IN THE NEWS

Hello Readers! I am pleased to announce that we now have official “Telling: Austin” flyers! Please print them out, hand them out, share them online, pin them around town or on your bedroom wall. They’re a great way to get the word out, and, as you can see, they look pretty cool too. We also have an official press release. Leave a comment if you would like to receive a copy of it for your local newspaper, radio station, etc.

Also, today our own cast member Leila Levinson published an article about “Telling: Austin” on the Huffington Post blog. It is so fabulous to have a cast member who is an online contributor to such a great newspaper and an incredible honor to be a part of this story. In Leila’s article, “Time to Listen to Veterans Tell Their Truths,” she offers a first-hand depiction the Telling process and its impact on herself, her fellow cast, and the Austin community. You can enjoy her post here.

And remember, there’s only eight days left until opening night. While the cast and crew are busy with rehearsals, you can do your part too by RSVPing to the show, sharing this blog with your friends, and donating to the Telling Project.

Thanks for reading!

RSVP

Hello readers!

With opening night only 24 days away, we have made an event page on Facebook with all the performance details, including showtimes and dates, maps to the locations, and much more. Admission will be free, but the experience will be priceless. And I promise that’s no April Fool’s joke. So, I expect all of Central Texas to be lined up for seats when the doors open!

Click on the picture below to access the Facebook event page. Please RSVP to the event and share it with your friends!

FUNDRAISER COCKTAIL PARTY

Cast & Crew, left to right: Stacey Shade-Ware (Director), Jennifer Hassin (Cast), Steve Metze (Cast), Laura Muncy (Cast), Leila Levinson (Cast), Regina Vasquez (Cast), Laura Hammons (Cast), Schandra Madha (Production Assistance and Blogger), Charlotte Gullick (Writer), and Jonathan Wei (Writer and Creator of the Telling Project). Not shown, but there in spirt: Chris Leche (Writer), Malachi Muncy (Cast), and Anisa Moyo (Cast)

Last Thursday, March the Seventh, Telling: Austin hosted a cocktail party to raise funds and community awareness for the upcoming performances in April and May. I am pleased to announce that the event was a huge success! Many, many thanks to all those who attended or made a donation. Due to your generous support, we were able to raise nearly $2,500 to put towards production costs.

Thursday night’s highlights included, but were not limited to:

• A full house with a great atmosphere.

• Delectable food, an open bar, and plenty of great conversation.
  A big thank you to Tito’s  for donating two handles of vodka, which our bartender used to make some delicious Dark & Stormies and Cosmopolitans, yum!

• A ton of great silent auction and raffle prizes.
  Special thanks to our own Jennifer Hassin for donating her beautiful guitar sculpture “Music Around the World” for Thursday’s silent auction, and to Leila Levinson for donating two signed copies of her book Gated Grief. Elyse Fenton generously donated a signed copy of her poetry collection Clamor for our raffle, as well. Many thanks to Snap Kitchen, Dominican Joe Coffee Shop, and Laughing Goat Studio for their gift card donations. And a big thank you to Melinda Rothouse for her writing workshop donation. We also raffled a lovely wine basket put together by our gracious hosts, Jonathan Wei and Caroline Morris.

• A photo reel of the cast’s service and family pictures.

• And, of course, lots of laughs.

If you missed out on the festivities, don’t fret! We are still raising funds to make sure that we are able to offer “Telling: Austin, TX” free of charge, and we can’t do that without your support. You can donate to the Telling Project here. You can also help us by getting the word out: share this post on Facebook, follow the blog, Tweet about it, email your friends about the project, or just tell the guy sitting next to you on the bus.  The more the better!

And, of course, mark your calendars with all six performance dates: April 25-27, May 2-4. The cast did their first read-through of the script today, and I can tell you, this is going to be a performance you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned for more updates!

Many Thanks for Your

Generous Support

&

Have a Lovely Spring

A Dancer’s Tour of Duty

Please click the photo above to read this month’s cover story of The Village Voice, “A Dancer’s Tour of Duty,” by Roman Baca as told to Jonathan Wei (the creator of the Telling Project.) This is a truly uplifting story illustrating the transformative power of the arts, exactly the kind of power the Telling Project strives to accomplish.

Please follow us to receive email updates about new posts. Happy Wednesday!

REHEARSAL #1 & ARTS FOR VETERANS

OUR FIRST REHEARSAL

Today was our first rehearsal for Telling: Austin, and it was an astounding success. After connecting for so long only by email or one-on-one meetings, it was fantastic to have (most of) the cast and crew together at last in one room–a room kindly provided by Austin Community College Rio Grande Campus as our regular rehearsal space. Scripting is still currently in progress, but in the mean time our rehearsals will be focused on developing performance skills and presence. These initial rehearsals will be essential for getting the cast comfortable with an audience and, equally crucial, us and one another. Stacey Shade-Ware, our marvelous director, led all of us, crew included, in a number of vocal exercises and games meant to encourage a cohesive energy within the group. Once the scripting process is complete, our rehearsals will shift towards editing and performing the final script. Today was very productive, very encouraging, and tons of fun. I know this is going to be a great cast.

ARTS FOR VETERANS

In other news, one of our cast members, Malachi Muncy, is an artist who makes paper from donated military uniforms and uses them for his art prints. He is doing really profound work in his community and offering workshops on paper-making. Please click the flag above to learn more about the process and donate to his cause. In one day, he’s earned over $500 in pledges towards his goal of $2,500. These donations will be used to buy much needed supplies for his paper studio. The more you pledge, the more amazing veteran prints you can get. If the studio does not reach it’s pledging goal by March 9, they will not receive the donations they need.

YOU’RE INVITED

Yes, you. And bring a friend too.

Thursday March the 7th, Telling: Austin will be holding a fundraising cocktail party to increase public interest and, of course, to raise funds for the performance. To attend, please click the invitation above to purchase your ticket. There will be fun, frivolity, good company, and refreshments. Your presence, positive energy, and generous donations will be the driving force behind us on the home stretch towards opening night.

I hope to see you there.

CREATIVE CHAOS

What an exciting day for Telling: Austin! We were lucky enough to have the crew of CreativeChaos vmg film one of our last interviews for their feature length documentary, Thank You for Your Service (in production), “about America’s treatment of Veterans and the culture and politics behind the failure to successfully reintegrate returning soldiers into society.” The Telling Project, Telling: Austin will be featured in the film, and we’re all really thrilled to be a part of their project.

To learn more about Thank You for Your Service and CreativeChaos vmg, visit:
www.creativechaosvmg.com
http://www.facebook.com/VeteransDocumentary

IT’S OFFICIAL!

We now officially have dates and a venue for Telling: Austin! The beautiful Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center has graciously offered us their black box theater for the production. Production dates are April 25-27 and May 2-4, 2013.

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center
600 River St.
Austin, 78701

Photo Courtesy of Austin Parks and Recreation

ABOUT THE BLOGGER

Hello, reader! As the production date moves closer, you’ll be hearing a lot from me, so I thought it would be a good idea for me to tell you a little bit about myself and my interest in the Telling Project.

My name is Schandra Madha. I’m a Junior Undergraduate student studying Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin. My academic focus is in Creative Writing, Philosophy, and Comparative Literature. My long-term career goal is to write several novels and poetry anthologies. I’m also interested in developing innovative creative writing programs for education and therapy, programs much like the Telling Project.

Last Spring, I attended Austin Community College for a semester to study Playwriting and Sociology. During that time, I became involved with ACC’s annual In2theWest production, an Austin original writing and acting workshop inspired by the iconic realism found in the photography of Richard Avedon. I was able to write two monologues for the show, and even had my first real acting experience. One of my monologues was inspired by my own feelings growing up in a military family and witnessing the indifference and ignorance many civilians have towards veterans. In my Playwriting course and during the production, I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Charlotte Gullick. When Charlotte told me later about her work with the Telling Project, I knew I had to be a part of it.

Daniel Zuniga in my monologue “Peaceful Protest”

Charlotte introduced me to the director of the project, Jonathan Wei, and the rest is, as they say, history. So, I will be your devoted intern and blogger from now through showtime. I can’t wait to get started on the project. I am so excited to be helping veterans and their families tell their stories and, in many cases, experience their own first time acting as well. Please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions. I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Update 02/08/13:  And if you’re interested in seeing Daniel’s and all the other In2theWesters’ performances, the videos from the production are all available online here.