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There are a couple of things happening this weekend that you may want to know about…courtesy of the Alamo Drafthouse Westlakes and the Overtime Theater.
Saturday (March 20) head over to the Drafthouse (Westlakes) at 12:30 PM for a special presentation of the movie Weird Science hosted by Austin’s Pancake Theatre. Yes, that Weird Science. Take a trip back to 1985 with this John Hughes classic where nerds Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) use their computers to create their dream girl (Kelly LeBrock). But what makes this showing special is the Pancake Theatre treatment. Think of it like a live Myster Science Theater 3000 experience. See below for an example of the Pancake in action and check here for an interview with the troupe.
Another fine choice is Sunday’s 3:00 PM matinee showing of The Ides of Texas at the Overtime Theater. This is a series of short plays…very short. If you hate one, the next one will be along quickly enough. But there won’t be much to hate. The Overtime got more than 40 submissions and picked the 12 best for this showcase.
While many of the plays are not genre-related there is a little bit for us. Check out this very favorable review in the San Antonio Current:
Playwright and director Edward Wise’s “Variations …” are clever, comedic, multimedia vignettes; quite frankly, I couldn’t get enough. Number 3, subtitled “The Problem With Conservatives,” commences the stage smorgasbord with projected video of a couple listening to right-wing talk radio in the car. The mustachioed husband is too busy singing the praises of Ann Coulter (“She thinks what I am unable to think!”) to notice that he is about to collide with a wild creature.
The couple exit the car and the video, to inspect the victim — Billy Muñoz, in full furry costume — lying prostrate on stage. Absurdity ensues: It’s a ruse, the beast is packing heat. “Eyes over here, woodland creature with a gun,” is not a line I will soon forget.
Things take a grave turn with “Jumping the Bridge,” written by C. Allen Wigginton and directed by Chris Champlin. A still of the Brooklyn Bridge sets the scene; a weeping man in a black coat ambles onto the bare black set. Any idiot knows what’s about to go down. But the appearance of a charcoal suit-wearing visitor — angel or demon? — throws in a sentimental kink.
“Dan the Man,” written by Marshall Naylor and co-directed by Amanda Bianchi and Edward Wise, is one part comedy, one part drama, and all science-fiction fable. The ghostly figure that materializes on stage left is really another scary-movie creeper: A zombie, covered with a white sheet. Dan (Muñoz) — reanimated, nearly nude, stiff — is not the surprise his Dr. Frankenstein’s girlfriend had hoped to encounter. Seized and taken to the shadowy laboratory in the dead of night by her scientist lover (Robert Jerdee), the periwinkle-pajama-clad woman (Liz Vermeulen) realizes she’s in fact dating the undead (emotionally, anyway).
This looks like a good one. The Ides of Texas runs through March 27th.
