Columns

Richard Lewis can’t be curbed: The comedian “from hell” on his status as a gay icon (?)

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 11/18/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

Earlier this month, fellow Current writer Bryan Rindfuss and I enjoyed a running joke based on two upcoming celebrity interviews: Bryan’s was with Peaches, the fantastically graphic feminist rapper [read it online at sacurrent.com], and mine was to be with Richard Lewis, the standup comedy legend. W...[MORE]

A light, creamy center: Almost, Maine is a cold holiday trifle

By Ashley Lindstrom

Published: 11/11/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

To find yourself in the fictional, titular town of Almost, Maine, at 9 p.m. on one fated, frigid Friday night is to find yourself in a state of ubiquitous climax. All at once, things have come to a head, you might say, for nearly 20 of Almost’s residents. Everyone is finding and losing love. Mostly ...[MORE]

The sun'll come out

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 10/28/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

With Lyle Kessler’s Orphans, the Vex has mounted a sentimental production of a perverse play, and the evening lumbers under the weight of that fundamental contradiction. In some senses, the play’s potential couldn’t be greater: It originated at the epicenter of American theater in the 1980s — Chicag...[MORE]

Guided by voces: Mario Bosquez looks homeward (angel) with Los Duendes

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 10/21/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

Mario Bósquez’s bio reads like a screenplay: The playwright of Los Duendes grew up Tejano in tiny Alice, Texas. He reported on-air for KSAT in San Antonio, and co-hosted our chapter of P.M. Magazine for seven-and-a-half years. Next, the smart, handsome joven headed for la Gran Manzana, where he work...[MORE]

A woman of miens: ‘She Stoops,’ she scores

By Ashley Lindstrom

Published: 10/14/2009

Types: The Arts

If, like the poet, you believe the most wasted of all days is one without laughter, count on the Classic Theatre’s production of She Stoops to Conquer to help you get your giggle on. This production of Oliver Goldsmith’s 18th-century “laughing comedy” is the best argument I’ve seen to date against p...[MORE]

Globes under ATAC

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 10/14/2009

Types: The Arts

Yeah, I hadn’t heard of them, either, but apparently ATAC is the Alamo Theatre Arts Council, a non-profit founded in 1990 to recognize, support, and stimulate San Antonio theater and the artists therein. Founders included Jasmina Wellinghoff of the San Antonio Express-News, former SAEN arts writer D...[MORE]

Another gold star!: How to make the Globes more like the Tonys, less like school attendance awards

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 10/14/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

In the past, one could usually count on the annual Alamo Theatre Arts Council’s Globe Awards for Excellence to eventually recognize just about everyone involved in San Antonio theater. (My favorite example: the 18 awards for “Lead Actress” in the storied year of 2006-7. They were joined by an equall...[MORE]

When bad ain't good: It takes more than brain power to bring camp to life

By Rachel Joseph

Published: 10/7/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Joseph Green’s 1962 low-budget cult classic The Brain That Wouldn’t Die offers an awkward blend of uneasiness with science and fascination/revulsion with the female form. The film (unevenly) tells the story of brilliant surgeon Dr. Bill Cortner, who keeps the severed head of his bride-to-be alive af...[MORE]

A shooting star is born: She's a real slasher, too. This girl is talented

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 10/7/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Ruthless! ain’t toothless, and for that we can be grateful. In a city largely inundated with anodyne musicals (exhibit A: Mamma Mia!), Ruthless! opens as a refreshingly amoral take on such sappy tuners as 42nd Street and A Star Is Born. Penned with obvious glee by Joel Paley and Marvin Laird (and in...[MORE]

Eva's ascension:

Webber’s tarnished saint shines through Playhouse glitches

By Greg Morrison

Published: 9/30/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts

Maybe if someone made Barack Obama’s story into a pop opera, this whole sociopolitical transition — with its town-hall uprisings and halls-of-power histrionics — would seem like a less unpleasant affair. But until that wizard of the Great White Way, Andrew Lloyd Webber, turns his unique gifts toward...[MORE]

Don’t polish the Sterling: SA’s beloved playwright shines most brightly in the dark

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 9/16/2009

Types: The Arts

This month, Jump-Start celebrates the art and leadership of Sterling Houston, who guided the performance company through its formative years before his untimely death in 2006. By everybody’s definition, Houston was a quintessentially “San Antonio playwright,” a designation that now seems a double-ed...[MORE]

Three's a crowd: Not-so-big love at the Vex

By Greg Morrison

Published: 9/2/2009

Types: The Arts, Performing Arts, Theater

When people say “they don’t make ‘em like they used to,” they’re usually referring to a degree of quality: They don’t make them as well as they used to. But every now and then, you see something that reminds you there are certain things we ju...[MORE]

Sun scream: The Cameo's 'Psycho Beach Party' scores a perfect SPF10

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 8/26/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

As a playwright, Charles Busch is probably best known for his breakout spoof Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, a touching buddy story inexplicably ignored by the Magik Theater’s programming for kids. (Sadly, the Magik also neglects the abundant parent-child bonding opportuni...[MORE]

Plato, live! at the Overtime: The most fun you'll have in a cave this year

By Greg Morrison

Published: 8/26/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

Not that there’s anything wrong with Ludacris’s version, but the ensemble at the Overtime has its own ideas about “theater of the mind.” The Overtime’s newest production brings to life the pages of Ryan Dunlavey and Fred Van Lente’s Action Philosophers!, a comic-book series ...[MORE]

Starz!: The exceedingly entertaining debut of a traveling artist, with jazz and illustrations

By Greg Morrison

Published: 8/19/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

At the Josephine Theater on August 28, for one final night, you can find a young man who has something interesting to say, sing, and play — and he has more than enough talent to make it worth your time to engage with his musical artistry. His name is Thomas Dieter, but for his art, he goes by Varza....[MORE]

Buried on a country estate: In life as in death in the Classic’s ‘Uncle Vanya’

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 8/19/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

Anton Chekhov famously termed his full-length plays “comedies,” and audiences have been expecting Russian penis jokes ever since. Alas, that is to misapprehend the nature of Chekhov (and perhaps even the nature of comedy): The line between comedy and tragedy is far blurrier than that between, say, f...[MORE]

Day-old Danes: Chewing Barrymore's stale remains in I Hate Hamlet

By Thomas Jenkins

Published: 8/5/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet whisks us back to the innocent, halcyon days of 1991, when gay men could still write innocuous, frothy comedies with single-unit sets and zany characters — and get away with it. Of course, Tony Kushner’s subsequent time-, space-, and gender-bending Angels in America...[MORE]

Bastards of puppets: Felt up at the Rose Theatre Co.

By Greg Morrison

Published: 7/29/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

In 1989, Matt Groening changed the face of television — literally — by figuring out that there are certain types of humor you can get away with much more easily if they come from precious-looking animated characters. Eight years later, Matt Parker and Trey Stone took the humor one step further (and ...[MORE]

Don't stand so close to me: AtticRep's Blackbird

By Sarah Fisch

Published: 7/15/2009

Types: Cover Story, Section Cover

David Harrower’s 2007 play Blackbird, currently onstage at AtticRep, hinges on the sexual relationship between a 40-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl. Upon hearing this, I drew a safe map in my mind. Here lies the sunbleached land of advertising imagery, whose lurid billboards of the sexualized ad...[MORE]

Delightenment: Nirvana's all in the rhythm at the Overtime

By Greg Morrison

Published: 7/15/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

If Jesus Christ can be a superstar, why can’t Buddha be a hepcat?  The creative crew at the Overtime Theater poses this question with its new show, Buddha Swings!, which sets the story of Siddhartha to 1940s big-band swing music, and the answer is pure de-lightenment. The production fits s...[MORE]