Audacity's RASPBERRY FIZZ in TheaterJones.com

The Laboratory of Life

Audacity Theatre Lab keeps the spirit of experimentation alive at the Margo Jones Theatre, with a double bill of Grading on a Curve and Raspberry Fizz.

by Mark Lowry
published Friday, November 29, 2013

Travis Stuebing and Tashina Richardson in RASPBERRY FIZZ at the Margo Jones Theatre

Dallas — Just in case you’re curious how Audacity Theatre Lab has managed to fly under the radar in DFW for more than a decade, and still make some of the most consistently entertaining shows on a budget for which the term “shoestring” seems fancy, you’re not alone. The group, run by Brad McEntire and his wife Ruth Engel-McEntire, specializes in original work, often one-person shows—or at least with a small cast.

In the past month, it has presented three such shows in the new Margo Jones Theatre space in Fair Park, two of them still running on one bill. A.V. Phibes’ play Grading on a Curve, directed by McEntire and performed by Lauren Moore, begins the show as a 25-minute curtain raiser. That’s followed by McEntire’s play Raspberry Fizz.

One of the first shows presented there after the 2013 State Fair closed was under the Audacity banner, an import from Portland, Ore., Kate Mura’s one-person mask show Suburban Tribe. It was performed twice in early November. Mura, the Artistic Ambassador of Portland’s Fuse Theatre Ensemble, wrote the work as a thank you to a New Jersey community that rallied around a family after a “freak accident.” She’s been performing it on the festival circuit for several years. (McEntire also does that circuit.)

On a table behind her are group of commedia-style masks in dark-brown tones, some of which come with extra costumes or props, such as hats and scarves. She switches masks to change characters, including an elderly Polish woman who’s in line for the Pearly Gates but still has plenty to talk about before she gets there. There’s also a clergyman, people who show up to deliver casseroles after a death and various family members. A few of the characters don’t require masks, and it’s interesting to see how naked and raw those characters feel after you’re used to seeing a parade of masks.

Mura frequently references The Secret Garden and sings a few songs, including “Bride Over Troubled Water” and Nirvana’s “Come As You Are.” In 50 minutes, she switches voices and characterizations effortlessly, and offers vivid representations of people who exhibit compassion in a trying time. It gives you hope that people can be like this all the time, not just in the wake of tragedy.

Here’s a snippet of the show from Mura’s YouTube channel, from a performance two years ago. Upcoming dates include Los Angeles and Tacoma, Wash.; and according to the show’s Facebook page, 2014 will take it to festivals in Bali and Australia.

Audacity’s current offering, running on Saturday afternoons through Dec. 7, begins with Grading on a Curve. In the short work, Lauren Moore plays a woman in search for something to make her life have more meaning. She admits her love for gooey, orange nacho cheese, but even that can’t quash her desire to see what happens when she embarks on a hunger strike with another character she considers more interesting than her.

In her quest to not be consumed with ennui, she describes what happens to her body and mind at various points in the strike, all the way up to 170 hours.

The story comes back around to a man she meets who, while not physically perfect, could prove to be the person she needs in her life. Moore is engaging throughout, taking us through the twisty turns of this brief story with vivid imagery. A comical ending plays with the adage “life’s too short.”

Lauren Moore in A. V. Phibes' GRADING ON A CURVE at the Margo Jones Theatre

In 2012, Raspberry Fizz was seen at WaterTower Theatre’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival. McEntire again plays the carnival barker in 1949 small-town America who promises something amazing under a cardboard box, for anyone who will pay to take a peek. That’s interspersed with scenes between adolescents Samantha (Tashina Richardson) and Ellson (Travis Stuebing). He is clearly intrigued with her, and all she wants is to chew gum, tease and drink a soda called Raspberry Fizz. Ellson, always curious, takes up the Barker’s offer.

It’s short and sweet, with charming performances from Richardson and Stuebing. There’s a message about expectations versus reality, and the viewer can’t help but feel nostalgia for a more innocent time. Not just of childhood, but of a bygone era captured in Norman Rockwell paintings. Even as we know that will never return, there’s a big sigh in watching it represented through art.

The Margo Jones Theatre, which is dedicated to incubating small and/or emerging companies and isn’t averse to experimentation and risk, is the perfect place for such work. Audiences are small, shows are short and rewards are big.

Next up for Audacity is the return of the play The Last Castrato, starring Jeff Swearingen in the title role.

RASPBERRY FIZZ in the Stage Directions Blog

AUDACITY'S BRAD McENTIRE TALKS ABOUT THE NEW PRODUCTION OF HIS PLAY RASPBERRY FIZZ 
by Christopher Taylor / Stage Directions Blog / November 25, 2013 

RASPBERRY FIZZ at the 2013 Houston Fringe Festival

Brad McEntire is Artistic Director of Audacity Theatre Lab, a small company dedicated to the voices of a small group of individual artists. In the past few years, he has presented his solo show Chop at festivals and venues around the country, completed a commission for Denton’s Sundown Collaborative Theatre called Carter Stubbs Takes Flight, presented a festival piece about a vengeful Tiki god and cell phone etiquette called I Have Angered a Great God and the produced the scripted/improv hybrid Dinosaur and Robot Stop a Train at last summer’s Festival of Independent Theatres. 

We cornered McEntire to ask about his current project Raspberry Fizz, playing on Saturday afternoons at the Margo Jones Theatre at Fair Park’s Magnolia Lounge in Dallas until December 7.


Q: Tell us about Raspberry Fizz?

A: Sure. Raspberry Fizz is about two adolescents hanging out on a street corner, a boy and a girl. It is 1949 and they are in a small town. Basically, the boy is working up his courage to ask the girl to a school dance. It is actually really charming and maybe the least weird play I’ve written in a while.


Q: Least weird? No robots and dinosaurs? No tigers fights or rocket packs? No amputation fetishists?

A: Well, it still has some weird sprinkled in. There is a mysterious carnival barker on a corner down the street from the kids. He keeps muttering this strange sideshow bally about expectations and possibilities.


Q: You play the Barker, right? Where’d he come from?

A: I play the Barker. He’s based a little on those Coney Island pitchmen and on Johnathon Pryce’s character in the movie “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” Which is a movie that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.


Q: What prompted you to write Raspberry Fizz?

A: I had the idea of two 12 year olds talking on a street corner in mind, as an image, for a while. I went through a Norman Rockwell phase, too, and was just fascinated with his paintings. The idea to set it in the late 1940s seemed to fit. Originally, I envisioned it as a two-hander, kind of spinning out a simple dilemma into an interesting yearn. For thematic purposes, I put the Barker in and the play became what it is today.


Q: This is not the first production. This show premiered at the Out of the Loop Festival at Addison’s Water Tower Theatre is March 2012. Why remount  it?

A: Yeah, the play premiered at the Out of the Loop. It went up a week after I got married. Usually, I direct my own plays, but at the time I was busy, uh, planning and being in a wedding. Andy Baldwin directed it. It had Jeff Swearingen, Natalie Young and Shane Beeson in it. They did a wonderful job. This past summer I was invited to the Houston Fringe Festival and I decided to take Raspberry Fizz. I recast it with Travis Stuebing and Tashina Richardson. I stepped in to play the Barker, a role I had originally written for myself to play anyway. This show, with different people and slight rewrites, came out different than Andy’s production. Since we had rehearsed it and put so much work into it, and I was proud of it, we thought it a shame just to do it for three shows in Houston and call it quits. Plus, Travis, Tashina and I have a great time working together. So, we are extending the production for these Saturday afternoon shows here in Dallas. Local audiences can get a chance to see the show.


Q: Saturday afternoons? That is not a traditional time for theatre.

A: Seemed to fit the tone of the shows. Plus, it means we can use the venue in the day time while other productions happen at night. Utilizing resources and all. I'll admit, the afternoon slot is a hard sell. That's why I'm trying to get the word out. Like a lot of theatre productions around the area, audiences that make it out usually end up really enjoying the stuff that gets put on the stage around DFW. It is just a matter of initially getting them through the front door.


Q: You’ve paired it with a curtain-opener, too, right? Tell us about that.

A: Yeah. I have this little 20 minute one-woman piece by Brooklyn-based artist A. V. Phibes called Grading On A Curve. It is about a nihilistic woman who goes on extreme fasts and develops cannibalistic tendencies, especially for fingers. Then one day, she meets a man with no fingers, but flashy lobster-claws, and falls in love. It is weird and wonderful and because it is so short, it is hard to present anywhere. The excellent Lauren Moore performs it before Raspberry Fizz. The two pieces go surprisingly well together as companion pieces. Together, the running time of the two shows is just over an hour.


Q: What’s next for you and Audacity Theatre Lab? 

A:  We’re taking a break during the holidays and will be back in January with Andy Eninger’s solo show The Last Castrato. Jeff Swearingen will perform it. It is a co-production between Audacity and his company Fun House Theatre. The show involves a man born without a penis who falls in love with a girl who was born with her skin inside out. That will also be at the Margo Jones Theatre. Then in the spring we are hoping to produce a solo performance festival, the first of its kind in Dallas. We have some other irons in the fire, too. We’ll see what materializes.


Q: Details on Raspberry Fizz please.

A: The show will be playing Saturdays at 2:00 PM, November 16, 23, 30 and December 7 at the historic Margo Jones Theatre at the Magnolia Lounge, Fair Park, 1121 First Avenue, Dallas, TX 75210. Tickets are $10 suggested donation at the door. More information at: www.AudacityTheatreLab.com

Original posting HERE

Pic of GRADING ON A CURVE in performance

Lauren Moore in A.V. Phibes' GRADING ON A CURVE
at the Margo Jones Theatre

GRADING ON A CURVE in Rehearsal

The Dallas production of RASPBERRY FIZZ opens tomorrow. It will include a curtain-opener presentation of A. V. Phibe's GRADING ON A CURVE, performed by the excellent Lauren Moore.

Below of some rehearsal pics of Lauren working on GRADING ON A CURVE.

The shows play Saturday afternoons at 2 PM from November 16 to December 7, 2013. Info HERE.

First half of GRADING ON A CURVE... on video

GRADING ON A CURVE playwright and cast talk with Audacity

About the Play

Grading on a Curve follows a bored artist with intense feelings of ennui. This leads her to embark on an epic hunger strike, complete with delusions, observations and yearnings- especially for nacho cheese.
About the Playwright

Writer and artist A.V. Phibes

A.V. Phibes is a mostly self-taught illustrator/designer based in Brooklyn, who has been working professionally in New York for nearly a decade.

As a freelance Illustrator, Phibes has done work for plays, events, catalogs, websites, party clowns and fire-eaters. She's also done illustrations for books published by Little-Brown, Penguin and Andrews McMeel. She's worked on staff in the design departments of Steve Madden, Acme Tees, Neu Industries and now-defunct teen website Sweet16.com.

Through her own company, Evilkid Productions, she has been producing original artwork and designs in her trademark cartoon style. Evilkid designs have been licensed for a wide array of products which have occasionally turned up in such places as Target, Urban Outfitters, Hot Topic and Spencer Gifts.

Phibes has shown her artwork in shows at Trinity Gallery in Philedelphia and Blue Ruin Gallery in Pittsburgh. She has also had art featured in the annual Dirty Detroit Show and the Seattle Erotic Art Festival.

For more information on A. V. Phibes click here.


An interview with the ladies of GRADING ON A CURVE

On January 31, 2008 Audacity Theatre Lab sent director Ruth Ann Engel and actress Jamie Marchi to Austin, Texas to present A.V. Phibes' one-person show at the Hyde Park Theatre's FronteraFest. FronteraFest is an annual 5-week, multi-venue "fringe" festival presenting over 800 theatre artists/companies from around the nation. Named "Best Theatrical Event" by the Austin Critics' Table, FronteraFest has garnered audience praise and critical acclaim. It remains the largest fringe theatre festival in the Southwestern United States. What follows is an interview with the ladies that put on this show, conducted by ATL's Artistic Director Brad McEntire.


AUDACITY THEATRE LAB: Ruth, Alia and Jamie - Thanks for agreeing to this informal interview. Alia, let's start with you. GRADING ON A CURVE was not originally a one-woman theatre piece. When and for what did you originally write GRADING ON A CURVE?


AV PHIBES: I wrote GOAC back in 1999 not long after I moved to New York and still had designs on being a fiction writer. Amazon.com was sponsoring a short fiction contest with a $10,000 prize and I wrote the story with the intent of winning that contest, which, obviously I didn't. It's a testament to my youthful naivete and blind overconfidence that I actually thought I was going to win.


ATL: What has surprised you most about the stage life of GRADING ON A CURVE?


AVP: What surprises me most is that it has a stage life at all. Since, outside the support of Audacity Productions [and now Audacity Theatre Lab], the story was met with pretty much no response at all, I assumed that the story was just going to be another dead-in-the-water endeavor. But thanks to Audacity, it's managed to have a whole new life and get some positive feedback, which I appreciate.


ATL: Ms. Engel, how did you come across the script to GRADING ON A CURVE and what drew you to it as a director?


RUTH ANN ENGEL: I had seen the script in an earlier staging when Audacity [Productions] used it as the opening act for THE LAST CASTRATO. I thought it was just a brilliant script. I love the dry wit and rapid pace of the piece, not to mention the language. This script is ripe with so many possibilities and is so tightly written. It's just great fun to work on.


ATL: Alia, you are actually known more as a graphic artist more than a playwright. In fact, you've worn many artistic hats over the years. Cartoonist. Filmmaker. Sideshow performer. Illustrator. Cat Owner. How does being a playwright fit in with your many guises?


AVP: I'd say I've pretty much lived a life of obsessive dilettantism. Of being extremely focused on what I'm doing at any given time and then almost immediately thereafter losing interest and moving on to something else. This has produced a life full of half-assery, unfinished projects and existential malaise. Although if I may have a moment of megalomaniacal self-congratulation, I have been more successful being half-assed than many people using their entire asses! Still, I live in constant remorse that I am not living up to the potential of my full ass. I suppose I've found that the beauty of playwriting (or my paltry facsimile thereof), is that other people pick up the slack. There are producers and directors and actors to make something complete in a way that I probably could never execute of my own accord.


ATL: Ms. Marchi, in GRADING ON A CURVE, you play the protagonist, an artist, perhaps with touches of dilettantism, who develops cannibalistic tendancies arising from an intense ennui. Has boredom ever led you to do something extreme?


JAMIE MARCHI: Well, I've never been so bored I needed to do something as drastic as quit eating and/or chew on my fingers. However, I have spent my fair share of too much time online as well as watched a few too many television programs that only have commercials for the army and vo-techs.


ATL: You and director Ruth Engel worked on the piece over a few weeks before taking it to Austin's Frontera Fest. One-person pieces are difficult usually because the production team is so small, therefore the concentration on progress must be a little more heightened. A level of focus is higher comparatively with the rehearsals of a traditional play with a large cast, full crew and the like. How was the working relationship between you and Ruth?


JM: Awful. That Ruth Engel; I tell you.... It was great! Anyone who knows Ruth will tell you she's great to work with. It helps that we're both friends. Ruth took a lot of time putting me into the right space for the character, and she was a terrific director. More importantly, we are very popular in Irish bars.


ATL: Ms. Engel, same sort of question. How was your experience working on a one-woman piece in general and how was it working with Ms. Marchi in particular?


RAE: It is a challenge but I truly enjoy it. I like the intimate rehearsals and the ability to have a very narrow focus, giving all my attention to just one person. However, it does add the element to my part to help the actor keep the story going through creative blocking, props, and set pieces. It keeps me on my toes and constantly looking for new approaches. As for working with Ms. Marchi, she is a gem. She is smart, talented, beautiful and she brings so much to the piece. She takes directions beautifully, is tremendously playful and up for anything. Not to mention she does not back away from throwing out her suggestions. This is immensely helpful for me when I am the only one in the room watching. For me, collaboration in a production is a must.


ATL: Ms. Marchi, you've performed GRADING ON A CURVE before, though not with Ms. Engel as the director. How is it returning to something like this? Has your take on it changed?


JM: I first performed GRADING ON A CURVE about four years ago. I've had quite the four years myself since then, so it's interesting for me to follow my process of personal growth and how it translates into this performance. The changes from the original performance are pretty significant. I think I love performing this monologue so much due to my narcissistic need to follow my emotional growth. That and the spotlight. I don't have to share it with ANYONE!....I am an actor after all.


ATL: Ms. Engel, you also have experience with the piece. You originally directed GRADING ON A CURVE in Hong Kong last year? How has your take on the piece changed?


RAE: The first time I directed it I was more focused on the audience and entertaining them as opposed to just telling a story. I focused a lot on the mechanicals of the piece. And due to circumstances I tried to fit the piece into a peg that I wasn't as happy with (i.e. a waitress in a diner). This time around, I tried to let the story and character tell me what it wanted to be and where it wanted to go.


ATL: Ms. Marchi, how did you originally get interested in theatre and acting?


JM: When you have no particular set of skills, there are only a few things you can do. I like to talk and have people listen, so acting was a no-brainer. You know, I really hate this question. So many people have these great "moments" that called them to acting like God calls preachers to the church. God didn't call me to acting. I just have always thought it was fun. That's my great lame story. I think it's fun. How boring is that?!


ATL: And Ms. Engel, same question. What drew to the theatre?


RAE: Well my journey was a long one. I've always loved the stage but never thought of it as a career. I remember in the 2nd grade my class did a comic staging of Columbus receiving his commission to find the New World and I played Queen Isabella. But that was where I saw theatre for me, as a hobby and nothing more, that is until after I had taken some PhD classes in English Literature and decided that wasn't what I wanted. I knew my schooling wasn't over yet and my brother suggested theatre. So I enrolled in theatre classes at TWU [Texas Woman's University] and told myself I'd give it a semester. I was there for four years and I've never looked back. I couldn't be happier now!


ATL: Alia, now that you've had this experience with GRADING ON A CURVE, how's your take on playwriting? Do you plan to write more for the stage?


AVP: I would like to say "Yes! Definitely!" but when it comes to artistic projects, I'm a slippery eel who can't be trusted. I could tell you to your face that I am going to sit down today and write a three-act play about two suicides whose ghosts are haunting the same apartment that's like "Beetlejuice" meets "Before Sunrise," but then I'll go play nintendo wii and watch youtube videos all day instead. Or maybe I'll just come up with "high concept pitches" all day. It's like "Serpico" meets "All Dogs Go To Heaven!" It's like "Kramer vs. Kramer" in space!


ATL: Ladies, thanks so much for your time. One last question before we sign off. Artistically, what is next up for you?


JM: You can currently hear my voice on IFC in Witchblade as well as other anime on The Cartoon Network. I've been doing voices for anime for almost 6 years now, and I'm getting more immersed into that market. I've got more acting plans on the horizon, but I'm really, really lazy, so we'll see if anything happens.


REA: Well currently I'm trying to learn the producing side of things with the Undermain Theatre in Dallas for their show GREENDALE. As for independent projects, I am working with two playwrights developing two different scripts that I hope to get up on their feet by summer.


AVP: My goal this year is to get a book or two published. I'm trying to come up with ideas dumb enough to sell a zillion copies and make me rich. Something like "The Get Rich Quick Diet: Life Lessons I Learned From My Dog while Surviving Cancer." Oprah is going to eat that up! But in all seriousness, see above [answer regarding me as a] slippery eel.

Pic of GRADING ON A CURVE in performance



Jamie Marchi as the Narrator in A. V. Phibes' GRADING ON A CURVE



First show as ATL... GRADING ON A CURVE

Audacity Theatre Lab's first foray out of the gate was A.V. Phibes' GRADING ON A CURVE. This one-woman piece about an artist with cannabilistic cravings (especially for fingers) made a great entry in Austin's FronterFest.

Directed by ATL's Managing Producer Ruth Ann Engel and featuring Jamie Marchi. Set Design by Jeff Hernandez.

Presented at Hyde Park Theatre, Austin, Texas January 31, 2008