Success at TEXFest 2024

Jeff Swearingen performing The Beast of Hyperborea at TEXFest 2024

Brought back a bunch of plaques

This was taken at the end of the weekend. My tired eyes tell the tale...

Audacity Theatre Lab returned from TEXFest with a collection of nifty awards. I presented my production of The Beast of Hyperborea as well as took adjudication training, took several workshops and even taught several workshops on my own. 

TEXFest is an biannual theatre conference produced by TNT (Theatre Network of Texas). This year it was held in Victoria, TX from February 21 - 25, 2024 at the Leo J. Welder Center for the Performing Arts in Victoria, TX. The conference featured performances from theatres around Texas, workshops and other events. Two productions from TEXFest 2024 were chosen to advance. The Beast of Hyperborea was one of those productions. It will move on to perform at the Southwest Theatre Conference (SWTC) in Little Rock, Arkansas in April.

Big congrats to the other advancing production Feeding The Moonfish from Circle Arts Theatre in New Braunfels, TX.

And, of course, congratulations to my friend and colleague Jeff Swearingen for bringing The Beast Of Hyperborea to life on stage. I did the directing and rest of the behind-the-scenes stuff and Jeff acted in the piece as he did last summer.

Jeff and I at TEXFest 2024. The Beast of Hyperborea was judged Best Production

Jeff ended up winning an Audience Acclaim Award in Acting, A well-deserved accolade that was voted on by the audiences. He tied for the award with Lyle Tate from the Baytown Little Theatre's production of The Guys. Sidenote: Lyle proved to be a real champ since he let us borrow his black clip-on costume necktie when we discovered - fifteen minutes before curtain - that Jeff had forgotten his own necktie. Much appreciation for Mr. Tate.

ATL also received recognition for being an official participating production in the conference at all. Big thanks to the adjudicators Annette Procunier, David Eck, and Michael Winters for some useful feedback. Truth be told, the feedback was mostly subjective opinions, but did have a gem of value here and there. Specifically, what they had to say about technical things.

Presenting my Crafting to Solo Show workshop, complete with Power Point.

On top of the production, I also taught a workshop on "Crafting a Solo Show" based on my recent book. I taught it twice. One session only had two folks, but the second session had half a dozen. Each morning (not to mention once a week via Zoom for several weeks prior to the conference) I attended extensive adjudication training at TEXFest! 

Swearingen and I had some trouble with the hotel in Victoria and that pulled my attention a bit. We also accidently stumbled into the most pro-Trump BBQ joint on the planet, talked shop and had a chance one evening to catch up with our mutual friend Wes Copeland over rum and cokes.  Needless to say, it was  a busy weekend !

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