Reviews for Austin Theatre Project Performances
Review: The Great American Trailer Park Musical by Austin Theatre Project
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 21, 2015
Rather than condescending to the white trash stereotypes the show universalizes the unfortunate condition of trailer park existence and finds keen adult humor living there.
Ground Floor Theatre on the east side of Austin is making a specialty of musicals and has become the official home base of the Austin Theatre Project (ATP). The latest offering from this impressive team is The Great American Trailer Park Musical, music by David Nehls, book by Betsy Kelso. The show premiered in New York in 2004. The ATP production impresses with the first glimpse of the set, the exteriors …
Review: Avenue Q by Austin Theatre Project
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on June 06, 2013
The story’s message is as brief and penetrating as the moral of an 80’s sitcom: I’m not OK. You’re not OK and we will just put up with everyone else on the street because we don’t have a choice.
Can You Show me How to Get to Avenue Q? Long past are the days when musicals were solely the domain of prancing pirates and line dancing debutantes. The villains sang in baritone and the hero, a lilting tenor, as he won, lost and re-won the girl in different fantastical settings. There is the theme song, the hero’s lament, the song that exposes the girl’s conflicting feelings, the growling villain’s rant-song, and a choral …
Review: Edges, a song cycle by Austin Theatre Project
by David Glen Robinson
Published on March 04, 2013
Out of the musical mass of beer drinking, Facebookin’ and growing up normally there emerged a few of these more resonant bright spots, which naturally shone more brightly by the contrast.
The Austin Theatre Project (ATP) production of Edges by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul gave Austin beautiful music and performances guaranteed to please audiences. Problems with the production and Pasek’s and Paul’s relatively new and somewhat uneven show shouldn't certainly not scare away ticket buyers, certainly not the heart-and-soul musical theatre fanatics who live for it.The program notes were about the music and nothing but the music. They explained the show as a song cycle in which …
Review: Baby, the musical by Austin Theatre Project
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 22, 2012
Those of us who've navigated all three stages of life portrayed here will be fully vulnerable to all three, and may well recognize a dynamic typical to devoted couples: often one is the optimistic emotional plunger while the other is more aware of consequences.
No, it's not really about babies at all. Baby the musical is about anticipation, apprehension and the enormous changes that loom when a couple faces the prospect of having -- or not having -- a child. With their cheerily pulsating opening numbers Baby Baby Baby and I Want It All , David Shire and Richard Maltby suggest a merry adventure, but -- as in real life -- elation gives way to uncertainty in face of the enormity of life changes. After …