Here’s a message from Pat Daniels, the director of the next Hideout Mainstage show, The Andersons:

We are beginning casting for Hideout Theatre’s 1950’s SitCom Mainstage show for May/June entitled, The Andersons. This clean-cut American family is as quirky as they are lovable! Mom and Dad have their hands full with the youngsters, who are always able to get themselves in some real pickles!

I am going to be directing, with Kareem Badr Asst. Directing. We are looking for a strong ensemble from all over Austin’s diverse improv and theater groups. We will have a casting session this Tuesday, March 9th, in the downstairs theater at the Hideout, from 7 pm to 9 pm. Please contact Patrick Daniel at patnatdan@gmail.com if you are able to attend. Details below:

The Andersons is a 1950’s family comedy in the style of Ozzy and Harriet, The Donna Reed Show, Leave It To Beaver, and the namesake family of Father Knows Best.

Each show will play like the national mood of this time period: patriotic to country, belief in one’s community, naive to cruelty and violence, restricted to gender roles, hopeful for the future. If you have seen any of these programs and their characters, you have seen the huge potential for comedy. But comedy that honors the time period instead of playing our modern sensibilities in contrast.

Below is a list of characters I envision for the Andersons. They are simple descriptions of the characters, or as Eugene Ionesco might add, perhaps they will not be like this at all:

John Anderson – The father, who as it happens, knows best. He focuses on his career, always coming or going to or from work. He holds the highest standards for his family. He is kind and listening, although his word is final.

Beverly Anderson – Picturesque in her apron and heels, she is a homemaker and caretaker. She loves her family, loves her clean house, and loves her appliances. She is easily vexed; it seems she has little to no knowledge of anything unhealthy or foreign. Is overly cautious and easily offended, “Please don’t say spit, Scooter, say mouth-water, if you have to.”

Luke Anderson – The oldest son, winner of trophies. His bright smile charms everyone he meets. He is dating Molly Pünerstock, who happens to be the daughter of his father’s boss. Though he is coming into manhood, he seems awfully helpless to make any life decisions without his parents help. Golly.

Mary-Alice Anderson – The devoted daughter who tries so very hard. It is unfortunate because the young lady just can’t seem to do anything quite right, or at least as good as her mother. But she always tries to improve on her numerous failings. Naïve and easily preyed upon by boys. She is best friends with Molly Pünerstock.

Scooter – Scooter is the youngest boy or girl. He/she is the well meaning, but ultimately, a troublemaking youngster. Scooter, as his/her nickname implies, is inept but lovable. His/her hygiene is never up to standard, and he often misunderstands the situations around him, and gets himself into some real jams.

Mr. and Mrs. Radminov – The Andersons’ neighbors and best friends. Certainly Russians, possibly spies, although no one in Sycamore Grove would know that. (The people know Russians are bad, but don’t have the ability to identify one.) Mr. and Mrs. Radminov look out for the children’s well being. They give advice with good intentions, but often it is very different from the advice of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson. They often get simple customs wrong. They are fiercely patriotic. Too patriotic if you ask me. * Also, Mrs. Radminov has seen things. Horrible things.

Carol – Carol represents a very important archetype for 50’s television – the spinster. For some reason in these series, if a woman is worldly, outgoing, and fiercely intelligent, she is also unmarried (as if she would somehow be ill-suited for family life.) Carol is Beverly’s best friend of many years. She is Beverly’s number one confidant, lends a willing ear, and will help Beverly formulate plans and problem solving. Carol’s interests are only outnumbered by her hobbies. If one needs a Portuguese translator – ask Carol. If you need to know about the mating habits of Sharks – Carol has studied them off the coast of Johannesburg. If you need to quickly identify markings on an Indian arrowhead – Carol has audited a class by mail on that very subject. A perpetual spinster, Carol does not date, which is perplexing to those around her.

Levi – Levi is the young best friend of Scooter. Even at age ten, he is already a smooth snake-oil salesman (Eddie Haskell-like). Well manicured, oily, and conniving; Levi is often the catalyst for the sticky situations that Scooter is involved in and afterwards blamed. He is a coward and not above pointing the finger at anyone else, or even running away when the problems become overwhelming.

Molly Pünerstock – A determined, motivated, outgoing girlfriend of Luke and friend of Mary-Alice. She has a self-reliant attitude that differs greatly from the attitude held by the Anderson children. Her father is the boss of (yet to be determined) and her family is very wealthy.

Mr. Pünerstock – He is the boss of Mr. Anderson at a company to be determined through the shows. He is the voice for the power of business and the well-known dangers of communism and liberalism. He is demanding, hard in feature, and an avid hunter. His daughter is his greatest joy.

Milkman Dan – Each one of the series mentioned in the introduction has a character that is a perpetual outsider. Often hints are given to the audience about the character’s loose morals (alcoholism, or gambling) that confines them to a low status. However, the character is never shown to be wallowing in their vice, instead they are always seeking to be honorable. Milkman Dan is lonely and detached. He feels he doesn’t belong. Also, much to his embarrassment and chagrin, he is clairvoyant.

If you would like to be in the core cast, I would love to see you at auditions. If you can not make the time on Tues., I might be able to get small groups together on other days, please let me know your availability for the rest of the week.

**** I would also like to cast improvisers to come play episodes of the Andersons as guests, creating whatever extra characters might be necessary for that night’s episode. If you are interested in being a flex player, you do not need to attend auditions, but should send me an email to let me know you’re interested.

Thanks You,
And I hope you guys are excited about some lovable 50’s shenanigans.

Again, we will have a casting session this Tuesday, March 9th, in the downstairs theater at the Hideout, from 7 pm to 9 pm. Please contact Patrick Daniel at patnatdan@gmail.com if you are able to attend.

I started here, with the Charles Dickens Unleashed! set. We had it up November through February (Austin Secrets didn’t have a specialty set, which was fine).

First I painted everything black. No primer this time – what? (I bought paint and primer in one!)

Then I added in orange and red blocks of color.

Then I painted in bird silhouettes and added some depth to the three color blocks.

Birds up close.

Today I came in, cleaned everything up (added extra coats where needed, trimmed things) and added a stylized dead body.

The body up close.

Simple. Dramatic. Stylized.
Mission accomplished.

These photos don’t represent detail or color very well, but with the iPhone it is so easy to take photos on the fly. I’ll have to get a photographer friend to take better ones for me.
I think the directors have plans to put a white scrim behind the window unit for creepyawesome shadow-effects.

So far each set we’ve had here at the Hideout has been fairly distinct from one another. I wonder what we’ll want to do in May/June for the 1950s sitcomesque show The Andersons. Time flies so quickly, I’m sure I’ll be painting over this sooner than I think.

Catch the new set and Hitchcocked! before they’re gone!

-Kaci Beeler
Director of Design

Hitchcocked! opens this Saturday at 8pm, you can go to the calendar for more details, dates, and price!

For the past four months, the set at the Hideout has been a Victorian-era cityscape, originally painted for the Dickens set, and carried on into the Austin Secrets run.

But now it’s time to bid a fond farewell to the city, so that the set can be properly Saul Bassified for the Hitchcock run. The first step is going back to black. Large red and orange shapes will begin appearing over the next few days. And by appearing I mean that Kaci will painstakingly paint them by hand.

Stay tuned!

Part 1:

Part 2:

See the original post here.

Buy tickets to Hitchcocked! here.

I’ve always wanted to make this sort of video (I love setting images to music) and after seeing similar things go well in other venues I decided it was time to step up and make one for the theater I love the most.

Here is the first of many to come (I’ll let it speak for itself):

Hoped you like it! I think you’ll like our actual shows even more.

Cheers,

Kaci Beeler
Director of Design

Via any measure we care to use, it’s been the most successful show The Hideout Theatre has put up… as least as far as we know. Every show since the first one has sold out, and we’ve regularly been turning away 15+ people from the box office. In fact, the past 3 weekends have sold out online before the physical box office opened, and with 33 presales already, the final weekend might even sell out before Saturday.

It’s one of those rare shows that audiences love, and that the performers equally love being in.

How do we know, beyond mere ticket sales, that audiences are loving the show? Well, it turns out, we actually have metrics for that.

On our website, when you purchase a ticket, it asks you how you heard about the show. You see a little dropbox with lots of options, like this:

How Did You Hear About the Show?

Your answer gets stored in a database, and as time goes on and orders come in, we can run reports on the collected information. The report we’ve been running looks at all the orders placed for Austin Secrets, and for each option in the list, counts up the number of times people have cited it as the way they heard about the show.

What do you suppose is the number one option?

It’s Word of Mouth, hands down.

After running the most recent report, 64 people said “Word of Mouth”. 2nd on the list is “Internet Search”, with 8 (well, actually, it’s 4th. 2nd is people who left the field blank, and 3rd is people who chose “Other”, but didn’t fill in what that “Other” was).

Not only is that a strong result, but “Word of Mouth” is also proportionally higher for Austin Secrets than for other shows. That means that more people than usual are spreading the word to their friends and saying “You have to see this show.” That, as you might imagine, is a very good thing.

Word of Mouth is actually the ideal way to market a show. It’s buzz. It’s people talking about a show. It’s free. It’s also a little frustrating, because it’s largely out of your control. The best you can do is measure it after the fact.

If you’re really interested, here are the complete results of the most recent report:

   Word of Mouth             64
   Blank                     16
   Other                     10
   Internet Search            8
   Austin Chronicle Listings  7
   Facebook Status            7
   Checked Hideout Website    7
   Read a Review              3
   Don't Remember             2
   Google Ad                  2
   austin360.com              2
   Meetup event               1
   friend                     1
   Poster or Postcard         1

So that’s the technical side of things.

The more visceral side is that this show feels special. At its best, it’s a rollercoaster of extreme comic highs, and utterly solemn dramatic moments. Just reading the secrets sometimes evokes gasps, awwws, or riotous laughter from the audience, and they IMMEDIATELY get that the tone of the following scene will and should reflect the tone of the secrets. The Truth Chair segment, when it goes right, demolishes the wall between the performers and the audience, and suddenly we all feel like we’re on this crazy voyage together.

To quote one random person on FourSquare, “Austin Secrets show. It made me laugh AND cry!”… pretty much the perfect praise.

Okay, so I’m gushing and bragging. But so what. I’m insanely proud of this show, and as we head into the final weekend, the only question remaining in my mind is, “How soon can we bring it back?”.

Cheers,
Roy Janik
Artistic Director

P.S. There are still some tickets left for the final show as I write this. Click here to buy yours.

You had the best of intentions. I know you did.

I KNOW.

It’s not your fault. No one would say that. You’re busy all the time, and you lead a busy life. And the days fly by faster than they ever had before. Your brain still thinks it’s January, and yet, somehow, SOMEHOW, this Sunday is February 14th, and that means it’s  Valentine’s Day. Oh. DAMN.

And that also means that your solemn vow to make this year’s Valentine’s Day unique and special is once again going to get delegated to next year. If you hurry right now, you might still be able to reservations at… somewhere. Right?

But wait.

There’s hope.

We feel your pain, and we’ve got the solution.

Every year, we put on a special Valentine’s Day comedy show just for people like you, and your loving, trusting partners. It’s called Love is a Funny Thing. It’s Valentine’s Day themed, it’s downtown… There’s chocolate. There’s flowers. It’s in close proximity to a number of nice, downtown restaurants.

And you can still get tickets.

You can do this. It’s unique. It’s affordable. And it’s perfect.

And you can buy tickets right here.

Don’t worry. We got your back.

Each show has a Curator who assembles a collection of secrets for a given show. The secrets inspire the scenework, and none of the performers have seen the secrets beforehand.

Technology is a wonderful thing. The slides are assembled online, using  Google Presentations, Google’s web-based answer to PowerPoint. One of the benefits of doing it this way is that Google makes it easy to share and embed a presentation on any webpage. So here are the presentations for your enjoyment.

If you’d like to submit a secret of your own, or come to a future show, head to http://hideouttheatre.com/austinsecrets

One of the words shouted out was “Haiti”, which Jessica worked tastefully into her speech.

The Editor-In-Chief gave me a special assignment for mentioning Haiti, even if it was the audience’s suggestion.

The special assignment, however, is one near and dear to my heart. He declared that I had to go home and donate $50 to the Red Cross for the Haiti relief fund. I promised I would, and that I would post proof to the blog.

So here it is:

If you’d like to donate to the Red Cross as well, click here.

Cheers,
Roy Janik

There’s a lot to think about and process from this past week’s visit by Keith Johnstone. The 4 day workshop was a magical experience, as was the sold-out Maestro at The Long Center. I’m sure we’ll be making some more posts about it soon, but in the meantime check out this review of Maestro by a Houston improviser who made the drive up to Austin just to see the show.

I have been meaning to reflect on last Saturday nights improv show directed by Keith Johnstone. In summary, it was truly worth the six hours of driving. Now, while it was exciting to see Keith in the flesh and see him in action, I was so impressed by the improvisers in the Maestro show that night. I have no idea if those players were regulars at the hideout theater, but if they are any indication of the quality of improv in Austin, than Austin the place to play.

Read the rest of the review over at http://improvology.com/?p=75