The Shows of DSF 2015

Brigham Mosley

Audacity Theatre Lab Announces the Artists and Schedule for the

2015 Dallas Solo Fest

DALLAS, TX – Audacity Theatre Lab is pleased to announce the 2015 Dallas Solo Fest, June 4 -14, 2015 at the Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park.  Eight solo shows highlight this inaugural festival with several local performers as well as performers coming in from around the country. 

The second annual Dallas Solo Fest line-up includes:

’33: A Kabarett by Bremner Duthie (New Orleans). ’33 is a 'Kabarett of Ghosts' - recreating the final night in a Berlin cabaret, destroyed by the Security Forces.  In the ruins of a ravaged theatre, the Master of Ceremonies tumbles onto a ruined. His friends and colleagues were beaten and arrested by the authorities.  Only their shattered props and costumes remain.  He intends to give up and vanish into the night. But an audience has slipped through the broken door.  Inspired, the man pays homage to his fallen friends, performing each of their acts.  In these tributes, he gains the strength to carry on. Playing Thursday, June 11 @ 9:00 pm, Saturday, June 13 @ 7:30 pm, Sunday, June 14 @ 3:30 pm

Jeff Swearingen

An American Asshole in France by Jeff Swearingen (Dallas). An American Asshole in France is the story of a socially awkward man just trying to have a decent time abroad. Fate, however, will always take an otherwise magical experience and turn it into a hard knock lesson about one's self. Proving that if you are an unadjusted jerk it will haunt you where ever you go. And even when you're not being one, life will ruin that too. Take delight in one little man's pain, because it will just get worse in this true story that is full of danger, disappointment, and a vast language barrier. Playing Friday, June 5 @ 10:30 pm, Sunday, June 7 @ 8:30 pm, Friday, June 12 @ 10:30 pm

…And Then I Woke Up by Kris Noteboom (Dallas). Kris has known fear ever since he woke up in bed one night screaming, “I don’t want to die.” He was three years old. Through a series of humorous anecdotes, Kris traces his trouble with dreams, both waking and sleeping, real and imagined, as he looks for his “thing” in life. He wrestles with the expectations of family, friends, and society at large. ...And Then I Woke Up is about a guy who makes a decision, hell or high water, to reclaim his dreams and change his life. Playing Thursday, June 4 @ 9:00 pm, Saturday, June 6 @ 10:30 pm,
Sunday, June 7 @ 5:00 pm

Van Quattro

Lord of the Files by Lesley Tsina (New York). Comedian Lesley Tsina (NBC’s Community, HBO’s Funny or Die Presents) worked for a company that made cell phone ringtones. That is, until they announced nine months of layoffs and the entire office descended into savagery. Lord of the Files is a darkly hilarious story about losing your job, losing your mind, and still having to attend an all-company pancake breakfast. Playing Thursday, June 11 @ 7:30 pm, Friday, June 12 @ 9:00 pm, Saturday, June 13 @ 10:30 pm

Mo[u]rnin. After. by Brigham Mosley (Dallas). Mo[u]rnin'. After. is a mythic autobiography for the queer prodigal son - a journey to the ancestors and back to the homeland through magic, musicals, and time travel; dream ballets included. Playing Thursday, June 4 @ 7:30 pm, Thursday, June 11 @ 10:30 pm, Saturday, June 13 @ 9:00 pm

Standing Eight Count by Van Quattro (Dallas). Standing 8 Count is Van Quattro’s hard-knuckled, true account of 1975: the year he spent as a semi-professional boxer. Quattro faces down an opponent more formidable than any he’s faced before: the ghost of his own youth. Standing 8 Count will break your face, your funny bone and your heart. Playing Sunday, June 7 @ 3:30 pm,
Friday, June 12 @ 7:30 pm, Sunday, June 14 @ 5:00 pm

Carla Cackowski

The Seriously Neurotic Dream of Mary Shelley by Carla Cackowski (Los Angeles). Mary Shelley has been challenged to come up with a scary story by a room full of accomplished men. Paralyzed by writer's block, she falls asleep and is confronted by all of her womanly insecurities. History may remember Mary Shelley as an English novelist. But did you also know she was a bossy sister? A bad girlfriend? A so-so mother? And hey - a time traveler! Mary Shelley loves Beyonce! Thursday, June 4 @ 10:30 pm, Friday, June 5 @ 7:30 pm, Saturday, June 6 @ 9:00 pm

Tipped & Tipsy by Jill Vice (San Francisco). Whether you’ve been behind the bar, on a stool, or under a table, this one woman show was written for you. So, join the regulars and order the usual, but tonight… things are gonna change. With her excellent physical performance skills Jill Vice brings to life over a dozen different characters. TIPPED & TIPSY is a hilarious and touching send up of American Bar Culture. Playing Friday, June 5 @ 9:00 pm, Saturday, June 6 @ 7:30 pm, Sunday, June 7 @ 7:00 pm

The 2015 Dallas Solo Fest is a production of Audacity Theatre Lab and will play at the Margo Jones Theatre located at the Magnolia Lounge in Fair Park at 1121 First Avenue, Dallas, TX 75210. Single tickets and Festival Passes for all shows go on sale April 27.  Festival Passes include one admission to each and every festival show and are $55.  Individual ticket prices for each show are $12. Reservations can be made at the Dallas Solo Fest website or by calling (214) 888-6650. Details about the shows, artists’ bios, the full schedule and ticket information at: www.DallasSoloFest.com

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The Down Low in the Dallas Voice

Jordan Tomenga and Jeff Swearingen in THE DOWN LOW

STAGE REVIEW: ‘The Down Low’ 
by Arnold Wayne Jones | May 15, 2015 | DallasVoice.com

Simon (Jeff Swearingen), a fussy high school theater teacher gets a strange phone call from his colleague Aaron (Danny O’Connor), the school’s health teacher. Why has he been beckoned so suddenly? Will they finally become friends? Simon kind of answers the question himself when he asks Aaron: “Why is a naked African-American man dead in your bedroom?” 

And so begins 85 minutes of dark-humored, often poor-taste (but hysterically funny) jokes about gay experimentation, inappropriate parent-teacher relationships, recreational drug use and the Polish secret police. Danny O’Connor also wrote this one-act comedy, called The Down Low, which is performed in front of a tiny 15 audience members in the home of one of the actors in East Dallas (it’s on Mockingbird Lane between Greenville Avenue and Skillman Street). There aren’t many seats available, if any still are in the two remaining performances, but do what you can to snag a few and see grassroots theater artistry that’s so alive, you can overlook how much it’s really about death. 

The plot is wackadoo but strangely believable. Aaron wants to experiment with giving a blow job (“I’m not gay!” he insists, despite all evidence to the contrary) and things go horribly wrong, necessitating he seek help from Simon, the only gay guy he knows. (The implication: Gays are used to disposing of tricks who die brutally; it usually happens between gym and brunch, I suppose.) Aaron’s roommate Jack (Jordan Tomenga), a male nurse, and Jack’s FWB Kassia (Robin Clayton) also get dragged into the plot, which takes more turns than a mountain road before becoming not just dark, but outright menacing. 

There’s much to love in the show, from the intimacy (the whole from of the house is utilized by directed Brian Grunkowski) to the off-handed line-readings (Swearingen and O’Connor are two of the best at what they do) to the deadpan dialogue that sneaks up on you with its sick humor. But say too much and you’ll ruin it. Suffice it to say, it goes where it has to, and takes you along for the ride. By the end, you’re more co-conspirator than watcher. That’s an exciting way to consume theater.

Original... HERE

The Down Low in the FrontRow blog

The More Absurd, the Better in The Down Low’s Hilarious Nightmare
BY LINDSEY WILSON | D Magazine FrontRow Blog | MAY 12, 2015


Two things to know about Danny O’Connor’s new play: it’s crazy, and crazy-good. 

Staged in a home on Mockingbird Lane, this wacky and bloody romp takes place entirely in a living room, where 15 spectators watch as a talented cast falls deeper and deeper into a hilarious nightmare. 

The “home” staging could feel gimmicky, as you crowd your car into the small driveway and amble into the backyard for a pre-show beer (this is actor Jordan Tomenga’s actual residence). But once inside the living room, the immediacy erases any notions of pretention. It’s thrilling to have the actors rush right by you as they enter and exit during the frantic 80 minutes, and the closeness draws you into the ridiculous plight of Aaron (O’Connor), who is nursing a slashed arm and hiding a terrible secret in his bedroom when Simon (Jeff Swearingen) arrives. 

This close-range seating also means that it’s impossible to hide any acting glitches, but that’s not a concern for the uniformly excellent cast. As Simon tends to Aaron’s bleeding arm, he finally cajoles the truth out of the shocked big guy: there’s a dead body in the bedroom, and Aaron is the cause. As Simon and Aaron debate how they should handle this bloody elephant in the room, spaced-out roommate Jack (Tomenga) drifts in and out, too high on mushrooms to really notice what’s happening. 

When Kassia (Robin Clayton), the European model girlfriend of third roommate Raymond (Brian Grunkowski, pulling double duty as director) arrives, it becomes outrageously clear that this is not Kassia’s first encounter with a dead body. O’Connor’s dialogue is clever and compact on its own, but with Grunkowski’s direction and the actors’ choices, nearly every line is laugh-out-loud funny. 

Once Raymond, a nurse, returns home from work, everyone is roped into a plan. More details about who the deceased is and how he might be connected to everyone also emerge, and the pieces start to fall into place. 

But just when it seems the play is heading for its conclusion, there’s another knock at the door and Cindy (Mercedes Arndt), a love-struck student, arrives with suitcase in tow. Arndt, a newcomer, is pitch-perfect as the highschooler who’s obsessed with Aaron (her health teacher). She’s the crazy catalyst in an already nutso situation, but her addition feels absolutely perfect rather than over the top.  
That’s the thing about The Down Low: the more absurd, the better. But in the midst of all this ludicrous action, each of the actors still manages to make their characters feel human rather than cartoonish. It’s this hint of reality that might make you consider what you would do in this situation. 

But do yourself a favor and go see this production instead of finding out for yourself.

Original post... HERE

The Down Low in the Dallas Observer

The Down Low Is Like Living Inside a Tarantino Film For 75 Minutes
By Elaine Liner | Dallas Observer | May 6, 2015


Watching Danny O'Connor's new dark comedy one-act The Down Low, set in a 956-square-foot house on East Mockingbird Lane, is like living inside a Tarantino film for 75 minutes. Bad things happen to people just inches away from where you're sitting. Hilarious things, too. Every time there's a knock on that red front door, look out.

There are only 15 seats squeezed into a corner of the front room of the little old frame house in East Dallas where O'Connor, who also stars in his play, and five other actors perform a twisted murder mystery (produced by Audacity Theatre Lab and Octaviar Productions). The cast roams the whole house, though the audience sees only what happens in the living room. It's a semi-immersive experience, with some imagination needed to picture what's said to be going on behind those closed doors and down that darkened hallway.

"How do you get blood out of a carpet?" asks O'Connor's shook-up character, Aaron, at the top of the play. Aaron's best friend Simon (a wonderfully twitchy Jeff Swearingen) has just arrived, summoned by Aaron to deal with an emergency situation in a back bedroom.

There's the body of a dead brain surgeon back there, lying naked next to Aaron's bed. A little misunderstanding during a sexual encounter has left the surgeon deceased and Aaron with a gushing stab wound in his left arm. Aaron's not sure what to do about the "sorta murder" he's committed, which he tells Simon began with his answering a Craigslist sex ad. "Craigslist! Have some self-respect," huffs Simon.

Before long, the living room gets crowded. Roommate Raymond (Brian Grunkowski, who also directed) wafts in from his bedroom, looped out on mushrooms and oblivious to Aaron and Simon's panic over the corpse. Roommate Jack, a nurse in blue scrubs, bops in from his shift at the hospital and starts drinking heavily. His Polish-model girlfriend Kassia (Robin Clayton, great at deadpan delivery) leads Jack to another bedroom for a quick boff before they're informed about the dead body. Then comes Cindy (Mercedes Arndt), a precocious teen who's stalking Aaron, who happens to be her high school health teacher. She's swept into the plan to dispose of the body and seems unfazed by all of the nefarious goings-on.

More blood and nasty secrets are spilled by these character in the R-rated (for language and fluids) play. The Down Low's writing is devilishly fresh -- O'Connor's biographical one-man show Bouncing Ugly was a hit at last summer's Dallas Solo Fest -- and the acting is tempered to the right level of reality for the in-your-face space. 

O'Connor, who's in this 30s, shows more subtlety as a writer than as an actor. He's a big, hulking bald guy, which gives his scenes with the much-shorter, slighter Swearingen a visually funny Laurel-and-Hardy contrast. But he's a delicately specific playwright, putting pointed details into his dialogue that give his characters texture. Kassia isn't just a model, for example, but a model for "trade shows for Swiss chocolates and pajama jeans." 

Grunkowski, as director, makes the house environment a flexible stage for the actors to prowl. The timing of entrances and exits feels natural and the choreography of a silent action scene in and out of the kitchen is tight and funny. 

One late-in-the-show jiggling of the front door knob has a jump-out-of-your-seat effect on the audience. And that's not the last entertaining surprise that arises from The Down Low. 

The Down Low continues through May 16 at 5922 E. Mockingbird Lane (between Greenville Avenue and Skillman Street, the house with the red door). Tickets, $15, 469-546-9127 or audacitytheatrelab.com/tickets.

Original Post... HERE

The Down Low

The Down Low 
A New Dark Comedy (in an Old House) 
by Danny O'Connor 
Directed by Brian Grunkowski 

When the nude body of a recently slain man is discovered in Aaron's bedroom, his friends and roommates one by one must decide whether they should go to the police or protect themselves from what would come if they did. The play all takes place in the living room of a real home and playgoing capacity is maxxed out at fifteen seats, so the audience is right there in the room, witnesses to these characters as they continue to make the worst possible decisions in moments of very real, completely avoidable crisis. 

THE DOWN LOW is a hilarious new play with undercurrents of the fear, optimism, loneliness and selfishness that permeate middle-class white America. 

Featuring Jeff Swearingen, Jordan Tomenga, Robin Clayton, Danny O'Connor, Brian Grunkowski, and introducing Mercedes Arndt. 

Produced by Audacity Theatre Lab and Octaviar Productions. 

5922 E Mockingbird Ln, Dallas TX 75206 
April 30 May 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16 

All shows start at 8:00 pm, seating starts at 7:45 pm 
Tickets $15... cash or credit at the door. 
 Reservations HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Extremely LIMITED SEATING! 15 Seats per show! For reservations/ tickets call (469) 546-9127 or for online ticketing click... HERE

THE LAST CASTRATO reviewed in TheaterJones

Something Out of Nothing

At the Margo Jones Theatre, Audacity Theatre Lab and actor Jeff Swearingen bring the right tools to The Last Castrato.

published Saturday, January 18, 2014
by Kris Noteboom

Jeff Swearingen in THE LAST CASTRATO

What is grotesque? Are people born with monstrous deformations grotesque? Or are the people who neglect, disown, hide, exploit, or abuse these cursed souls the truly despicable ones? Audacity Theatre Lab's production of Andy Eninger's The Last Castrato, at the Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park, cedes the floor to Joseph (Jeff Swearingen), a man born without his “manhood,” as he recounts his life, his crime and a tragic love doomed.

Joseph arrives for his parole hearing, haphazardly dragging two large suitcases with him. He addresses the parole board, played by the audience, by telling the story that led to a crime that remains as yet unspoken. Born without genitals to a mother who died in childbirth, Joseph is shipped away from home by his father, eventually landing in a special school in Paris for savants. However, there is nothing special about Joseph, save for having no-thing. A misunderstanding places him in the path of destiny.

At the school, Joseph meets Elena, a woman born inside-out, her skin on the inside and organs on the outside. She's kept alive by a special machine encased in a box around her body. Her head is covered save for one good eye which can peek out to the world. Despite this, Elena is a world class singer. The two fall in love. It's a love they can never pursue past a certain point. Consummation is impossible, just as any semblance of a normal life. Upon graduation, Elena is hidden away by her parents and Joseph struggles to make ends meet. 

Eventually, Joseph's love for Elena begets a plan. Joseph will pose as a Castrato singer, synching his lips in public performances to an offstage Elena actually singing the music. While successful at first, things fall apart and the two venture in their own tragic directions. But Joseph's love remains and leads to the crime and a bittersweet end.

The piece is a monologue, so all the responsibility falls on Swearingen's shoulders in this performance. And unlike the character he plays, Swearingen proves himself supremely talented. Employing various props and endless illustrative gestures, he is able to tell the story without ever letting the sheer absurdity of it overwhelm his performance.

This is a particular talent of both Swearingen and director Brad McEntire. Few could handle the frenetic and desperate Joseph, particularly in the physical action of the piece. Swearingen's presence is engrossing, and his commitment to the demands of telling, and acting, the story, sells it in a way that draws the audience in, able to evoke laughter in one moment, and empathetic tears in the next. 

Joseph and Elena may be physically deformed, but their love is beautiful. And they find it despite the rest of the world trying to stand in their way. Swearingen makes Joseph, despite lacking the requisite equipment, more human than any of the men portrayed in his story. And that's what makes the end that much more heart-wrenching. 

Humanity is a noun, but it's also a contested subjective term. As is love. In Joseph those concepts are stretched to their very limits, and in the dark crevices of the world where the outcasts linger, they are realized fully.

» The YOLO Solo Festival will be performed in the second week of this production, with eight short solo plays presented before and after The Last Castrato.

See original post... HERE.

Swearingen on DFW.com

Jeff Swearingen gets a mention in a People-to-Watch-in-2014 article by Mark Lowry on DFW.com

Tiny mention of THE LAST CASTRATO at end of piece. See it HERE.

CASTRATO rehearsals have begun

Jeff Swearingen rehearsing THE LAST CASTRATO. Show goes up Jan. 14, 2014.

Info HERE. Facebook stuff HERE.

Some nice mentions in 2013

Jeff Swearingen got mentioned as one of the "Best Acting Performances by Men" for DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN on local critic Alexandra Bonifield's Critical Rant Blog.

Mark Lowry of TheaterJones.com noted about Brad McEntire: "On a smaller scale, several performers and writers helped grow our city’s reputation by taking their work elsewhere... Local solo performer Brad McEntire of Audacity Theatre Lab did the national festival circuit (nothing new for him)."

In the same 2013 Year-In-Review article, Lowry cites Kate Mura's SUBURBAN TRIBE (hosted by Audacity in November) as one of the "Best Small Tours in Other Locations."

Lastly, the first several items on Mr. Lowry's "Wish-List for 2014" directly reflect ATL and the things we are trying to accomplish...

1. More regional collaboration and festival-sharing. WaterTower Theatre’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival continues doing its part, but it would be nice to see more collaboration between artists in cities in this region of the country: DFW, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, New Orleans, Little Rock, etc. Yes, I realize there’s a distance and travel/cost issues—it’s not like the cities in the Northeast, where train travel is easy-peasy—but if someone could get financially behind a larger, regional performing arts festival, happening here, that’d be swell. 

2. In that same vein, there is one solo festival planned this year: The Dallas Solo Performance Festival, produced by Brad McEntire’s Audacity Theatre Lab at the Margo Jones Theatre. Hoping for success. Solo shows are easier to travel. 

3. That the folks at the Margo Jones Theatre figure out how to get more butts in seats. What’s happening there is important, we just need more people to understand that.

Congrats to casts of RASPBERRY FIZZ, SUBURBAN TRIBE and DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN!

Swearingen featured in an article about the FIT

How to Stay FIT 
We talk to players in this year's Festival of Independent Theatres, about the event, which begins Friday. 

by Lauren Smart for TheaterJones.com
published Thursday, May 30, 2013

Jeff Swearingen as Dinosaur in DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN

Dallas — The 15th Festival of Independent Theatres has a lot to offer audiences. The four-week fest bows at the Bath House Cultural Center on Friday, May 31, a good month earlier than usual to align with the Theatre Communications Group conference in the Dallas Arts District June 6-8. The line-up includes many staples, including Churchmouse Productions, Wingspan Theatre Company, Echo Theatre and One Thirty Productions. There are several debuts, including solo performance artist John Michael’s provocative new show Like Me and the first-ever dance troupe, Rhythmic Souls. 

“This year is a really good sampling of what the festival is about, from new work to reputable local artists,” says David Meglino, managing director of FIT. “The line-up is interesting and will hopefully introduce the audiences to new shows and new companies.”

The works are performed in two-show performance blocks, and like many festivals throughout the country, FIT is a great place to see the work of up-and-coming local performers. 

TheaterJones caught up with a few of this year’s budding artists about their work in the festival and throughout the city. You can also read about each of the shows here, which also has info on ticket prices and performance times. 

Jeff Swearingen 

“It’s been a lifelong goal of mine to play a dinosaur,” local funnyman and theater teacher Jeff Swearingen says about his performance with Audacity Theatre Lab at the festival. “Seriously, ask anyone who knows me well.” 

In the middle of Black Forest Coffee next door to Half Priced Books, he’s stopped speaking to imitate a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Just a minute later he untwists his head and stretches his arms out to explain the plot of Dinosaur and Robot Stop a Train. 

Playwright and Audacity Artistic Director Brad McEntire’s festival entry has a dinosaur (Swearingen) and a robot (McEntire) from the future converge in the present day. The audience meets them at a press conference where the odd duo attempt to explain how they unwittingly arrived in the 21st century and what they will do now. 

“The play has aspects of vaudeville about it. It’s a very funny play that uses clever wordplay,” Swearingen says.“It’s the perfect show for FIT because it’s original and experimental.” 

Swearingen’s relationships with both the festival and with Audacity span roughly a decade. In a quick count, he’s performed in seven seasons of FIT—one year acting in three shows. This man stays busy. 

An in-demand theater instructor, Swearingen also co-founded Fun House Theatre and Film in 2011. In less than two years, he’s adapted or written several plays, which he then directs with a cast of children and youths. In the company’s early years he garnered critical acclaim for his adaptation of The Little Prince and more recently his version of David Mamet’sGlengarry Glen Ross, in which he recast the salesmen as a troupe of young girls similar to Girl Scouts (this show is scheduled for a return engagement June 5-8).

DINOSAUR AND ROBOT performance dates and times

Brad McEntire's newest play DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP a train will world-premiere at the 2013 Festival of Independent Theatres (FIT) at the Bath House Cultural Center June 7-22, 2013. 

 A press conference is held. A robot from the future and a dinosaur from the past address their experiences of being rudely sucked through time and space to our present, how they saved a little girl who had been stupidly playing in the path of a speeding train, and what they plan to do now that they seem to be stuck in the 21st Century. 

DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN is a contemporary take on the Theatre of the Absurd from the 1950s with its broad comedy, touches of Vaudeville, mix of the horrific or tragic, characters caught in hopeless or confusing situations, dialogue full of nonsense, wordplay and repetition as well as a flat out parody or dismissal of realism. 

The Bath House Cultural Center is located at 521 E. Lawther Drive, Dallas, TX 75218.

Performance dates and times are: 
Friday, June 7 @ 8 PM 
Saturday, June 8 @ 2 PM 
Sunday, June 9 @ 5 PM 
Friday, June 14 @ 8 PM 
Saturday, June 15 @ 2 PM 
Saturday, June 22 @ 5 PM 

 Tickets and other info at: http://festivalofindependenttheatres.org/

CAMP GIRLS reading a success

The reading of CAMP GIRLS AND GHOST MONK on Monday, April 8 went over really well. We got it on tape and will send the recording on to the playwright Matt Lyle. There was a small (maybe a dozen or so) audience. Not bad for a reading on a Monday night.

Special thanks to John Michael and Matt Tomvonovich of Nouveau 47 Theatre, Matt Lyle, all the actors (Jeff Swearingen, Natalie Young, Elizabeth Evans, Rhianna Mack, Becca Shivers and Ruth Engel-McEntire) and director Brad McEntire for setting the whole thing up.

DINOSAUR AND ROBOT at the FIT 2013

ATL is proud to announce we will be participating in the 2013 Festival of Independent Theatres at Dallas' White Rock Lake's Bath House Cultural Center June 7-22. Audacity will be presenting the world premiere of Brad McEntire's DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN.

Of special excitement is that the piece will overlap the big TCG Conference happening in Dallas the weekend of June 5-8.

A press conference is held. A dinosaur and a robot discuss how they got mysteriously sucked through time and space and ended up saving a little girl from a speeding train.

Check back for details. More information about the FIT head HERE. Info about the TCG National Conference HERE.

New Matt Lyle Play in Development

Summer 1991. Sheila and Allie meet at Camp Gentile. They would seem to be BFFs forever if it wasn't for some strange goings on this summer. Like, what's with that deranged camp director Ms. Kagle, or those ghost sightings, or that creepy cool guy Johnny Castle, and definitely that ancient magical amulet? Seriously, what's with that stuff?

ATL is pleased to return to Matt Lyle's weird, warped little world. He is collaborating with ATL's Jeff Swearingen and our wonderful colleague in Austin, Chris Humphrey, this time. The result will be a quasi-musical mess of awesomeness called CAMP GIRLS AND THE GHOST MONK.

We're doing a reading at Nouveau 47 Theatre, April 8, 2013 at 7:30 PM. More details coming soon.

At Nouveau 47 Theatre in the historic Magnolia Lounge (Margo Jones Building), Fair Park, 1121 First Ave., Dallas, TX 75210

OOTL flyer cover

Nice...

Jeff Swearingen: Ultimate Best Actor in DFW!

Congrats to Jeff Swearingen, Associate Actor for ATL. He recently won (co-won) Best Actor in DFW from the Pegasus News' 2010 Ultimate Best Awards.

Apparently, Pegasus News made up a new awards competition (Dallas likes competitions) compiled from a number of other awards competitions in town. In fact, to be nominated for an "Ultimate Best" you have to have won some other award from some other media outlet in DFW.

Congrats to Jeff for being Ultimate Best!

Blork: The Interview

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

Performance photos of CASTRATO in NOLA

Last month, Audacity's Brad McEntire (Director/Designer) and Jeff Swearingen (Actor) took Andy Eninger's twisted little one-man show THE LAST CASTRATO down to New Orleans, to the 2nd Annual New Orleans Fringe Festival. It was very well received and everybody had a blast!

New Orleans photographer Libby Nevinger snapped a few good pics of Jeff in performance as Joseph, the main character in the piece.

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

Swearingen warms up in HAMLET before taking on Blork in HELLO HUMAN FEMALE

Actor tackles Hamlet in concurrent Hub Theater shows

Thursday, January 22, 2009
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
ltaitte@dallasnews.com

Clowns, they say, always yearn to play Hamlet. Jeff Swearingen says he never did – yet he's playing the Prince of Denmark in not just one play but two. Simultaneously.

Actor Jeff Swearingen is tackling two Hamlet roles simultaneously for Dallas Hub Theater in Deep Ellum. Tonight, Dallas Hub Theater in Deep Ellum opens Shakespeare's Hamlet and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in adjoining spaces. Stoppard's philosophical comedy speculates on what happens to the bit players in Hamlet when they're not onstage. As far as anyone at Hub can tell, this is the first time a theater has tried mounting both plays at the same time – with a single cast.

Thus Swearingen plays Hamlet in both shows. Although he's done Shakespearean parodies and played Malcolm in a locally filmed movie of Macbeth, he has never been in a stage production of the Bard before. Talk about starting at the top: The title role in Hamlet is generally considered the longest and most challenging ever written for an actor.

And, remember, he has to go onstage in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern during the brief moments he leaves the stage in Hamlet.

"If you get me on a positive day, I'll say it's barely possible," he says of the challenge. "It's hair-trigger. When I kill Polonius, I lug his body offstage and go right into the action of Rosencrantz talking about it. There are times I really want a stage manager to tell me I'm in the right show."

Swearingen, 30, made his reputation in comedy. His 2007 dual best actor award from the Dallas Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum was for two shows in which he never spoke a word but got plenty of laughs: The Boxer at Bootstraps Comedy Theater and The Gnadiges Fraulein at WingSpan Theatre Company. Swearingen has done comedy improv in spots as far-flung as Hong Kong, and he has performed the brilliant one-man play The Last Castrato in seven venues stretching from New York's Fringe Festival to Phoenix.

In North Texas, Swearingen's home companies have been Plano Children's Theatre (recently reorganized as Plano Community Theatre) and Audacity Theatre Lab, though he has performed on many area stages. For Shane-Arts, the organization that runs Hub, he has done everything from mystery dinner theater to singing telegrams.

"My telegram character is so weird that the directions he can go are endless. I can make some kid's birthday, or rock out a sorority party at SMU," Swearingen says. "A lot of people think they're better than that, but I don't."

Swearingen got interested in acting when he finally realized that "Han Solo and Indiana Jones are the same guy. I thought, 'Hey, that's a job or something.' "

But he got no family encouragement to do theater. Only 5-foot-6, though he looks larger onstage, he instead took up martial arts when he was 12. The athletic grace and manic energy of his athletic past certainly transfer to his acting career.

"Kung fu is good training for comedy," Swearingen says. "It's all about timing and improvisation."

Tim Shane, one of the co-directors of the Hub double bill, notes how useful those qualities are for playing Hamlet.

"His ability to connect with an audience makes these plays immediately accessible," Shane says.

When Swearingen heard about the impending Hub project, he thought it was a great idea but doubted he was the right man for the lead part. It was only in a fall Labyrinth Theatre production of I Hate Hamlet, ironically, that he caught the Hamlet bug.

He doesn't want his performance of the great role to be remembered for some singular quality, to be the angry Hamlet or the poetic Hamlet or the graceful Hamlet.

"The violence the character expresses is ferocious, and depression and despair have their place. He's funny, he's intelligent, he's sensitive, he's charming. He's everything. Some people anchor themselves in one of these, but you should be seeing all these aspects of a noble prince," Swearingen says. "I was never one of those Hamlet guys, but now I understand how genius it really is."Plan your life.