Raquel Cain, Estrella Gonzales & Allison Stoos in The Fault. Photo: Larence Peart, Courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
Instructions for a Séance
Instructions for a Séance is a site-specific DIY séance that invites an audience to conjure escape artist Harry Houdini to teach us how to escape our lives. Part magic show, part cheeky historical re-enactment, Instructions for a Séance explores the gauntlet that is motherhood, artistic ambition, and escapism.
Written and performed by Katie Bender.
Howling, Texas
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, in the small town of Howling, local pastor Deborah Lewis has started receiving text messages from God, a prophecy for the next phase of human evolution. It does not look good. It looks hard. Also, she’s gonna need a volunteer to help with the technology. Karen, a stranger to Howling, has upended her life to come live with Johnny. The sex is good, and dammit, she’s not ready to settle down. Thrown together, Karen and Deborah confront prophecy, change, and their role in shaping the future. Howling, Texas is a comedy about faith, sex, marriage, and monsters.
2W, 1M, 1monster.
Judith
What if Shakespeare was a woman? Judith dresses in drag and heads to London to save her brother’s reputation. There she discovers the pleasures and pitfalls of passing in a patriarchal, politically charged and deeply divided nation. Gallivanting in and out of character Judith is a solo show that questions identity, ambition, self worth and is deeply indebted to the magic of the theater. 1 performer.
She Wolf; Margaret of Anjou
A nation divided, an unending off-shore war, an ineffectual leader, insurrection, systemic racism, inequality, oh, and don’t forget the plague. Margaret of Anjou marries Henry the Sixth in an alliance meant to broker peace, but arrives in England with her Ladies-in-Waiting to discover a nation built on war without the tools to transition to anything else. Queen Margaret is one of Shakespeare’s most misaligned and complex female characters; SHE WOLF is a cheeky, ambitious, remarkably current retelling of her story.
7W, 5M
The Survivors/Los Sobrevivientes
Based on the historically documented group of women, children and enslaved people who survived the battle of the Alamo, The Survivors/Los Sobrevivientes is an intimately drawn look at the diverse peoples, and surprising alliance, necessary to survive in Mexico’s mercurial and shifting democracy. 3W, 4M
Still Now
Annie is a modern dancer who, after witnessing the fall of the twin towers, heads to Japan to study Butoh. Ten years later she is diagnosed with cancer and returns to Butoh to prepare for her final dance. Still Now confronts us with the accelerated motion of a woman learning and losing her body.
6-10 performers
The Fault
Three sisters struggle to reconcile the culture of their itinerant family with their disparate hopes and ambitions. Pressed between the Redwoods and the Pacific Ocean, the Davis family has finally stopped running in an attempt to settle down. 3W, 1M
Katie Bender 