Baytown Little Theater

Today was Quad IV Day at the Texas Nonprofit Theatre AACTFest 2013 conference, with performances by all four of the theatres from the southeastern Texas quadrant that includes Baytown and neighboring cities. First was Port Arthur’s Act 1 Scene 1 presenting The Diary of Adam and Eve, which is a heart-felt adaptation of Mark Twain’s witty story of the First Couple. Approaching Lavendar was a delightful introduction of the Katy Visual & Performing Arts Center to TNT participants. They were a fun group to have at conference. Dickinson’s Bay Area Harbour Playhouse, led by legendary director Bennie Nipper, offered the comedy Dashing Through the Snow. And BLT’s God of Carnage capped off the night with a raucous performance that left the audience whooping with laughter. Baytown, you can be proud of your director, cast, and crew who have represented you with pride and confidence. All of the companies await the announcement of the results tomorrow night. There will be two more performances tomorrow afternoon.

BLT’s company includes, front row left, below, Amy Miller Martin, Chelsea Denard, Stephanie Whitley, Jaime Garza, and Taylor Dobbs. Back row, Kenny Haney, Stephen Bent, Ryan Marshall, and Ryan Martin.

Today featured four shows as the kickoff to the primary activity of the TNT AACTFest Conference for 2013. Opening the performances was Desdemona, a play about a hamderchief, Paula Vogel’s riff on the female side of Shakespeare’s Othello: fun and erotic, but poignant. These Shining Lives is a stage version of the story of women who were subjected to exposure to radiation poisoning the workplace of the Twenties & Thirties in America. The evening block featured a tender Love, Loss, and What I Wore, written by sisters Nora & Delia Ephron, about the central theme of fashion in the lives of women. The evening ended (well, except for the hospitality suite) with the festival’s first of two musicals, Spring Awakening, a rock music adaptation of youthful sexual discovery, winner of the Tony for best musical in 2007.

The BLT company of God of Carnage, pictured below, awaits its opportunity to “show their stuff” Friday night.

The first day of the 2013 Texas Nonprofit Theatres Conference has begun. The theme this year is Survive & Thrive, in recognition of most of us having lived through the end of the world supposedly predicted by the Mayan calendar for December 21, 2012. Yes, we are still here, and we have come through the recent years better than ever, despite economic stress and the challenges of funding nonprofit artistic endeavors. Everyone here has great hopes for the coming years.

The conference offers three mornings of enticing workshops, such as Alathea Blischke’s Costuming on a Budget , and Rebecca Allard’s Funding the Arts: Mission Possible. but we’re really here for Texas AACTFest 2013, the biennial play festival to crown the outstanding production of community theatre in Texas that will represent the state at the regional level in April, hopefully the national AACTFest in Carmel, IN, in June. Ten Texas theatres will be performing in five show blocks over the next three days, with the advancing show announced at the awards ceremony Saturday evening.

Stay tuned for more.

As I write this, the cast & crew of BLT’s God of Carnage, preparing for their performance at TNT’s AACTFest at the Medical Center of Lewisville Grand Theatre, are demonstrating their focus and dedication to putting on the best show they can. Under the direction of Taylor Dobbs, this group is well disciplined, with time spent getting the placement and assembly of the set pieces located precisely and acting exercises a part of their rehearsal ritual, even though a complete run-through is not on the agenda for tonight. This is all about becoming familiar with the stage, and moving the performance they’ve nurtured in rehearsals back in Baytown to a stage they’ve never seen before tonight.
So AD Jaime Garza, SM Stephanie Whitley, sound tech Stephen Bent, and crew member Ryan Marshall hustle about seeing to detail, Kenny Haney & Ryan Martin wield their tools to assemble the set pieces, and Amy Miller-Martin and Chelsea Denard take care to make sure the furniture is spaced perfectly, even as these same actors give their ear and their energies to follow the guiding directions of director Taylor Dobbs. This group is representing the Baytown Little Theater just as we would want them to do on any stage in the country. Break a leg, G of C.
Click here to learn about Lewisville’s Grand Theatre.