Dance Review: Out On a Limb Dance Company

The Out of the Loop Fringe Festival was last weekend in Dallas at the WaterTower Theatre. I joined 5 members of Out On a Limb Dance Company for a performance on Sunday evening. I am continually amazed at how their choreography evolves. One of the pieces premiered that night, called A Long Journey Home (photographed). The movement was refreshingly physical and the choreography complicated yet palpable. I was in awe as I watched it from 4 different views through rehearsals, dress runs, and backstage perspectives and I could never get enough.

Naturally, it made me wish I was in this piece, but i doubt my one year old infant son (who's trying to crawl into my lap at this moment) would let me travel for rehearsals any more than I already do.

But more than just being a piece that makes me want to dance it, it is a piece that is delicately smart and generous with kinesthetic detail that begs to be seen more than once. The longer I watch this company, the more I see the performers evolve as well. It is work that breathes and allows the performers to actually BE performers - to bring to the work an individual telling of the story, not just an imitation of the choreography. I so appreciate that as a performer myself.

Kudos, OoLD. More than kudos...bravo.

Rachel Bruce Johnson

[sic] by Melissa James Gibson

We are just a little over a week away from our first performance of [sic]. Rehearsals have been great so far. It's so fun to keep finding layers of humor in this already hilarious piece! One surprising thing to me has been how many sweet moments are also emerging. I can't wait to put all of the pieces together in our technical rehearsal in just a couple of days!

The festival is not far off. I hope you'll come see [sic] on Monday, March 9 at 7:30, Saturday, March 14 at 5:00, or Sunday, March 15 at 2:00 in the Studio Theater at WaterTower. With actors like Tasia Munoz, Chris LaBove, and Tyler Johnson, you know it's going to be a blast!

Google Update #1

I'm not going to lament about the hour I spent on writing a blog entry for this Out of the Loop Festival blog and then how it somehow disappeared, lost somewhere in cyberspace. That would be a waste of time...

And, right now, it's all about time. We've been in rehearsals for close to two weeks now (a special shout out to Theatre Three and Uptown Players for providing rehearsal space for us). This actual marks about the midway point between starting rehearsals and opening because in about 2 weeks, we'll be doing the show in front of an audience.

It's been an exciting process for me personally. It's been my first chance to work with Joel McDonald who is great. He makes the process look easy. I like to watch actors who make me think, "How do they do that?" and he's one of them.

We tallied it up, and this is the 7th time I've been able to work with Kevin Moore and the 5th opportunity I've had to work with Bruce Coleman. Everytime I've been able to work with each of them, it's been a great time. This is no different.

So, for me, it's been a mix of old and new... it's resulting in an exciting big of theatre I think.

It's hard to give too much 'behind the scenes' without giving too much of the show away. I find that in movies, tv and even theatre, there are few surprises. Too often, I think audiences can see exactly where a story is going to go. This piece is different... It's very unique and provides some turns that most people can't predict. It's both refreshing and unsettling-- in the best possible ways.

The best preview I can give is to just ask if you've ever googled yourself. If you've ever typed your name into a search engine, you've seen the sites it brings up. Some of these sites might be about you; others might be about different people who share your name. Imagine that somehow, you met someone else who shares your name. Would having that one thing in common make up for any diffrences you share?

This may make you think twice about googling yourself again...

The Play about The Coach

For the passionate theatre fan and the casual sports fan

For the passionate sports fan and the casual theatre fan


The Play about The Coach
the true meaning of March Madness



Premiering Thurs March 12th @ 7:30 at the Stone Cottage

GREEN press photos

March 5, 7, 9

Stone Cottage--Addison Theatre Center

SceneShop Offers a Surprising Ride with "Vince Banyon"

2009 is SceneShop's fifth year to participate in Out of the Loop. In the past, we've offered programs of three or so short pieces, since that's what we specialize in. But this year, we have something new. It started last August, when longtime contributor Grayson harper (a noted Fort Worth writer and visual artist) approached me, saying he was writing a piece about an hour long and would I be interested in looking at it? "It's pretty weird," he cautioned me. Weird, however, has never been a deterrent to SceneShop and after I read the first pages Grayson gave me, I couldn't wait to read the rest.
Long story short, SceneShop's contribution to the 2009 Out of the Loop Fringe festival is the world premiere of "The Interrogation of Vince Banyon." This is a smart and surprising piece and we've assembled a cast- Seth Johnston, Nicholas Irion, Stephen Eyre- that's up to the challenge. After a read-thru in early December, Grayson made some revisions to his script and our rehearsals will be starting soon. I'll be back with more info.