CHOP feedback from a fellow solo performer

I recieved this really generous quote about CHOP from Martin Dockery today in my e-mail. Martin and I both had one-man shows at the Phoenix Fringe Festival earlier this month.

"For anyone who's ever felt themselves to be lost in the modern day Labyrinth of office cubicles, sinking ever deeper into a life of irrelevance, CHOP proves that meaning can come from the most unexpected places. The same can be said of Brad McEntire's engaging performance, turning a story about a loner's introduction into the world of amputation fetishists into a universal tale about finding one's own place in life."

~ Martin Dockery, Storyteller and Solo Performer,

Creator of THE BIKE TRIP

Audacity at PLAN of North Texas Benefit Art Show

Oscar as The Reverend

Angela as The Actress as The Reverend looks on.

ATL actors Oscar Contreras and Angela Parsons donated a bit of their time, last night, to perform a scene or two from our recent show VOLUME OF SMOKE by Clay McCleod Chapman.

The wine and cheese reception benefitting PLAN of North Texas was held at the Creative South Gallery at the Continental Lofts, 3401 Commerce Street, Suite 100 Dallas, TX 75226 (West of 1st in Deep Ellum).

Friday, April 23, 2010. Benefit ran 6-9:30 PM (Audacity went on around 7:30 PM)

Audacity was invited out by Carlton Odom, the curator of the event, who had seen VOS at the Bath House last month. We were glad to help the Planned Living Assistance Network (PLAN). PLAN is a care model originated by parents to provide long-term support for their loved ones with mental illness or other physical or mental disabilities. The mission of PLAN of North Texas, is to provide future care planning services to parents and their adult children with a disability.

More info on VOLUME OF SMOKE at the ATL Website

CHOP at the Phoenix Fringe Festival

 McEntire performing CHOP at the PHX:fringe

Engel and McEntire with Brooklyn-based solo artist Martin Dockery 

McEntire outside the venue The Chocolate Factory

McEntire and Engel have recently arrived back from the Phoenix Fringe Festival. They were out there representing north texas with the Audacity show CHOP. They ate well and met some swell fellow artists from around the country.

To read ATL Artistic Director Brad McEntire's journal of the severasl day event visit:
http://ftbonnigan.livejournal.com/116345.html
and
http://ftbonnigan.livejournal.com/116542.html

CHOP goes to Santa Fe & Phoenix

Playwright and performer Brad McEntire World Premiered his twisted little one-man show at Addison Water Tower Theatre's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival. CHOP is now off to represent North Texas at Arizona's 2nd Annual Phoenix Fringe Festival. Along the way he'll also stop in New Mexico to present the show at the College of Santa Fe and chat with theatre students there.

CHOP concerns a man at a loss about what to do with himself, plagued with a profound sense of isolation from the busy, happy, productive people in the city around him. A chance encounter with a mysterious tattooed woman introduces him to a unique subculture of amputation fetishists and what might turn out to be his true calling. Details on the play here.

ATL's McEntire chats with Transcendence

ATL Artistic Director Brad McEntire recently met the artists involved with Transcendence Theatre Company. He also recently submitted an article on the work Transcendence is doing (including an interview with Artistic Director Amy Miller) to TheaterJones.com.

Click here to read the article.

VOS: Notes On the Play

About the Play

This historical investigation of a horrific accident and the aftermath it caused appealed to Director Ruth Engel for a variety of reasons, chief amongst them that positive change and enduring perspective can come out of the most terrible of events. Receiving its Regional Premiere in the Southwest, Audacity is pleased to present VOLUME OF SMOKE.

For more information about the event, here's an informative article. And here's another one.

About the Playwright

The NY Times says there's "...a new generation of theater artists reared on a diet of vampires, zombies and charming serial killers. Call this movement the Theater of Blood, after the Vincent Price movie about a Shakespearean actor who kills critics, after torturing them with a hammy monologue. (It still gives me chills.) At the forefront is Clay McLeod Chapman, whose “Pumpkin Pie Show” channels the spirit of H. P. Lovecraft." -- Jason Zinoman, "A Creepy Threesome," NY Times, (10/19/09)

Clay McLeod Chapman is the founder of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a dynamic story-telling caberat well known in New York City. "If Chapman keeps up with the oddball characters, well-crafted stories, and critical plaudits, that Faulkner guy better watch out," the Village Voice’s Alexis Soloski wrote in a review of Clay McLeod Chapman’s Pumpkin Pie Show. Author Tom Robbins said of Chapman’s work, “Like a demonic angel on a skateboard, like a resurrected Artaud on methadrine, like a tattletale psychiatrist turned rodeo clown, Clay McLeod Chapman races back and forth along the serrated edges of everyday American madness, objectively recording each whimper of anguish, each whisper of skewed desire. This is strong stuff, intense stuff, sometimes disturbing stuff, but I think the many who admire Chuck Palahniuk will admire Chapman as well.” Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the rigorous storytelling session the Pumpkin Pie Show. In its ten years of existence, the award-winning Pumpkin Pie Show has toured extensively throughout the world – traveling to the Romanian Theatre Festival of Sibiu, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the New York International Fringe Festival, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, the Edmonton Fringe Festival, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, the Dublin-based thisisnotashop art space, IGNITE 06 Festival, the Women Center Stage Festival and the Impact Theatre Festival, just to name a few – as well as such various venues as colleges, theatres, and theme parks in and around the country. The Pumpkin Pie Show continues to perform in New York City—including PS 122, the DR2 theatre, the Ohio Theatre, La Mama, the Red Room, the Kraine theatre, UNDER St. Marks Theatre, the CSV Cultural Center, the Zipper theatre, the Belt theatre, Culture Project, Galapagos Art Space, Speigeltent NY, the Bowery Poetry Club, the Brick Theatre, and Coney Island, USA. 

For more information on Clay McLeod Chapman click here.