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PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT video trailer

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:13:55 +0000

Reserve your tickets for PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT

Interview with Precious Little Talent Playwright Ella Hickson

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:16:47 +0000

Ella Hickson was kind enough to set aside some time to answer some questions from Cap T’s dramaturg Carrie Klypchak. Here is what she had to say about PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT, America, and playwrighting.

You have previously stated elsewhere that PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT contains autobiographical elements. Could you discuss a bit about the inspiration for writing the play and the developmental process of the show’s practical realization?

I wrote the show in the Winter of 2009 My first play ‘Eight’ had just done very well and transferred to New York. I had just graduated from university and was immediately thrown into this huge adventure because of ‘Eight’. The cast and I ended up in Washington for Obama’s inauguration – it was, for me, a moment of huge hope, it felt like everything was possible. I knew, however, that I was returning to a job market that was being thwarted by the recession and that the adventure I was on may soon come to a halt. I suppose the play grew out of this opposition between a moment of huge potential and the fear of falling between the cracks.

The practical realisation of the show came out of a developmental process which used a first draft of the script as a jumping off point. From there we worked through ideas and concepts that eventually led us to the finished article.

THE GUARDIAN describes PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT as a piece about “the need to retain your optimism in a cruel world.” There also seems to be some interrogation into the concepts of “hope” vs. “blind hope” via the characters’ perspectives and actions. Could you speak to the incorporation of these themes in the play via the current challenges that you see in contemporary society?

There is no denying that the economic climate has changed dramatically over the past few years. This shift has been felt most keenly by those that did not yet have a strong foot-hold in the jobs market. For graduates there have been fewer jobs and the paths to success and security have been much less certain than they were previously – I suppose Precious Little Talent is a call to arms to the generation facing these challenges. It asks if a generation that feels forgotten will have the hope that they’ll need to get them through tough times.

Besides PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT, I know that you have written other plays (for example, EIGHT and HOT MESS), that include an American character amidst British characters. What is it about this construction that attracts you as a playwright?

The inclusion of an American character in a lot of my plays is due to two things, the first practical – the second more ideological. One of my close friends in the theatrical collective that I worked in, and from which my first plays were born, had an American accent whereas the rest of us were British, so I ended up writing an American character for that actor. Having said this – I have just completed a new play that was written to commission – (i.e. I have no idea who will be in it) – and again it features an American. I think on a more ideological note the Anglo-American relationship interests me. It’s a complicated relationship and one that is fast falling from world dominance – that fall from grace I find fascinating.

Capital T is currently producing the American premiere of PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT. Do you feel that British audiences and American audiences will differ in their reactions to the play?

I’ll be very interested to see what the American reaction to the play is. It’s rare to find a British play that is pro-American and I think PLT is. It is occasionally critical but on the whole I think it celebrates American optimism – I’m fascinated to see how an American audience would react to that.

In PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT, the audience is looking back on the years of 2008/2009. What would you like the audience to take away from reflecting on the events of these years from a 2012 perspective?

The play has a very simple message : that we must believe in things. In times of trouble , cynicism must take a back seat. I think this message may even be more valid now than it was in 2008.

What playwrights do you feel have been most influential to your playwriting style? Why?

I have been very lucky with the advice and guidance that I have received. I have been mentored by some great British writers – David Greig and Simon Stephens most of all – I owe both of them a huge amount in terms of the technique that they have taught me. My love of theatre started out with Tennessee Williams and now I like a huge range of writers from Richard Bean through to Caryl Churchill but I wouldn’t say I was directly influenced one way or the other. I just try to learn from everything I read and hope I take the good from those that have gone before me.

What initially drew you to playwriting? Can you speak a bit about your process of getting started in the field?

The story of my starting writing is very simple. My university offered a free slot to the company that was voted to have the most interesting idea for a show. I pitched the idea of ‘Eight’ monologues and it succeeded. Once we had the slot I had to write the show – and so ‘Eight’ was created. From there it was just a case of keeping writing.

As a young playwright, you have already received much critical recognition for your work, such as receiving the Edinburgh Fringe’s Fringe First Award, The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, and the NSDF Emerging Artists Award. How do you see that these honors have affected your work as a professional playwright?

I hope they haven’t. Very soon you realise that awards, whilst they are lovely to receive – you can’t allow them to mean very much. If you write in order to try and win awards you inevitably try to please too many people at the same time and you lose faith in what you are doing. It is better to just make the work as good as you can make it and if good things happen then it’s an added bonus.

You are well known for writing scripts that speak to the realities of the “twenty-something” generation. Do you plan to continue this focus, and what do you see next in your playwriting efforts?

I have just completed a commission from Headlong Theatre on the topic of Fossil Fuels and their depletion – so this was not restricted to twenty-somethings at all. And now I am working on a version of Peter Pan – so again, not twenty-somethings. It may be something I go back to at some point but for now it’s nice to have a break and to focus on characters and issues that effect all ages.

Spirits to Enforce named Top 10 Theatrical Wonder of 2011

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:53:41 +0000

“With a true sensitivity to language, serious comic chops, and seamless ensemble work, Gary Jaffe and his superteam of actors transformed The Tempest into something ‘rich and strange.’” – Robert Faires Arts Editor – Austin Chronicle

Cap T’s production of SPIRITS TO ENFORCE by Mickle Maher was recently named a Top 10 Theatrical Wonder of 2011 by Austin Chronicle Arts Editor Robert Faires. The show was listed at the number 2 spot bested only by the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of BLACK WATCH. It is pretty amazing what you can do with 12 phones, 12 amazing actors and a truly innovative and amazing script that includes superheroes, submarines, and the Tempest. We are proud and excited that someone else enjoyed the production as much as we enjoyed producing it.

Directed by Gary Jaffe as part of our New Directions program and starring an amazing ensemble of actors including Karen Alvarado, Travis Bedard, Jay Fraley, Jenny Gravenstein, Allison Gregory, Braden Hunt, Tyler Jones, Stephen Mercantel, Toby Minor, Antoinette Robinson, Blake Smith, and LaTasha Stephens the show became the hit of FronteraFest 2011 and the 2011 Austin theatre season. After the play closed in February SPIRITS went on to to win the Austin Critics Table award for Best Comedy and Best Sound Design (Bret Hamann) as well as being nominated for Best Ensemble.

SPIRITS was also recently nominated for 3 Austin Theatre Examiner awards including Best Featured Actress in a Comedy – Jenny Gravenstein (The Page), Best Ensemble in a Comedy, and Best Director of a Comedy – Gary Jaffe. You can read the entire list of the Top 10 Theatrical Wonders of 2011 here

We posted some of the photos from the award winning production below. Enjoy!

Auditions for Precious Little Talent November 27th

admin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:06:26 +0000

C
apital T is excited to announce auditions for its next production Precious Little Talent by Ella Hickson. We are having open casting for all 3 roles. All actors will be paid.

When

Auditions will be held Sunday November 27th from 2-5pm.

Roles

Joey – Female – 24 years old – British Accent

Joey’s got a first-class college degree, 20k worth of debt and works in a pub. Shunned by the world, rejected by her estranged father, she finds herself falling in love with an idealistic young American…

Sam – Male – 19 years old

The idealistic young American that Joey falls in love with. He currently is George’s caregiver, but has big plans for his future.

George – Male 50-60 years old – British Accent

Joey’s father and Sam’s employer. A former world class academic who is suffering from early onset dementia.

About the Play

Precious Little Talent is the story of two 20-somethings graduating into a world that’s sold them down the river. Londoner Joey’s got a first class degree, 20K worth of debt and works in a pub. It’s Christmas and she flees to New York in a bid to find comfort with her estranged father. Just as the world seems to have shunned her, so will he. Yet in the face of such rejection, world-weary Joey falls in love with an idealistic young American and learns what it is to have hope in the future.

Rehearsal Dates and Performance

Rehearsal will begin in December with performances in the last two weeks of January and the first weekend of February.

We anticipate working around actor’s holiday plans.

Sign Up

Audition by appointment. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script.

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Cap T Wins 3 B Iden Payne Awards

admin — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:49:59 +0000

Cap T took home 3 B Iden Payne Awards at the ceremony held at the State Theatre last Monday. Help us congratulate Travis Dean and Rebecca Robinson as they took home top honors in their respective Categories. This was Travis Dean’s second time to win this particular pair of awards while working with Capital T. He won Best Featured Actor for I ♥ Wal-Mart and Outstanding Fight Choreography for Killer Joe 2 years ago. A list of all the winners can be found here.

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Drama

Travis Dean – Baylor in A LIE OF THE MIND

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Drama

Rebecca Robinson – Beth in A LIE OF THE MIND

Outstanding Fight Choreography

Travis Dean – HUNTER GATHERERS

Cap T Announces its 2011-2012 Season

admin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:08:17 +0000

Capital T has will lay out a feast of theatre for you to devour in 2012. Bears, apocalypses, first opportunities, new beginnings, and a thanksgiving dinner are at the center of these four exciting new plays Cap T will unleash on Austin audiences in the upcoming year. The first course that we will serve is our New Directions production PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT by Ella Hickson. PLT was the breakout hit of the Edinburgh and London last year, and Ella Hickson has been hailed as ”something of a wunderkind in new writing”. Don’t forget that last year’s New Directions production of SPIRITS TO ENFORCE directed by Gary Jaffe went on to win Best Drama from the Austin Critics Table Awards. We promise this one will not disappoint.

Next on the menu…For those of you who loved last Fall’s smash hit and award winning play HUNTER GATHERERS we would like to recommend BOOM by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. There will be just as many laughs, but not as many lambs. Set in a bunker at the end of the world as we know it, it outrageously chronicles a scientist and his unwilling partner’s attempts at repopulating the earth.

Cap T would recommend pairing EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR by Lauren Gunderson with your other selections. One reviewer describes it as: “If the Coen Brothers decided to set a feminist revenge tale in Atlanta and sprinkle it with Dixie Chicks pixie dust, it might look something like “Exit, Pursued by a Bear,” a raucous comedy… of friendship, domestic abuse and performance-as-catharsis.” You will not want to miss this over the top revenge comedy.

You could hardly call THE PAIN AND THE ITCH by Bruce Norris a dessert. It is more like a third, fourth, and fifth course. To summarize it simply as “the worst Thanksgiving ever!” would not do justice to recent Pulitzer Prize recipient Bruce Norris’ scathing satire on the idealized American family. It is one Thanksgiving dinner that might make you appreciate your family more.

Check out more info about each production below!

January 2012

Following up our recent hits of SPIRITS TO ENFORCE, DYING CITY, THE BIRD and THE BEE, and I GOOGLE MYSELF

Precious Little Talent

by Ella Hickson

January 2012
Directed by Scott Tipton

The US premiere of the break out hit of Edinburgh and London

It’s Christmas and Londoner Joey flees to New York in a bid to find comfort with her estranged father. Just as the world seems to have shunned her, so will he. Yet in the face of such rejection world-weary Joey falls in love with an idealistic young American. Precious Little Talent is a story of fathers and daughters, of aspiration and frustration, of memory and loss.

Ella Hickson is London’s hottest new playwright. Her debut play EIGHT which won a Fringe First, The Carol Tambor ‘Best of Edinburgh’ Award, was also nominated for an Evening Standard Award. She was recently nominated for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright by the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for PRECIOUS LITTLE TALENT.

★★★★ – “It is young, full of spluttering energy and has a real fire in its belly about the need to retain your optimism in a cruel world – Hickson really is a little bit special” The Guardian UK

★★★★ – “Radiant – wonderfully witty – you will be left wanting, but for all the right reasons” The Telegraph

May 2012

Cap T’s followup to last years smash hit HUNTER GATHERERS

boom

by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

Directed by Mark Pickell

May 31- June 23

A marine biologist hosts a journalism student in his subterranean biology lab for an erotic “casual encounter.” As disaster looms upon the planet, the fate of their “date” takes on monumental importance. BOOM is an epic and intimate comedy of evolution, loneliness, and how to survive.

“Mr. Nachtrieb has a gift for darkly funny dialogue and an appealing way of approaching big themes sideways. [boom] winds up speaking, quietly and piquantly, to our enduring fascination with and need for myths about the beginning of life as well as its end.” —The New York Times.

August 2012

Thelma and Louise meets Killer Joe in this southern fried fingerlickin new comedy by Lauren Gunderson

“Bear is RAW and HILARIOUS” – American Theatre Magazine

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

by Lauren Gunderson

Directed by Mark Pickell

August 16-September 8

Nan decides it’s finally time to leave her abusive husband Kyle and make a run for it…but not until she’s tied him up, covered him in honey and invited the neighborhood bear in for a snack. Lauren Gunderson’s gut-busting, outrageous revenge comedy about dreams, healing, and the simple joy of tying a dickhead to the living room chair.

“If the Coen Brothers decided to set a feminist revenge tale in Atlanta and sprinkle it with Dixie Chicks pixie dust, it might look something like “Exit, Pursued by a Bear,” a raucous comedy… of friendship, domestic abuse and performance-as-catharsis.” – ArtsCritic Atlanta

October 2012

Just in time for Thanksgiving

“BRUISING AND BITING!” - LA Times

The Pain and the Itch

by Bruce Norris

Directed by Mark Pickell

October 21-November 17

A young daughter in serious need of attention. A ravenous creature possibly prowling the upstairs bedrooms. An average Thanksgiving for one privileged family unravels into an exposé of disastrous choices and less-than-altruistic motives. A scathing comedy about the politics of class and race, a controversial, painfully human examination of denial and its consequences.

“Playgoers hungry for smart, vicious drama will feel like an itch has been scratched.” —Time Out NY

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Cap T receives 8 B Iden Payne Nominations

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:09:19 +0000

Capital T Theatre received 8 B Iden Payne Nominations for the 2010-2011 season. HUNTER GATHERERS and A LIE OF THE MIND split the nominations evenly at four a piece. Capital T was the only company nominated for both Outstanding Comedy and Drama as HUNTER GATHERERS was nominated for Outstanding Production of a Comedy and A LIE OF THE MIND was nominated for Outstanding production of a Drama. Travis Dean received two nominations for his work on Cap T for Fight Choreography (Hunter Gatherers) and Outstanding Featured Actor in a Drama (Baylor A LIE OF THE MIND). He was nominated and won both of the same Payne awards 2 years ago for fight choreography for KILLER JOE and acting in I ♥ WALMART. With his nomination for directing HUNTER GATHERERS this is Mark Pickell’s 4th consecutive year to be nominated for Outstanding Director of a Comedy. Here is the full list of nominations for Cap T.

Outstanding Production of a Comedy
Hunter Gatherers

Outstanding Direction of a Comedy
Mark Pickell – Hunter Gatherers

Outstanding Fight Choreography
Travis Dean – Hunter Gatherers

Outstanding Cast Performance
Kenneth Wayne Bradley, Rebecca Robinson, Liz Fisher, Brad Price – Hunter Gatherers

Outstanding Production of a Drama
A Lie of the Mind

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Drama
Travis Dean – Baylor – A Lie of the Mind

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Drama
Rebecca Robinson – Beth – A Lie of the Mind

Outstanding Original Score
Jerry Hagins, Jesse Gregg and Chris Peterson – A Lie of the Mind

Help us also congratulate Cap T regular Joey Hood on his acting nomination for Paper Chair’s production of Baal. Gary Jaffe who directed our New Directions show last year SPIRITS TO ENFORCE was also nominated for Best Direction of a Comedy for The Dudleys!: A Family Game. The awards ceremony will be held on October 24th at the State Theatre downtown. Members of the Greater Austin Creative Alliance can cast their ballots before the awards ceremony to determine the winners in each category. A full list of the nominees can be found here.

Cap T wins 4 Austin Critics’ Table Awards

admin — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:47:52 +0000

“Oh it was a night married to memory!” - Ariel from Spirits to Enforce

Cap T won big at the Austin Critics’ Table awards held last night winning 4 awards out of 12 nominations. Each of the 3 eligible shows received some type of recognition.

The highlight of the evening for Cap T was definitely Spirits to Enforce winning Best Drama. Other nominees in the category included “At Home at the Zoo,” Palindrome Theatre, “August: Osage County,” Zach Theatre, “Machinal,” Paper Chairs, and Cap T’s production own of ‘Bug’. Directed by Gary Jaffe, this is the first New Direction’s production to win top honors at either major Austin awards. Brett Hamann’s soundscape that created a creaky superheroic submarine was also honored with Best Sound Design.

Cap T artistic director Mark Pickell won Best Direction for Bug and Hunter Gatherers. This is the second consecutive year that Mark has been awarded Best Direction by the Critic’s Table as he won the award in 2010 for Killer Joe. Mark also shared top honors in scenic design with Tommy Grubbs as the Critics’ Table awarded Best Scenic Design to their collaboration on the dilapidated motel room for Bug.

For a full list of winners from the awards click here

Cap T nominated for 12 Austin Critics’ Table Awards

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 06:18:50 +0000

Cap T is ecstatic to announce that we have received 12 Austin Critics’ Table Nominations. All 3 eligible shows received the highest honor in their category including Best Drama BUG and SPIRITS TO ENFORCE and Best Comedy HUNTER GATHERERS. BUG hauled in half of the nominations by itself recording 6 noms. The nominations span production, acting, directing, and design.

The awards ceremony is at 7 p.m. June 6 at Cap City Comedy Club, 8120 Research Blvd. It is free and open to the public. Check out the other nominees here.

Best Production of a Drama

BUG
SPIRITS TO ENFORCE

Best Production of a Comedy

HUNTER GATHERERS

Direction

Mark Pickell BUG/HUNTER GATHERERS

Acting in a Leading Role

Katie DeBuys BUG
Joey Hood BUG
Brad Price HUNTER GATHERERS

Ensemble Performance

SPIRITS TO ENFORCE

Scenic Design

Mark Pickell and Tommy Grubbs BUG

Lighting Design

Mark Pickell BUG

Sound Design

Adam Hilton BUG
Brett Hamann SPIRITS TO ENFORCE

Production Photos of A Lie of the Mind

admin — Wed, 25 May 2011 05:03:49 +0000

Cap T is proud to give you a sneak peak of A LIE OF THE MIND by Sam Shepard currently running through June 4th at Salvage Vanguard Theatre. Our friend Ryan Joy snapped some photos during a recent run of the show and we think they came out quite nice. Some key attractions: Paul Davis’ wonderfully fragmented set and Cheryl Painter’s 80’s-riffic costumes. Directed by Mark Pickell, A LIE OF THE MIND features Kenneth Wayne Bradley, Melanie Dean, Travis Dean, Joey Hood, Liz Fisher, Karen Jambon, Mark Pickell, and Rebecca Robinson.