theaters cropped up, each with something new and interesting to say, from the Ochre House to Upstart Productions to Nouveau 47 Theatre and the reclaiming of Margo Jones’ historic Fair Park theater as a place to celebrate new work and independent artists. 

“Since 2008 I have been pretty much doing my own plays my own way, filled with rocket packs, dinosaurs and chupacabras—and, compared to freelancing as an artist-for-hire, I’m now having a whole lot more fun,” he adds, referring to such works as Dinosaur and Robot Stop a Train, performed with Swearingen at the 2013 Festival of Independent Theatres, and his solo show I Brought Home a Chupacabra, seen at January’s YOLO Solo Fest, a satellite event around Audacity's revival of Andy Eninger's The Last Castrato, again starring Swearingen. 

Audacity has done multi-character plays too, including the 2009 premiere of Hello Human Female by Dallas native Matt Lyle (who has a new show, Barbecue Apocalypse, opening at Kitchen Dog Theater next week), and 2010’s outstanding production of Clay McCleod Chapman's Volume of Smoke. But in more recent years Audacity, and more specifically McEntire, has mostly focused on solo work, including Robert’s Eternal Goldfish as well as McEntire’s most-traveled festival piece, Chop, about a man with ties to an amputation fetish group. 

When Matt Tomlanovich took over operations of the Margo Jones Theatre in 2012, new dreams began to blossom. 

“I’ve had an idea of doing a fringe-like festival of some sort for years, but when Matt invited Audacity to be a resident theater at the Margo Jones, I realized something was suddenly very doable,” McEntire says. “It opened up an affordable, more-or-less reliable venue and put the responsibility for the space on whoever was using it at a given time. When Audacity comes into the theater, there’s nobody hovering over us or micro-managing. It’s just us. We are left to our own devices, like a real laboratory. That’s how I seem to work best.” 

ALL FOR ONE 

                         [Credit: Robert Hart for TheaterJones.com]

In the past 15 years, McEntire has become familiar with the country’s fringe festivals. In addition to his stints at the New York International Fringe, he’s performed at the Seattle Fringe, New Orleans Fringe Fesitval, Phoenix Fringe, WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival, and Portland (Ore.) Mini-Fringe Theater Festival; plus at intimate venues in San Antonio, Austin, Santa Fe and elsewhere. He’s on the waiting list for this year’s Chicago Fringe Festival. 

He, along with many who perform in the fringe circuit, accomplish this by “billeting,” a term that refers to sleeping on the couches or in the guest rooms of friends or people who open up their homes to touring fringe performers. For travel, he’s able to save up or get donations of airline miles. And for the solo performer it's easier to work the circuit, considering there's often no need for crew or many, if any, set pieces to tote. 

His experience on the circuit helped him find some of the performers at the Dallas Solo Fest, and taught him how to accommodate them here. Local performers, including Danny O’Connor and Justin Locklear, are housing the out-of-towners; and Audacity has worked out a deal with the car service Uber for transportation. 

He also started a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to ensure that all artists are paid a stipend. Additionally, they get 70 percent of the box office, and are allowed to sell merchandise at the venue (something you can’t always do at many fringe theatre festivals, McEntire says). Also, whereas most festivals have an application fee and then, if accepted, an additional performance fee that ranges from $300 to $800 or more, the Dallas Solo Fest is not charging for any of that. 

For McEntire, the festival is more about celebrating the audacity of the individual artist, and making it easier for them "to come in and do their thing." 

“I’m a big proponent of theater artists taking initiative, instead of waiting to be handed projects,” he says. “Most theater is an interpretative art—designers, directors and actors are interpretive artists. But I’m more interested in generative artists. I think everybody can be a playwright, if you take it in the literal sense of the word: someone who makes theater.” 

“When you’re hired to, say, act in a show, your only responsibility is to give the best performance you can; you don’t have to worry about marketing, or the tech side of things, or stuff like costumes or lights or transportation,” he adds. “That’s what appeals to me—the potential for the solo performer is keying into the whole process. The solo performer can be responsible from that very beginning idea until the piece is sent for publication and thus put out there in the world for other people to do. Solo performers are very entrepreneurial in spirit, which makes them very contemporary in how they approach their art. Solo work makes the artist extremely responsible for their own artwork; they tend to accept that there’s not anyone else to blame if it doesn’t go well.” 

He believes that the city is finally ready for something like the Dallas Solo Fest. 

“I feel like I can do my own kind of theater through Audacity because I’m part of a great theater community here in Dallas where lots of theaters are doing a diverse range of other kinds of theater,” he says. “If I was in a small town, operating a sort of representative theater, I’d probably be doing The Music Man and American chestnuts like Kaufman and Hart. But in Dallas, there are all types of theaters. There’s somebody handling The Music Man, but there’s also somebody handling Mac Wellman, someone doing Latino theater, childrens theater, musicals, puppetry; all kinds of stuff. It is a big, diverse community. The up side of this for artists is a sense of freedom instead of obligation. There's room for everybody. So, for example, I can be out on the fringe doing what I want... the small, weird stuff.” 

“I feel grateful and fortunate to be part of the Dallas theater scene, particularly the indie scene. There's room for one and all. And I'm A-OK with that.” 

_  _  _  _  _

Below are desciptions of the shows in the first Dallas Solo Fest, along with performance times. For a complete schedule, including info on the workshops visit the DSF website at: www.DallasSoloFest.com

A Different Woman: A True Story of a Texas Childhood by Veronica Russell (New Orleans), adapted the book My First Thirty Years by Gertrude Beasley. This solo show presents an unvarnished, unapologetic and cynical tale of a rural Texas childhood told by a woman who pulled herself out of the cycle of poverty and abuse in which she found herself. A Different Woman is a darkly humorous stage adaptation of Ms. Beasley's controversial banned memoir. Thursday, May 22, 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 23, 9 p.m. Saturday, May 24, 10:30 p.m. 

Beast of Festive Skin by Alexandra Tatarsky (New York City) is an absurdist vaudeville about alchemists, rappers and other creative visionaries stuck in Hell. These deranged darlings of the underworld tell their tales of woe with a truly fiery need to get by. The horror of existence! The agony of creation! The one-woman show people are dying to see! Friday, May 16, 10:30 p.m. Saturday, May 17, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18, 5 p.m. 

Bouncing Ugly by Danny O’Connor (Dallas) recounts his experience as a bouncer at the Coyote Ugly Saloon in NYC. He has stories, oh yes, he has stories. Thursday, May 15, 9 p.m. Saturday, May 17, 9 p.m. Sunday, May 18, 8:30 p.m. 

Butt Kapinski by Deanna Fleysher (Los Angeles) stars as Private Eye Butt Kapinski. The audience is invited to co-star in an improvisational film noir fantasy. This funny, filthy, fully-interactive ride is riddled with sex, sin, shadows and subterfuge. Thursday, May 22, 10:30 p.m. Friday, May 23, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 24, 9 p.m. 

Crossing Your I’s by John Michael (Dallas) concerns John’s experiences learning from and working with dementia patients. This world premiere solo show about intergenerational understanding and the messiness of human connections is filtered through John Michael’s uniquely kinetic and hilarious perspective. Thursday, May 15, 10:30 p.m. Friday, May 18, 9 p.m. Friday, May 23, 10:30 p.m. 

Eating My Garbage by David Mogolov (Boston). Dumbfounded by a call from a political pollster, David searches himself for a reason to believe the nation isn't utterly doomed. When he can't quite think of one, he turns to irrational reasons. That's when his search gets more promising. Friday, May 16, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 17, 10:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18, 7 p.m.  

Innocent When You Dream by Zeb L. West (Austin) takes place in the belly of a whale. A heartbroken castaway, swallowed and driven mad has only two books to read: Don Quixote and Moby-Dick. He acts out the books using puppets and masks fashioned from flotsam. This solo adventure uses physical comedy and sea shanties to smash two literary epics into an hour of shameless antics! Thursday, May 22, 9 p.m. Saturday, May 24, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 25, 3:30 p.m. 

Sweater Curse: A Yarn About Love by Elaine Liner (Dallas) was a 5-star hit at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Bring your knitting (or crocheting) and stitch along as Dallas writer-performer Elaine Liner shares her obsessions with great literature, old movies and the romantic entanglements of knitting sweaters for significant others. Thursday, May 15, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18, 3:30 p.m. Sunday, May 25, 5 p.m.

Original article HERE.

4-Way Stop: The Musical

Back in the summer of 2009 I participated in one of the Dallas Video Association's 24-Hour Races. The team, headed by Keith Dearing and Collin Kennedy of Palatia Motion Picture Group in the McKinney/Allen area of North Texas was given a prompt on a Friday evening - something to do with fruit, a street and music - and then had one day to write a script, shoot it, then edit it and turn it back in.

At the time I was working with Jeff Swearingen and Cassidy Crown at Plano Childrens' Theatre. We helped write the script (and music), did our own singing and Cassidy choreographed the "big" dance. Of course, Swearingen and I improvised quite a bit. The result was called 4-WAY STOP: THE MUSICAL. I just found it on YouTube.

I wish the production team had had a little more time to tighten up the editing. We recorded the songs in a home studio. They didn't get enough coverage to cut away when we were trying to lip sync to ourselves during the shoot. Our mouths don't quite match up during the singing.

Oh, and I was billed as "Brad McIntire" for some reason. Too hell with spelling when time is of the essence.

Method in Madness panel discussion

Denton Community Theatre is running its third annual playwriting competition and this year they are holding a panel discussion with several area playwrights. I have been one of the invited participants in the panel. Info below. Also, I'll point out, I'm in pretty good company amongst fellow playwrights.

 

"Method in Madness" Playwrights Panel

Denton Community Theatre is thrilled to announce four local playwrights will be joining us for a playwrights panel during the festival. The panel, "Method in Madness,"  is scheduled for 10:00am on Saturday, May 31st, at the POINTBank Black Box Theatre as part of the Method and Madness Playwriting Festival.This panel is FREE, so please spread the word!

Brad McEntire

Brad McEntire is native-born Texan and works predominantly as a playwright, director, solo performer and improviser. He is the co-founding Artistic Director of Audacity Theatre Lab (formerly Audacity Productions) based in Dallas, Texas. His works have been produced/developed by Austin’s FronteraFest at Hyde Park Theatre, Expanded Arts NYC, Audacity Theatre Lab, Rover Dramawerks, DEER Theatre of Hong Kong, New York’s Cry Havoc Theatre, Theatre In My Basement, Le Rideau Theatre Café, Our Endeavor’s Theatre Collective, Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre, San Antonio’s Overtime Theatre, The Outsider’s Inn Collective of Seattle, Sundown Collaboarative Theatre and Plano Children’s Theatre among many other venues and festivals around the country.

McEntire's work has been described as "kitsch with resonance" and often employs things like rocket packs, dinosaurs, fetishists, magical goldfish, robots, time travel, Tiki gods, adventure, love, and sex. McEntire often blends these elements into taunt narratives with universal themes.

His plays include CHOP, FOR THE LOVE OF AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST, RUDNICK: THE CANDLE-HEADED BOY, A TALL TALE OF TEXAS, CYRANO A-GO-GO, I HAVE ANGERED A GREAT GOD, RASPBERRY FIZZ, CARTER STUBBS TAKES FLIGHT, ROBERT’S ETERNAL GOLDFISH, I BROUGHT HOME A CHUPACABRA, DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN and ARSENIC & ROSES among others. Mr. McEntire served as the Literary Manager of Dallas’ Undermain Theatre (2007-2010) and is an on-again-off-again member of the DFW Playwrights’ Alliance, UNIMA-USA and The Playwright’s Center (MN). He is the artist behind the webcomic Donnie Rocket Toaster-Face as well as the creator of the original longform solo improvisational story format Dribble Funk. He currently teaches film and theatre classes at Tarrant County College.

For more information visit www.bradmcentire.com

Joining me on the panel will be area playwrights Steve Young, Elle Verneé and Laura Lundgren Smith.

In Character video

Back during the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival a few of months ago I sat down after my tech rehearsal with one of the producers of the fest and she filmed a short snippet of my solo piece ROBERTS' ETERNAL GOLDFISH. I just found the finished and posted video on YouTube. Enjoy...




If video is not displayed above, visit... HERE. 

What I like is that the segment of the show I did does not reference the goldfish at all. It is just sitting there on the table beside me. So random. Thanks to Kelsey for the opportunity to appear in this.