HELLO HUMAN FEMALE is gay friendly and vice versa...

From Gay List Daily
Dallas 01.19.2010

Hello Muddah, Hello Human Female
Jeremy Whiteker wears his falsies well

There’s nothing quite like an elaborate Broadway production with exotic costumes, intricate sets and a live orchestra.

Yet sometimes, a memorable theatre experience can be found at a hidden venue with modest costumes, a mostly naked set and a CD player on stage providing the soundtrack and necessary effects.

It’s what many affectionately call “fringe.” We like to think of it as “theatre in the raw.”

And there’s nothing more raw than Audacity Theatre Lab’s production of Hello Human Female at Teatro Dallas, one of the tiniest venues you’re likely to ever visit in Dallas.

The story follows an evil scientist (Jeremy Whiteker) looking for love on the Internet. When a 37-year-old virgin (Arianna Movassagh) shows up from his ad, she falls for his Igor-like assistant, Blork (Jeff Swearingen) instead. But it’s not until she takes him home to meet dear-old Ma (Whiteker) that the stage comes alive with an uproarious creative spark.

Whiteker in a wig and velour track suit is comedy gold. He’s a man channeling Barbra Streisand channeling Mike Myer’s Linda Richman with a dash of uptight televangelist Jan Crouch thrown in for good measure. We’d be happy to come back next year for a one-“woman” show, Hello Human Shemale, starring Whiteker. We’re thinking roller-skating musical, and possibly puppets and monkeys.

Movassagh has long been one of our favorite actresses and her wide-eyed blank slate of an expression is the perfect foil to Whiteker’s zesty, over-the-top creation. She can garner laughs with simply a stare.

As for Blork, we think we have a crush on him, too. As portrayed by Swearingen, we sense a sultry hotness beneath that hunched back. But we’re kinky that way.
The play itself is consistently funny, but this is one you go to see simply to feel connected to the actors’ energy in a way that’s completely impossible in an overly produced show on a giant stage. Here, you’re close enough to smell Mother’s White Diamonds.

And that’s just the way we like it.

Blork: The Interview

Read the article and see the original post on TheatreJones.com

HELLO HUMAN FEMALE makes Top 10

The Dallas Voice recently announced the Top 10 Productions of 2009 in the DFW area. Audacity's HELLO HUMAN FEMALE made the list! In celebration, we are bringing it back. That's right, back by popular demand, Matt Lyle's delightfully skewered tale of misfit love.

Check out the ATL website. Click here.

Travelin' Alice

A Spaced-Out Odyssey

Greg Romero's "The Milky Way Cabaret" floats across the universe at Audacity Theatre Lab

by Mark Lowry/ TheaterJones.com
Published Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A magician, two clowns and an Alice in Wonderland-esque girl: These are characters that should make you feel all warm inside, right?

Not so fast. In Greg Romero's time-trippin' play The Milky Way Cabaret, currently being staged by Audacity Theatre Lab at Teatro Dallas, it's no so cut-and-dry.

The magician is Arnie (the incomparable Jeff Swearingen), an alcoholic whose tricks are fading and wife Lorraine (Tristy Wyly) has filed for divorce. The sadistic clowns are Buzz (Tyson Rinehart) and Charlotte (Rhianna Mack), who have tragic pasts and are really assassins on a mission. And the magic-loving girl, named Alice (Angela Parsons), is the daughter of Arnie and Lorraine and a victim of her parents' separation. She's on her own mission, risking danger to travel through a series of cosmic wormholes from 2037 back to 2009, perhaps to change everyone's destiny.

Milky Way is the second of three plays by Louisiana-bred and onetime Texas resident Greg Romero (now based in Philadelphia) to be produced by Audacity. The first was another universe-crossing, non-linear piece, The Most Beautiful Lullaby Ever Heard, in 2008. The third will come in 2010.

This middle play, directed and designed by Brad McEntire, is an absurdist construct that might be too easily chalked up as merely "interesting" if it weren't for the sparkling banter between Buzz and Charlotte. They sit in chairs on a stage-right platform for the entire show and discuss their pasts and their interests, and develop an affinity for one another. Romero conjures up some vivid imagery in these conversations, most notably in the character of Charlotte, who was born conjoined at the heart to a twin. Both Rinehart and Mack are affecting and wryly humorous.

Speaking of funny, Swearingen is the perfect choice for a down-on-his-luck man whose passion is sleight of hand. Arnie desperately tries to keep his act going (which sometimes involves the audience, painlessly) as Mr. Boss (Jeff Hernandez) threatens to can him. There's at least one sweet scene between Arnie and Lorraine, too, carried out with lovingly deep-rooted emotion by Wyly and the devastating Swearingen. His reaction when she tells him "You used to be great" is priceless.

The play features some good ideas and memorable dialogue, and Romero and McEntire make smart use of pauses and silence. Presented in the teensy Teatro Dallas space and with an even tinier budget, Audacity's staging still feels very much like a work-in-progress—which it is.

As enjoyable as the clown thread and the magician stuff are, though, they're occasionally dragged down by something that seems thrown in for nothing more than shock value, such as the large rubber double-ended dildo with which Mr. Boss beats down Arnie. It's funny for about two seconds, then quickly devolves into the realm of irritatingly pointless.

It's needlessly smug. Surely Romero can come with a device that gets the same point across without being so cocky.

Meet Buzz and Charlotte

Meet Arnie

A little intro video about everyone's favorite magician (except his wife, boss and some folks at the dog races)... Amazing Arnie!

Courtesy of ATL's own Jeff "Mr. Boss" Hernandez