Reviews for Jarrott Productions Performances
Review #2 of 2: Destination by Jarrott Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 21, 2026
A small play with destinations that are psychological. A father and a daughter work to balance duty with their deepest emotions.
George Ayres' Destination, a small play, fits nicely into the Trinity Street Players' fourth-floor black box theatre downtown at First Austin. On opening night, downstairs there was a bustling fest of LGBQT organizations on the plaza and in the lobby; upstairs, the sense was equally positive but more reflective, for Howard, the focus of the story, is very much at the end of a long lifespan. Destination examines nostalgia, regret, and the tension between duty …
Review #1 of 2: destination by Jarrott Productions
by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 21, 2026
Haiku verses mark plot turns as characters face decisions that set down footprints in the sands of their times. Regret can eat you alive, but in this work it does not.
Agéd love comes out Whiskey from the cabinet Downtown lights whisper. Events, things, even plays may touch our lives and send them right along down new ways. Those epiphanies are more striking because they occur unexpectedly. The impact is most astounding when the stimulus evokes a look at one’s life, not forward, but behind. Look over your shoulder—what shapes of footprints are you laying down behind as you tread these sands of time? destination, the …
Review #2 of 2: Mirror Lake by Jarrott Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 21, 2025
Savor your shivers, admire this handsome couple, wish them the best; Mirror Lake offers them opportunity but also the perils of the best of intentions.
It's spooky scary season, y'all. Jarrott Productions chose Steven Dietz's two-hander Mirror Lake to fit the season. Director Caroline Cearley makes the most of the intimate space at the Trinity Street Players' space in central Austin, and MacKenzie Mulligan's lighting is appropriately dark and suddenly spotted with reveals. It's a tale of a couple married now for ten years who have the custom of trying to scare one another witless on their anniversary. They travel …
Review #1 of 2: MIRROR LAKE by Steven Dietz, Jarrott Productions
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 21, 2025
This suspense thriller with inflections of horror features brilliant dialogists and movers, Juliet Robb especially.
Fear of the dark. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what’s outside. Fear of hunters. Fear of confinement. Fear of what’s in the box. Fear of your spouse. Fear of the fog. Fear of dark, murky waters . . . .These fears may seem archetypal, but they are only the playing pieces of the marital game Philip and Dinah play on their wedding anniversary every year, ten so far. Jarrott Productions has premiered Mirror Lake, …
Review: Dial M for Murder by Jarrott Productions
by David Glen Robinson
Published on April 12, 2025
Jeffrey Hatcher's canny contemporization of the 1952 play and 1954 Hitchcock film will keep you guessing. A fine cast is supported by superb design work.
Dial M for Murder is for fans of crime dramas. It's not at all a whodunit, but rather a think-heavy chess puzzle of crime and sexual and emotional entanglements, leaving audience members who don’t know each other comparing notes on clues at intermission. How could it be otherwise with Natalie D. Garcia as lead actor? And with a plot-tumbling surprise? And with Dave Jarrott directing? Frederick Knot's classic murder thriller was first staged in London …
Review: The Shark Is Broken by Jarrott Productions
by David Glen Robinson
Published on February 12, 2025
It's about an unseen fish—but also about the epic clashes between three moviemakers becalmed by delays, frustrations, and booze. Exceptional character work and lots of hilarious schadenfreude!
Comedies about the making and unmaking of famous movies are extremely rare. Other than The Shark is Broken about the making of Steven Spielberg’s 70s blockbuster Jaws, this reviewer can recall only Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson about the desperate writing of the 30s global gamechanger Gone with the Wind. Comparisons are inevitable, but The Shark is Broken stands up well to Moonlight and Magnolias. Inside jokes are rife, their authenticity assured by co-author …