Texas Theatre and Dance is pleased to present a truly unique 2020/2021 Season to meet these exceptional and unprecedented times. Our 2020/2021 Season continues with our Spring 2021 programming, featuring a reimagination of self and self-identity through movement, a unique look back at 2020 through interviews with front-line workers and an exploration of brownness, metamorphosis and revolution through innovative dance-theatre, as well as five all-new works as a part of UTNT (UT New Theatre), Part Two. This spring also features the return of the biennial Cohen New Works Festival, presented virtually for the first time and featuring over 30 new works.
In addition, Texas Theatre and Dance is a proud participant of The JUBILEE, a year-long, nationwide theatre festival featuring work generated by those who have traditionally been excluded – including, but not limited to artists of color, Native American and Indigenous and First Nations artists, women, non-binary and gender non-conforming artists, LGBTQIA2+ artists, Deaf artists and artists with disabilities.
Above all, we are committed to the health and safety of our students, faculty, staff and audiences. Due to the uncertain nature of our current times, all titles, dates, times and presentation details may be subject to change. We plan to offer clear and frequent communication regarding updates related to performances and our plans to ensure safety for our shared community.
Thank you for your continued support of Texas Theatre and Dance.
All ticketing for the 2020/2021 Season will be available at pay-what-you-can pricing. Once you have purchased your tickets, you will receive an email with further instructions on how to access your selected livestreamed performance.
For more information about ticketing for virtual performances, please visit our ticketing page: here.
2020/2021 Season
Spring 2021
burst!
Conceived and Directed by Gesel Mason
burst! is part of an ongoing investigation by Gesel Mason that seeks to reimagine our identities and create space for individual voices to impact our collective community. Using contemporary dance and movement techniques, burst! is developed as an extension of Mason's project Yes, And. This methodology works to unravel our current perceptions of self and society in search of freedom; the freedom "to find" and to "be found" from a recalibrated place.
Performances
February 2021
Year of the Tiger
Directed by Khristián Méndez Aguirre
On the eve of the anniversary of the COVID-19 global pandemic, a news anchor is preparing for a special transmission commemorating the year that has gone by when she is visited by a tiger who really wants her to get the story straight, no matter what the cost.
Performances
March 2021
UTNT (UT New Theatre), Part Two
Community Garden
By Renae Simone Jarrett
Directed by Kristen Osborn
March 2021
Community Garden is a meditation on self-searching, sacrifice and that lovely glow you get when you feast on the fruits that grow from the graves of dead husbands.
Radiance
By Gursimrat Kaur
Directed by Giana Blazquez
March 2021
Set in a growing metropolitan city in the midst of an economic transition, Radiance follows the story of a few individuals who want more from the city than it promises to give them: Aria, a high-end escort, orchestrates an escape from her gruesome life in an elite brothel while Dina, a physically disabled young woman, rebels for love that will open her world beyond an isolated bedroom in the middle of a suburban wasteland. As Stanley, an aspiring young entrepreneur, arrives in the city to climb the ladder of a booming textile industry, we witness the consequences of economic progression on the inequity of gender roles in a developing society.
sad women being sad
Written and Co-Directed by Jenny Krick
Co-Directed by Andrea L. Hart
April 2021
This lyrical play explores what it means to be sad and a woman in this world through the lens of the Greek tragedy, The Trojan Women. Examining trauma, mental health, violence and the internet's role in these things, sad women being sad asks the larger question of how and if we can separate the artist from their art. Be prepared for a comedy!
OCD
By Hee-won Kim
Directed by Mike Steele
April 2021
How do you love someone who isn't you without ruining your own life? OCD is a dark comedy about impossible sibling connections, mental illness and a desire to have a room of one's own in a world where boundaries between the notion of love and sacrifice are not always clear. After her brother’s accident, an older sister gets hallucinations of her brother falling from an iceberg in Antarctica – a place she believes used to trigger her brother’s OCD. She then visits the doctor who used to treat her brother, claiming that she has OCD.
Contains nudity and instances of sexual content.
Fall the House
By Nicholas Kaidoo
Directed by Braxton Rae
April 2021
Everyone at the Atreus Housing Project is anticipating the long-rumored return of GHOST. When he does arrive, it sets off a persistently fatal chain of events. His wife NESSA is suspicious of him, his daughter ALEXUS could care less about him, a kid in the neighborhood, OLLIE, worships him and the girl with kerosene gas dripping from her hands KARA is just wandering trying to find her place in it all. And where in the hell is his son BISHOP anyway? If only they could ask that fake-ass psychic, PIANO MAN. The FURIES watch this all, withholding their verdict on the violence for as long as they see fit. A liberal homage to Aeschylus's Oresteia.
del corazón nace el enjambre
Conceived and directed by Erica Patricia Saucedo
del corazón nace el enjambre is a virtual retelling of the tale(s) of la cucaracha. Activating the cockroach as a time-traveling hemispheric avatar, this dance-theatre practice interweaves stories of self-metamorphosis, resistance and revolution to wonder how attuning to a theoretical brown commons might expand possibilities of freedom.
Performances
March 2021
The Cohen New Works Festival
The Cohen New Works Festival is a biennial, week-long showcase of new work created by students at The University of Texas at Austin. It is not just an event, but a celebration of a continuously ongoing process - the creation of new work.
Performances
April 12-16, 2021
2020/2021 Season
Fall 2020
(Re)current Unrest
Conceived and directed by Charles O. Anderson
Presented in partnership with Texas Performing Arts and Fusebox Festival
(Re)current Unrest is an evening-length immersive performance installation ‘ritual’ built on the sonic foundation of Steve Reich’s three earliest works: It’s Gonna Rain (parts 1 and 2), Come Out and Pendulum. (Re)current Unrest utilizes movement, media and powerful imagery to meditate on the “American Dream” and Black nihilism, born of the current racially charged moment.
Performances
October 16-17, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.
Streaming on-demand November 22-23, 2020. More information available HERE.
La Ruta
By Isaac Gómez
The heartbreaking story of a border town, a bus route and the women of Ciudad Juárez who are disappearing. Inspired by real testimonies from women affected by the ongoing femicides along the border, Isaac Gómez’s La Ruta weaves together beautiful storytelling and music in a celebration of the resilience of Mexican women in the wake of tremendous loss.
Performances
October 23-24, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.
UTNT (UT New Theatre), Part One
New plays by M.F.A. Playwriting candidates
Producing Artistic Director, KJ Sanchez
Associate Producing Artistic Director, Alexandra Bassiakou Shaw
UTNT (UT New Theatre) presents newly developed works from playwrights of Texas Theatre and Dance and Michener Center for Writers. Now in its 14th season, this showcase exists as an incubator for new work, with many plays continuing on to be professionally produced across the country. Presented in two parts, UTNT (UT New Theatre) presents work on the cutting edge of the American Stage.
The 2020 UTNT (UT New Theatre), Part One plays include:
By Sam Meyer
Directed by Mike Steele
November 5-7, 2020 at 8:30 p.m.
Presented primarily on Twitch, poolboy00 is part reality show, part livestream. Come watch poolboy00 hang with his friends, work out, write in his journal, talk to strangers and try to make his life into art (it’s hard because life is mostly really boring so please chat with poolboy00 and help something interesting happen. Because something has to happen. Right?) The chat is open, the water is nice, so hop on in and be a part of the show at http://www.twitch.tv/poolboy00.
Wyeth Airlines Flight Thirteen
By Lena Barnard
Directed by Andrea L. Hart
November 19-20, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.
Streaming on-demand November 21-December 1, 2020.
This coming-of-age story follows a group of middle-schoolers who lose the ability to play. At the start of seventh grade, Harlequin, Shoebill, Cygnet and Finch are as close as can be. United by a shared fantasy life and bird nicknames, they’re positive they know everything about their world. None of them are prepared for the moment when their games stop being real, overshadowed by the new monsters of illness, grades, and crushes. As one by one, they lose the safety of their imagined space, their tight-knit group fractures under the pressure to fit in, find love, and group up.
In the Ether
By Erica Gionfriddo
An investigation of embodiment and our virtual identity, In the Ether is a staged rehearsal of possible cyborg realities. Utilizing live streaming, emergent technologies and performance, In the Ether explores elements of cyborg and queer theories by challenging our core notions of perception and existence in a cybernetic world.
Performances
December 2-6, 2020 / ongoing installation
Accessibility Information for Virtual Performances
To request accessible viewing options for virtual performances, please notify us HERE no less than one week prior to the event date. Services are not guaranteed for all events, but we will make every effort to accommodate all requests. Please specify your preferred language when submitting your request so we can make arrangements accordingly.
Titles, dates, artists and venues are subject to change.
