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!

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

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.

The Science of Chewing Bubble Gum

An Actress learns to navigate a sugary prop

Travis Steubing and Tashina Richardson in RASPBERRY FIZZ

Actress Tashina Richardson consumes lots of sugar while performing in the Audacity Theatre Lab play Raspberry Fizz. Besides consuming a bottle and half of raspberry soda during each and every show, she chews a lot of bubble gum.

“The trick is to start chewing it fifteen to twenty minutes before curtain so it has optimal popping elasticity,” says Richardson.

During the show, Richardson’s character Samantha blows and pops gum at key moments. This means that Richardson has to juggle drinking the carbonated soda, saying the lines and blowing those bubbles at the right time so it all looks effortless.

“It is akin to rubbing one’s tummy and patting one’s head while reciting the Gettysburg Address,” says director Brad McEntire, who also wrote Raspberry Fizz and performs a small role in it as well. “It takes some focus. I’m impressed at how she does it.”

“Each pack of gum has fifteen sticks and I went through a whole pack outside of rehearsals just practicing blowing really good bubbles,” says Richardson. “I averaged about three sticks in every rehearsal.”

Raspberry Fizz involves an encounter between two adolescents as they explore anticipation and expectations in 1949 small town America. The play premiered in Addison, Texas in March of 2012 at the Water Tower Theatre's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival directed by Andy Baldwin and featuring Jeff Swearingen and Natalie Young.

The current production featuring Travis Stuebing, Tashina Richardson and Brad McEntire recently returned from a hit run at the Houston Fringe Festival.

The show will be playing Saturdays at 2 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

Raspberry Fizz: The Recipe

The Raspberry Fizz                                                           [photo via: WI Cheesehead]

In case you were wondering (and, of course, you were) there is an actual recipe for making a Raspberry Fizz.

The Raspberry Fizz
Courtesy low-cholesterol.food.com

Total time: 20 minutes (5 prep time, 15 cook time)

Ingredients:

300 g frozen raspberries
440 g caster sugar
2 cups water
60 ml lemon juice
1 liter soda water, chilled

Directions:

1. Place raspberries, sugar and 2 cups of water into a saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
2. Simmer for 10 minutes and then remove from heat and add lemon juice.
3. Cool and then strain through a fine sieve into a jug. Discard the solids.
4. To serve, pour the Raspberry Fizz into a large jug. Add ice cubes and then top off with chilled soda water.

Makes 1.5 liters, serves 6-8.

Get this and other recipes HERE.

Pics from RASPBERRY FIZZ at 2013 Houston Fringe

RASPBERRY FIZZ promo pic

Travis Steubing as Ellson and Tashina Richardson as Samantha in RASPBERRY FIZZ

RASPBERRY FIZZ by Brad McEntire. Playing at the Houston Fringe Festival, October 4-6, 2013. Info HERE

Also listed on BroadwayWorld.com

Next up... RASPBERRY FIZZ at 2013 Houston Fringe

Audacity held the first reading of RASPBERRY FIZZ this evening, on the patio of Fuzzy's Taco's in Denton. Travis Stuebing, Tashina Richardson and Brad McEntire will be performing Brad's play at the 2013 Houston Fringe Festival.

First read-thru with Travis Stuebing and Tashina Richardson

About the Play:
RASPBERRY FIZZ is an exploration of expectations and the potentialities of the future tied up in a tender and humorous coming-of-age encounter between two adolescents in 1949 small town America.

When:

Friday, October 4th at 8 PM

Saturday, October 5th at 9:30 PM

Sunday, October 6th at 3:30 PM

Where:

Bohemeo's Cafe and Theatre,
708 Telephone Road,
Houston, TX 77023

Tickets:

phone: 832-387-7440
online: http://houstonfringefestival.org/tickets/ 

As part of the Houston Fringe Festival.

Ticket info coming soon...

RASPBERRY FIZZ goes to the Houston Fringe

We're thrilled that Brad McEntire's RASPBERRY FIZZ has been accepted into the 2013 Houston Fringe Festival. The festival dates are October 2-6, 2013. More details as they come in.

RASPBERRY FIZZ review from Critical Rant

WaterTower’s Out of the Loop 2012: Three Winners

By Alexandra Bonifield ~ CriticalRant.com

Raspberry Fizz: Audacity Theatre Lab brings out Brad McEntire’s sweet little “short story” of a play about two mid 20^th century teen-agers on a stoop, learning to negotiate the tricky pathways of male/female attraction and communication, while a carnival barker interjects a darker level of commentary on life’s risks in a nearby fantasy reality. It’s charming to watch, directed handily by Andy Baldwin, and features regional favorites Jeff Swearingen, Natalie Young and Shane Beeson in its three roles with minor props or set elements. It feels like a work in the germinating stage, more of an appetizer than a full meal. Cleverly written and very well acted, you’ll finish wanting to know what happens next….

RATING: “Might see”, depending on what it’s paired with. Runs Tuesday, March 6 at 7:30pm, and Friday, March 8 at 8pm.

RASPBERRY FIZZ review that almost slipped by...

We just stumbled on one more great review of RASPBERRY FIZZ. Over on the Stage Directions Blog. Here's what it had to say...

Three Reviews From the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival.

A Most Happy Stella, Waking Up and Raspberry Fizz
by Christopher David Taylor ~ March 5, 2012 ~ Stage Directions Blog 

Raspberry Fizz, by Brad McEntire and directed by Andy Baldwin (who opened Lord of the Flies at Level Ground Arts on the same night) is a delightful piece of theatre, expertly acted by Jeff Swearingen, Natalie Young and Shane Beeson. 

The piece tells the story of a young boy and girl on the cusp of teen-hood, the boy wanting to ask the girl to a harvest dance. The Carnival Barker is there to create a sense of mystery and he continually recites a mantra designed to capture the interest of the young boy. Swearingen as Ellson hits all the right physical notes with his character; one would hardly believe he wasn’t a child based on his physicality. Young as Samantha is pitch perfect in her flat, midwestern accent that reminded me of something out of Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man. Beeson’s Barker was a little more challenging. At times his patter came across as forced but it didn’t detract from the overall performance. The final moment of the piece, Swearingen and Young dancing slowly, was a nice end to the evening. Tension built up and released by the slightly childish dancing on the part of the two actors.

What was interesting for me in the double bill was the difference in the age of the performers. Grayman is made up of University students and Audacity Theatre Lab’s cast is decidedly not but the two groups in the same space within the same time frame created two distinctly different but complimentary pieces of theatre. Searching for love and purpose, belonging and a cold raspberry fizz.

Opening minutes of RASPBERRY FIZZ

Another delightful RASPBERRY FIZZ review

Theater review: Raspberry Fizz at Out of the Loop Fringe Festival in Addison

PegasusNews.com - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - by Mary L. Clark of John Garcia's The Column

In the continuing saga of the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival, I journeyed back over to Addison Theatre Center to see two individual theatre's one-acts. A gusty, cloudy evening made for perfect play watching in their Studio Theatre.

First up was Audacity Theatre Lab and what was described as "A Sweet New Play" by local playwright and founder of Audacity, Brad McEntire. Entitled Raspberry Fizz (playing once more on March 9), a sweet play it was, set in 1949, when Truman was president and minimum wage was going up to 75 cents an hour. Dubble Bubble was the gum of choice, that fizzy soda was only 5 cents, and the worst thing you would ever say to someone was "Go suck an egg!"

A mysterious street corner barker sits in front of a record player and a taped up box. At intervals, he puts the needle on the record and tells passersby to witness "the expected, the unsuspected." Reciting short tales of unusual events, oddities, like those in the back of sensation rags, the barker then returns to his stool and paper.

Ellison has come to that same corner for the last five days, in particular to the stoop where high school friend Samantha has been, with an important question to ask her. But the "cat's got his tongue" and he just can't muster up the courage. Talking about what they want to be when they grow up, "Sam" teases "Ellie," calls him a sap and a square, and generally they both pass the time. Samantha is a flirt who gets poor Ellison to buy her things. As he leaves to purchase gum, he passes the barker, asks him what he's up to, and the con begins. In what McEntire describes as "a heart-warming exploration of expectations and the potentialities of the unmapped future tied up in ... an encounter between two young adolescents in small town America, Raspberry Fizz reminds us of an innocence we'll never see again.

All three actors used their talents to take the audience to that more innocent time -- when dreams were made on the steps of a stoop instead of playing the lottery or getting on a reality TV show. Your future or fortunes could change for just a nickel.

Shane Beeson played the barker with the friendly yet smarmy personality a good con artist needs. Both older than their characters, Natalie Young and Jeff Swearingen played that bygone era's youth with sincerity. Not trying to fake younger, they instead relied on the emotions of great potential all Americans felt coming out of World War II. Young was all smart-alecky, gum chewing, and kidding around as Sam. Swearingen made use of his natural clown/comic facial and body gestures to portray put upon Ellison as a true sad sack.

A thoughtful conception piece, a fun trip down a memory lane I traveled a bit of, and a sweet slice-of-life, coming-of-age play made Raspberry Fizz a tiny wonderment.

original post here.

Another swell RASPBERRY FIZZ write-up

Jeff Swearingen as "Ellson" in Brad Mcentire's RASPBERRY FIZZ

Review from Out of the Loop: Good Actors, Director Bring ‘Raspberry Fizz’ to Life

D Magazine FrontRow Blog - By M. Lance Lusk - March 5th, 2012 10:34am

Take two of the best actors in North Texas, put them in a fresh play by a local playwright, and give them a director (Andy Baldwin) who knows how to craft and elicit amazing performances, and you got something. It seems like a simple formula, but it is one too often overlooked in a lot of plays. Audacity Theatre Lab provides that straightforward prescription in their delightful and rousing production of Brad McEntire’s Raspberry Fizz at Water Tower Theatre’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival.

The scene is 1949 in small town U.S.A., and young Ellson (Jeff Swearingen) is trying to screw up his courage to ask his adolescent classmate Samantha (Natalie Young) to the Harvest Dance. Throw in a bizarre carnival barker (an understated Shane Beeson) peddling mysterious wares on the corner who is not making things easy for “Ellie.”

Again, it is a modest setup, but one that is truly magical in these able hands. Swearingen (The Hand at Broken Gears and many plays at Plano Children’s Theatre) captures the essence of a sweet, yet annoying and awkward proto-nerd. He’s a hoot in high pants. Young (Red Light Winter at Second Thought) as the tough and fast-talking Sam is an incandescent ball of gum-chomping charm. She nails the wisecracking smarts and speech patterns of those screwball comedies from the 1930s and 40s.

The right ingredients make this Fizz beyond refreshing.

Original post here.

 

RASPBERRY FIZZ at TheaterJones.com

Jeff Swearingen and Natalie Young in Brad McEntire's RASPBERRY FIZZ

Warm Fizzies
Loop review: Audacity Theatre Lab's Raspberry Fizz is delectable at WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival
by Mike Maiella for TheaterJones.com, Sunday, March 4, 2012

Addison — If you make it up to the intimate Studio Theater at Water Tower Theatre to catch Audacity Theatre Lab's production of Raspberry Fizz, you will be in for a real theatrical treat.

Running at just 45 minutes, the show—written by Audacity's Brad McEntire and directed by Andy Baldwin for the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival—is an endearing portrayal of two adolescents dealing with the awkward tension of young love. Ellson (Jeff Swearingen) has been stopping by the same steps to chat with Samantha (Natalie Young) for the past few days. She seems rather indifferent as she sits reading a newspaper and chewing gum. When Ellson first enters, he is drinking some raspberry fizz. And Samantha wants some, too.

Frustrated but wanting to win her affections, Ellson leaves to go buy her a bottle. When he returns, Samantha now wants some more gum, too. Meanwhile, Ellson repeatedly tries to muster the courage to ask her out to the fall harvest dance. Throughout the show, there is a strange man (Shane Beeson) on the other side of the stage who shouts random outbursts that sound like a carnival barker with his shouts of "step right up, folks!" There is something sinister about him though. He tells Ellson that for a nickel he can look inside a cardboard box and see a glimpse of the future.

The strength of the production lies in the simplicity of both the story and the set. Swearingen and Young are perfect together. He moves and sounds like a young boy. With his shorts pulled up high and donning a small cap, he has the awkward fidgety mannerisms and nervous stuttering of a boy speaking to the girl he has a crush on. And Young strikes the right balance of the girl who acts abrasive and bossy on the surface but actually likes the boy.

There are hilarious moments between them, too. At one point, Ellson very gingerly tries to sit next to Samantha on the step and then just as quickly stands back up when realizing what he is doing. When Samantha tells him to guess what she wants to be when she grows up, Ellson's first guess is a scientist. There is something funny but also tender and sweet in his response.

The show finds a beautiful balance between humor and the earnestness of a young crush. It's a fizzy delight.

RASPBERRY FIZZ press

"As part of a double bill, Brad McEntire’s world premiere for Audacity Theatre Lab, Raspberry Fizz, proves slight but charming under Andy Baldwin’s direction. This tale of adolescent longing gives the city’s hottest young actress last season, Natalie Young, a chance to flirt knowingly with one of our funniest performers, Jeff Swearingen."

~ Lawson Taitte, Dallas Morning News, 3/3/12

RASPBERRY FIZZ opens next week!

The newest play from an Audacity artist, Brad McEntire's RASPBERRY FIZZ will recieve its World Premiere at the Addison Water Tower Theatre's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival March 3-9, 2012. Andy Baldwin will direct and fellow ATL member Jeff Swearingen will act. Cast also includes well-known Dallas actors Natalie Young and Shane Beeson.

Performance dates and time are:
Saturday, March 3 at 8 PM
Sunday, March 4 at 7:30 PM
Tuesday, March 6 at 7:30 PM
Wednesday, March 7 at 7:30 PM
Friday, March 9 at 8 PM

RASPBERRY FIZZ is an exploration of expectation and the potentialities of the future tied up in a tender and humorous slice-of-life coming-of-age encounter between two adolescents in 1949, in small town America.

More info as well as tickets at the Out of the Loop website. Consider a "Festival Pass" and catch all the great shows at the Festival!

OOTL flyer cover

Nice...

RASPBERRY FIZZ cast announced!

Director Andy Badwin has put together a top-notch cast for the upcoming production of RASPBERRY FIZZ at the 2012 Out of the Loop Fringe Festival. Here they are!

Natalie Young will play "Samantha" the gum-chewer

Shane Beeson will play the mysterious street corner "Barker"

Jeff Swearingen will play "Ellson" the kid that can't stop moving.