Art

*Venue: *The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd. Suite D, Austin, TX

78722

* *(east between Manor Rd. and 38 ½ St.)

512-524-2870/

info@citytheatreaustin.org

Just over a year old itself, the City Theatre is launching another young

company. *Art** *introduces* Penfold Theatre Company*, an ensemble looking

to establish a professional theatre in the north metro area.

* How much would you pay for a white painting?*

* *

*Art *begins with* *Serge spending two hundred thousand francs on a white

painting. His friend Marc thinks it's a joke, but Serge insists the work is

profound. They pull their hapless friend Yvan into the quarrel, whose tepid

attempts at peacemaking only add fuel to the fire, and a

hilarious-yet-poignant battle ensues that becomes ever more personal and

threatens to destroy their friendship. Behind the comedy, the play poses

serious questions about the basis of art and friendship.

The *play is re-imagined* with the main characters in their young

professional years (as opposed to the traditional middle-age approach) as

they wage war against the corporate and artistic world. The way successes

and failures of their early careers threaten to drive them apart is timely

for a young theatre, as well as, a young city (Austin has one of the highest

percentages of young professionals in the nation).

* Art ** *is the *winner* of the 1996 Olivier Award for Best

Comedy and the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play. "Anyone looking for a play

that is funny, sophisticated, stylish, stimulating and moving should go to

Post. "…a nonstop cross-fire of crackling language, serious issues of life

and art expressed in outbursts that sound like Don Rickles with a degree

from the Sorbonne…Reza is a fiendishly clever writer…'ART' sounds like a

The* Art creative team* includes guest artists *Steven Pounders *(Director)

and *Adrienne Harper *(Sets/Costume designer)*. *Both are on faculty at

Baylor University and making their debut in Austin. The play features the

core company members of Penfold Theatre *Ryan Crowder, Nathan Jerkins*, and

*Sean Martin*, who starred in City Theatre's 2007 production of *Rosencrantz

and Guildenstern are Dead.*

*The playwright: Yasmina Reza*'s first play, *Conversations après un

Enterrement*, won her the Best Author Moliere Award and the New Writer Award

from the SACD in 1987. Her work for theatre and cinema includes *La

Traversée de l'Hiver* and *L'Homme du Hasard* and a prize-winning adaptation

of Stephen Berkoff's version of Kafka's *La Metamorphose*, and the

screenplays *Jusqu'*a la Nuit, *Jim Mode Ne Pour Aider* and *A Demain*.