Pretty Damn Important

Grant Knutson, Me and Mark Lowry of TheaterJones.com

I'm reposting this little snippet that showed up on TheaterJones.com the other day. It is probably the most supportive statement I've received in my home town to date. Much gratitude to Mark Lowry ay TheaterJones.com for the support and for seeing the big picture.

This marks the third year for Brad McEntire and his Audacity Theatre Lab to put together a two-week festival featuring eight solo performers from across DFW, Texas and the country, using his connections from years of traveling his own work to fringe festivals.

This event is becoming pretty damn important, one of the few theaters/events that can scooch Dallas into the national theater conversation—and let's be honest, although we have more of those opportunities than we did even five years ago, it's still not where it should be for a city and metropolitan area this large. With WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival on hiatus next year (and its future hinging on leadership changes), and considering that the Festival of Independent Theatres is hyper-local, Dallas Solo Fest is our only theater festival connecting communities and performers around the country. And McEntire is doing it on the shoestringiest of budgets.

<soapbox>If you consider yourself a patron of local theater and you're not making some effort to support events like this (provided you have time in your schedule and money in the pocketbook), then you're helping Dallas/Fort Worth stay mired in the provincial.</soapbox>

Make tracks to Margo Jones Theatre this weekend and next, even in the rain, for something that's truly significant. Will you love everything you see? Probably not. But you will love or at least enjoy—and possibly learn—something. And that's what theater and arts festivals are all about.

» Here's a list of the interviews with the five performers who open their shows this weekend, in order of first performance. The link on each name goes to our interview with the performer:

• Erin Singleton: Super Mortal (7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 2)
• Eileen Tull: Bad Dates... (9 p.m. Thursday, June 2)
• Brigham Mosley: Scarlett O'Hara and the War on Tara (10:30 p.m. Thursday, June 2)
• Maggie Gallant: Liberté, Egalité, Adoptée (9 p.m. Friday, June 3)
• Ryan Adam Wells: Beers About Songs (10:30 p.m. Friday, June 3)

»  Our special section for Dallas Solo Fest, which has schedules, info on workshops, interviews and reviews, and will be growing over the coming week.

Original post... HERE