AtticRep

Octavio Solis’s breakthrough drama, Lydia, has made the El Paso-born playwright a national sensation in the theater world. But for the 50-year-old Solis, who has toiled in the theatrical trenches for half his lifetime, the idea of overnight success chafes a bit. He’d prefer to be described as an “up-and-coming” playwright. More

 

AtticRep, one of the city’s professional theatre ensembles, is opening its new season this week with a play about a Mexican American family navigating life in 1970’s El Paso. "Lydia," by playwright Octavio Solis, explores the quest of immigrants searching for an American identity while trying to understand their Mexican heritage. It also deals with some uncomfortable dynamics of a dysfunctional family using both realism and fantasy. Director Marisela Barrera joined Terry Gildea in the studio to talk about this rich and complex play. More

 

"Some things are so awful, you have to laugh." So says Stevie (the amazing Gloria Sanchez), the wife in "The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?" She spends most of the play enmeshed in a cruel lesson about just that sort of thing — her much-adored husband Martin (Andy Thornton), the love of her life, has just been revealed as a cheater... More

Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia? uses one of society’s few remaining unmentionable taboos to explore the limits of tolerance. It begins as a conventional drawing-room family comedy,then verges on absurdist farce only to metastasize into blood-soaked Shakespearean tragedy.... More

The basics of each Forum Theater outing are the same. Director Roberto Prestigiacomo chooses a topic; he and the rest of the company spend weeks researching that topic, including conducting interviews with people on every side of the issue; then they create a short theater piece.... More

Texas Public Radio Story on "Borders and Walls"

Act, participate, discuss: Play explores immigration

Just a few minutes into AtticRep's crackling production of “True West,” younger brother Lee has already peed in his mother's spotless kitchen sink, made a serious dent in the six-pack he's lugging around and attacked his older brother.... More

He doesn't seem entirely OK — he does believe that he is Abraham Lincoln, and frequently expresses himself through the 16th president's speeches — but he doesn't appear to be dangerous... More

To borrow an absurd expression, if you’re being racially profiled, you might as well sit back and enjoy it. Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat begins abruptly as two investigators search an obliging Khaled’s (Nate Beal) inner-city apartment after a terrorist act...
Listen to the Story on Texas Public Radio
More

In a short period of time, Arab American writer Khaled set up a series of clandestine meetings he didn't tell his girlfriend about, and, according to a dancer, behaved oddly at a strip clup. More

Did he or didn't he? And - more to the point - is he or isn't he? Those questions are a pretty good jumping-off point for discussion of "Back of the Throat," a post-9-11 black comedy receiving its San Antonio debut this weekend courtesy of AtticRep. More

'Mr Marmalade' disturbing, fun

The secret lives of toddlers

Strong acting, directing marks 'Just a Kiss'

"Just a Kiss"? Ha! There's a big wink in that title, since every smooch in the AtticRep production is weighted with meaning. There is no such thing as "just a kiss" in the backstage universe created by playwright Catherine Bush. More

AtticRep -- Best Theater Event of 2007

OK, it’s no secret that the Current has a big hard-on for AtticRep, Trinity University’s resident theater company reborn last spring under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Roberto Prestigiacomo and Executive Director Timothy Hedgepeth. More

'Fat Pig' a thoughtful look at self-esteem, body issues

When two people click right away, it's a rare and beautiful thing. "Fat Pig," the final offering in AtticRep's stellar debut season, begins with that kind of meeting between Helen (Jennifer Colacino) and Tom (Eric Lozano) at a crowded diner. It's a meeting straight out of a romantic comedy, and it probably would proceed as one, except for one thing. More

Phat Pig

You are what you eat. You're also who you drink with, or so Neil LaBute's Fat Pig deftly intimates. Yes, in the corporate world of non-work and non-play, it's your non-friends who define you, and usually they're assholes. More

Cast, staging sparkle in 'Last Days of Judas Iscariot'

AtticRep launched its first full season last weekend with a richly rewarding staging of "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot." Stephen Adly Guirgis' challenging and frequently funny script digs into meaty matters such as faith, justice, betrayal, God, life after 9-11 and whether Judas got a fair shake. More

The Play's the Thing

Theater in San Antonio is currently weighted in favor of two very specific demographics — everyone under 16 years of age, and everyone over 65. If you don’t fall into one of those groups, you’re pretty much screwed. More

Intense drama short, but powerful

Nick, the central character in Harold Pinter's “One for the Road,” is a man who loves his work. After all, as he notes to the mostly silent man seated before him, “I can do absolutely anything I like.” The only indication of anything sinister in the first few minutes of the play, the debut offering from the AtticRep, is the stark terror in the eyes of that man. The more Nick talks — and he does almost all of the talking — the more unsettling the show becomes. More