THROWS LIKE A GIRL

Brought to you by Green Mango Real Estate and Austin Motel,

along with all of our generous 2007/2008 Season Sponsors.

A provocative performance festival designed to highlight female theatre artists’ contributions to our cultural landscape and to promote women’s voices within Austin and in the American theatre. The triumphant return of TLAG features three of the nation’s most influential female performance artists bringing works never before seen in Austin. The festival will also include many Open Forum events that are Free and Open to the Public, including talkbacks, Q&A sessions and Performance Workshops with each visiting artist.

WHEN

February 7 - 23, 2008

WHERE

The Off Center, 2211- A Hidalgo, Austin, TX 78702 | DIRECTIONS

BLUE STATE RANTS

(In a red state ecology)

February 7 - 9, 2008
written and performed by RENO

WONG FLEW OVER

THE CUCKOO'S NEST

February 14 - 16, 2008
written and performed by Kristina Wong

direction by Katie Pearl

SUGAR

CANCELLED

February 21 - 23, 2008
written and performed by Robbie McCauley

photo by Annie Leibovitz

photo by Corky Lee

photo by Ian Thomas

ABOUT THE SHOWS

In her traditional stream of consciousness style, the tangents Reno will skillfully connect in Blue State Rants include hedge funds, loan bundling and the global economy; history's unfortunate tendency to repeat itself; our purpose here on earth; her current position on the Democratic candidates; and a piece of optimistic news recently given to her by Howard Dean, to be revealed in the show.

"Rush Limbaugh's vision of the Anti Christ."

- New York Newsday

"If Sandra Bernhard and (Lea) DeLaria produced a demon spawn, it would be Reno: too flamboyant to be butch, too strident to be femme. She pulls out limber pratfalls and oddball associations – like the quip that men wear neckties to keep their penises out of their faces." - The Village Voice

Incisive writer and performer Kristina Wong mixes sharp humor and psychology in Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a swear-to-god-not-autobiographical, serio-comic portrayal of the high incidence of anxiety, depression and mental illness among Asian American women. Tangling, spinning, and mixing yarns, she asks: Which came first? The sky-high suicides of Asian American women? The maddening world? And when the heck do we get to climax? Wong’s irreverent and provocative work has given her a national cult following for “politically charged art with unapologetic humor." –Bitch Magazine.

Knitters, cuckoo and not, are invited to knit in the audience during the show. Free yarn giveaways from ArtYarns (flash your sticks and hooks!).

"One woman show keeps the laughs coming as it tackles issue of depression." - Philadelphia Metro

Award-winning theater artist Robbie McCauley will present Sugar, a solo performance piece that examines her own struggle and survival with diabetes as connected to slavery, war, work, romance and food. Written in a circular, historical style, Sugar is the latest installment in a series of performance theater works by McCauley that refer to her family’s survival since the 19th century as part of the African-American working class.

In 1998, her Buffalo Project was highlighted as one of the "the 51 (or so) Greatest Avant-Garde Moments" by the Village Voice, a roster that included work by artists such as Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and John Cage.

OPEN FORUM EVENTS (FREE!)

Thursday, Feb. 7

Talkback following performance

UPDATE!! Friday, Feb. 8 • 2pm - 3pm

Q&A Session

at UT Winship Bld. Rm. 2.112

Saturday, Feb. 9 • 1pm - 4pm

Performance Workshop

at The Off Center

To register for the Performance Workshop,

please email info@rudemechs.com.

Thursday, Feb. 14

Talkback following performance

Friday, Feb. 15 • 2pm - 3pm

Q&A Session

at UT Winship Bld. Rm. 2.112

Saturday, Feb. 16 •1pm - 4pm

Performance Workshop

at The Off Center

To register for the Performance Workshop,

please email info@rudemechs.com.

Thursday, Feb. 21

Talkback following performance

Friday, Feb. 22 • 2pm - 3pm

Q&A Session at

UT Winship Bld. Rm. 2.112

Saturday, Feb. 23 •1pm - 4pm

Performance Workshop

at The Off Center

To register for the Performance Workshop,

please email info@rudemechs.com.

THROWS LIKE A GIRL is co-presented by Rude Mechanicals and Jill Dolan at The University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance, and is sponsored in part by the Zachary T. Scott Family Chair in Drama at the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for African and African American Studies at The University of Texas, The Marie and Joseph D. Jamail Senior Regents Professorship at The University of Texas. Our thanks for their help in this series goes to UT College of Fine Arts Dean Douglas Dempster, Dr. Joni Jones/Omi Osun Olomo, Maia McCoy, Suzan Zeder, Kenyatta Y. Dawson, UT Center for Asian American Studies, Gretchen Ritter, UT Center for Women's and Gender Studies.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

RENO

RENO is a comedic provocateur who started performing in the mid '80's at various dives in New York City’s East Village. She has performed Rebel Without A Pause, her critically acclaimed (“Insightful and Very, Very Funny.” NEW YORKER “The woman is consistently, energetically, loudly funny.” NY TIMES),Drama Desk Award nominated (Elaine Stritch won) personal/political rant show about the events of September 11th that opened October 4th, 2001 at LaMaMa ETC over 700 times both in the US and abroad. Her first full length show, Reno in Rage and Rehab began at P.S. 122, and was done Off-Broadway, later adapted into an ACE Award nominated HBO comedy hour. Other full length shows done Off-B'way and toured extensively include Reno Once Removed and Citizen Reno. In 2001, her non-fiction sit-com, also called Citizen Reno premiered on Bravo. Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner exec-produced that as well as the film she made with Lydia Pilcher for HBO, Reno Finds Her Mom, co-starring Mary Tyler Moore and Lily. Nancy Savoca’s performance film of Rebel Without A Pause received the 500 year old Florence (Italy) Peace Prize. She occasionally does cameos in other people's work - most recently in Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate and Bill Condon’s Kinsey. CitizenReno.com

KRISTINA WONG

Kristina Wong is a nationally presented solo performer, writer, actor, educator, activist, and filmmaker. Described by the East Bay Express as "brutal but hilarious... a woman who takes life's absurdities very seriously," her body of performance work includes short and full-length solo performance works, outrageous street theater stunts and pranks, subversive internet installations, and plays and sketch comedy. She was recently awarded the Creative Capital Award in Theater and a Creation Fund from the National Performance Network. She was also selected to be part of the 2008 CBS Multicultural Sketch Comedy Showcase. Her mail order bride site is www.bigbadchinesemama.com <http://www.bigbadchinesemama.com> More at http://www.kristinawong.com

KATIE PEARL

Katie Pearl is a collaborative theater maker working throughout the country on site-specific performance and new plays. She has received numerous awards for direction and production from the Austin Critics' Table, is the recipient of a Roothbert Fellowship, a Drama League directing fellowship, and a 2003 Village Voice OBIE Award.

ROBBIE MCCAULEY

Robbie McCauley is an OBIE Award playwright for Sally's Rape, and a nationally recognized performance artist and director. An AUDELCO award recipient for acting in The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins, she also appeared in Fences by August Wilson at the Tyrone Gutherie Theater in Minneapolis. Directing credits include the premier of Daniel Alexander Jones' Bel Canto co-produced with The Theater Offensive and Wheelock Family Theater, which she also directed at the 2000 Sundance Theater Lab; and Kamal Sinclair Steele's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome at the New Federal Theater in New York City. Her recent acting credits include Circles of Time by Shirley Timmerck at the Lyric Theater, and her performance work in progress, Sugar, the center of an extended community residency at Ohio State University at the University. An active presence in the American avant-garde theatre for three decades, she appeared on Broadway in Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. Ms. McCauley went on to write and perform regularly in cities across the country, striving to facilitate dialogues on race between local whites and blacks. Robbie McCauley is on the Performing Arts Department faculty at Emerson College.

THROWS LIKE A GIRL

2008 marks the fifth incarnation of the "Throws Like A Girl" Performance Festival. The series was launched in 2000 by Jill Dolan who invited Rude Mechs to present Holly Hughes ("Preaching to the Perverted"), Deb Margolin ("O Wholly Night and Other Jewish Solecisms"), and Peggy Shaw ("Menopausal Gentleman"). The festival was such a resounding success that Jill and Rude Mechs in collaboration with the UT Department of Theatre & Dance decided to bring the event back as often as time and funds would allow. The second TLAG was presented in 2002 and featured Marty Pottenger ("City Water Tunnel #3"), Peggy Shaw ("To My Chagrin") and Terry Galloway ("Lardo Weeping"). The third TLAG in 2005 was curated to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the WOW Café – the legendary OBIE Award winning NYC performance space collectively owned and operated by women for women. It featured Deb Margolin ("Index to Idioms"), Carmelita Tropicana and Marga Gomez ("Single Wet Female") and Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver ("Dress Suits to Hire"). Throws Like A Girl Rocks was presented in 2007 and featured women whose works met at the intersection of performance art, music and pop culture: Gretchen Phillips, BITCH and Lynnee Breedlove.