What's Goin' On? (Workshop Production)

• The Generic Ensemble Company in conjunction with LuckyChaos Theatre present What’s Goin’ On? (Workshop) Friday-Saturday May 3-4; 10-11 8pm Salvage Vanguard Theatre (2803 Manor Rd, Austin, TX 78722). What’s Goin’ On is a an ensemble-based, original performance reinterpreting Bertolt Brecht’s classic play, The Good Person of Szechwan, exploring binary notions of Good/Evil, Male/Female, Wealth/Poverty, Coercion/Consent and Artifice/Authenticity. Simultaneously critiquing Brecht’s treatment of gender, sexuality and orientalism in Szechwan while also drawing inspiration from it, this show examines the question: What does it mean to be virtuous in our current historical moment, when societal pressures and inequality continue to marginalize our bodies and lives? Created from scratch by the performance ensemble, What’s Goin’ On’? employs new text created by ensemble members layered with activist aesthetics, choreographed movement, indeterminate games, quotidian rituals made extraordinary, and simultaneous conflicting actions to present a dense and complex collage. Drawing material relevant to ensemble members’ daily lives, What’s Goin’ On’? reflects the individual identities and personalities of each collaborator, while also reflecting The Generic Ensemble Company’s continued commitment to make the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant, body-centered theatre that showcases mostly-queer identified, mostly-people of color who are mostly women-identified. This piece is an in-progress performance featuring: Morgan Robyn Collado, Kimberly Curette, Kirsche Dickson, Ashley Hicks, Anna McConnell, James McMaster, Julie Moore, Julián Padilla, Saray de Jesus Rosales, Wendy Vastine, Leng Wong, and kt shorb with support from Kimberly Alidio, Margaux Binder, Paige Binder, and Laura Khalil. Tickets are sliding scale $5-10. What’s Goin’ On? is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

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Auditions!

Casting Call 

Auditions: Feb 2-3, 2013. Please email ktshorb[at]hotmail[dot]com for time and location. The Generic Ensemble Company (GenEnCo) seeks performer-collaborators interested in experimental approaches to the work of Bertolt Brecht. Investigating racial representation, the 1970s, and various modes of story-telling, we will devise and ensemble-based theatre piece for an in-progress showing in May 2013, which will eventually lead to a full-length production in 2013-14. We are looking for people who are: open to collaborative process; interested in progressive, critical, and politically-engaged conversations and actions; engaged in body-centered work; and members of communities that are historically marginalized or disenfranchised. People of color and gender queers are especially encouraged to audition. Experience in physical theatre, movement, mime, and ensemble-based work is a plus, but not necessary. GenEnCo is an Austin-based theatre troupe that makes the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant, body-centered theatre. 

Rehearsal, April 18, 2012.

The Experiment

The Generic Ensemble Company is thrilled to present its fifth production, The Experiment, an evening-length play asking the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Answers to this question are explored through the play’s surprising, complicated characters: a cyborg, an immortal mutant, and a singing, perverse scientist/lab assistant. The Experiment draws its structure from world’s fairs and vaudeville, creating a speculative future reminiscent of the turn of the 20th century. The play showcases performances by (queer) women of color investigating the relationship between modern human subjects-experiments, turn-of-the century freak shows, and anecdotal narratives of masculine/butch women.

Anne Bogart, Artistic Director of the SITI Company, and award-winning stage director has said, “I love what kt shorb does and how she does it, both onstage and off. Whatever she is up to is not to be missed.”

The Experiment was made possible by a generous grant from the Open Meadows Foundation and a Q Rental Subsidy Grant from the Creative Fund. This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com


Fri-Sun, May 4-6
Thu-Sun, May 10-13.
8pm all evenings at Blue TheatreSunday, May 6 & Thursday, May 10 – “Pay What You Can” Night

Tickets can be purchased in advance for $12 at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/239694
Or at the door for $15 (Cash, Check, Credit accepted)

The BLUE Theatre
916 Springdale Road
Austin, TX 78702


The Experiment
by Ana-Maurine Lara & kt shorb
Directed by kt shorb
Choreography by Tonya Pennie
Featuring: Saray de Jesus Rosales as Lucy, Krysta Gonzales as Dolly, and Smalls McCoy as Dora; with dancing by Kimberly Caterino, Kaitlyn Jolly, and Kirsche Dickson.
Dramaturgy by Kimberly Alidio
Stage Management by Margaux Binder
Lighting Design by Paige Binder
Set Design by Joshua Baker and Ethan Stover
Costume and Prop Design by Camille Deprang and Love and Monsters
Poster Design by Armand Alidio

Facebook: www.facebook.com/GenericEnsembleCompany
Twitter: @genenco
Tumblr: http://experimentbygenenco.tumblr.com
To donate to this production, please visit: http://www.indiegogo.com/theexperiment

GenEnCo Receives Open Meadows Foundation Grant!

Just got the letter awarding GenEnCo with an Open Meadows Foundation grant toward developing our full-length show, "The Experiment." Hooray!
"The Experiment" is about the connection between sexual and scientific experimentation in the contexts of colonial histories. Set in a laboratory/sanatorium in both the future and past, "The Experiment" asks: what does it mean to be human when everything we encounter takes that humanity away? Co-written by GenEnCo Producing Artistic Director, kt shorb and award-winning writer, Ana-Maurine Lara, "The Experiment" will premiere in Austin in Spring/Summer 2012.

Before This Was Texas--In Progress

Fri & Sat, September 23 & 24; 7pm: Visual Arts Center
FREE and Open to the Public

Using collaborative ensemble work to create dramatic movement based on poetry by Austin-based poet Kimberly Alidio, Before This Was Texas explores bodies crossing borders and our relationship to this land called Central Texas. The Generic Ensemble Company stretches the boundaries of both form and content through a collaborative process that presents bodies that are still marginal in U.S. theatre and dance today in performance. Featuring performances by kt shorb, Saray De Jesus Rosales, and Krysta Gonzales, this iteration of Before This Was Texas will include guiding the audience through the Visual Arts Center Galleries in a site-specific exploration of space and time.

The Generic Ensemble Company makes the invisible visible through bold, socially relevant, body-centered performance. We embrace experimental approaches in both the rehearsal room and public performance by asking complex theoretical questions based on rigorous scholarship. We believe that creative work is a source to mine profound discourse and strategies for social change. Theory, praxis, and aesthetics are interconnected and equally integral to create a powerful, successful work.

Before This Was Texas is made possible with the support of the University of Texas at Austin Department of Art and Art History and the UT-Austin Engaging Research component of the University Co-op Cohen New Works Festival. This project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com.

For more information about the performances and the Visual Arts Center are here and here.

Info on directions are here.

"The Experiment", an in-progress reading

Thursday, August 11 at 7pm at

The Vortex Repertory Company


The Experiment

Written by Ana-Maurine Lara and kt shorb

Featuring: Krysta Gonzales, Saray De Jesus Rosales, and Julianna Wright.

What does it mean to be human? The imaginations and desires of Dolly the Cyborg and Lucy the Mutant come together in a laboratory ruled over by Dora the Attendant. The Experiment explores historical legacies of colonialism, world's fairs, and scientific inquiry by drawing from personalized stories of queer and racialized resistance. This staged reading will showcase an in-progress script written by co-founders of the critically acclaimed Stamp Lab, Ana-Maurine Lara and kt shorb.


Donations encouraged, but none turned away for lack of funds.