In 2001, with a staff of two and a budget of $101,500, Salvage Vanguard had numerous successes: critically-acclaimed productions of five plays on a variety of scales, paying more than 70 artists, and reaching more than 2,700 people; a feature in the Wall Street Journal; record-breaking attendance on both of its full-scale productions; affiliated artists working at such prestigious institutions as Brown University and the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York; a 50 percent increase in total attendance over the previous year; a listenership of 90,000 people for the world premiere broadcast of The Intergalactic Nemesis on NPR-affiliate KUT-FM; a special award from local critics for "pioneering a new art form in Austin"; donating more than two tons of canned food to the Capitol Area Food Bank through its discount ticket program "Starving Artist Nite"; releasing CDs of music from two of its past productions; publishing two scripts; selling more than 11 percent of its tickets through its web site; winning "Top 10" honors for both its full scale productions in 2001 from both the major weekly and daily Austin newspapers; and winning "Best Performing Arts Group in Austin" in CitySearch to name a few.
Download the SVT 2001 Annual Report (PDF)
WALLPAPER PSALM by Ruth E. Margraff
WINNER! 2001 ACT AWARD "BEST DIRECTION OF NEW OPERA"
When Salvage Vanguard Theater presented the premiere of Wallpaper Psalm in 1996, the experience changed the company's perception of what theater could be forever. The vision for remounting the play was to retain the emotional experience of the first production while improving on the production values. The company reunited the playwright with the team that created the Austin production of The Cry Pitch Carrolls: director Jason Neulander and composer Graham Reynolds of Golden Arm Trio. The result was an amplified, resounding success. The production saw record attendance and the critics and audiences responded alike. "I don't understand it, but I like it!" said the Austin American-Statesman. One audience member wrote in to say: "I feel as if I no longer need to have nightmares, now. I can, instead, watch those that y'all produce of R. Margraff's; they're even more unnervingly dreamlike than what I usually screen in my sleeping mind. Positively Lovecraftian." Another audience member called it "a brilliant work of art."
MARCH 23 - APRIL 14, 2001
Click HERE to see images from Wallpaper Psalm!
Click HERE to buy a copy of the script!
RETURN OF THE INTERGALACTIC NEMESIS, an episodic radio serial
What would pulp radio drama be without sequels? After a death-defying romp through space, 1930s-stye, in The Intergalactic Nemesis, Molly Sloan and Timmy Mendez are back to fight an even more dangerous villian. On the way, will they reunite with Ben Willcott, the man from the future? It takes six fifteen-minute episodes with live sound effects by Buzz Moran and music by Golden Arm Trio to tell the tale!
JUNE 9 AND 10, 2001
Click here to buy the double-CD set of the original!
Click HERE to hear the first episode of the original!
The best of The Best Salvage Vanguard Holiday Ever all under one roof, with a silent auction to boot! This was our first annual summer fun draising event and boy, it was great! We had more than 120 people come out to support our work and raise money for our next show Tilt Angel.
JULY 29, 2001Click HERE for details!
Tilt Angel represented a giant leap forward for Salvage Vanguard Theater in many respects, not the least of which was audience attendance. It was the first show seen by more than 1,000 people. The Austin American Statesman called it a "must-see" and audience response was astounding. One audience member called the show "another marvelous evening of theatre by Salvage Vanguard" and another said "You guys have created a really fantastic, fantastical, rich, and mesmerizing play." This production was the winner of three 2002 Austin Critics Table Awards, including Best Director!
OCTOBER 18 - NOVEMBER 3, 2001
THE OFF CENTER
MOTHERBONE by Graham Reynolds and Karen Hartman
Our most ambitious project to date. A full scale opera with six principle singers, a chorus of 10 and a 20-piece orchestra. It takes a lot of doing to bring the classic Russian folk tale of Baba Yaga and Vassalissa to life in the contemporary American setting of a New York City subway station. This year, we presented a concert reading of the opera, which will receive its complete production in 2002.
NOVEMBER 30, 2001, at 8:00 and 10:00
First Unitarian Church of Austin (4700 Grover Street)Click HERE to preview the music from MotherBone!
THE NEXT BEST SALVAGE VANGUARD HOLIDAY EVER
The holidays in Austin would simply not be the same without this new play tradition. Now in its fifth year, this festival of short new plays continued with pieces by some of Austin's and the nation's hottest up-and-coming playwrights. With attendance surpassing 140 people each night, the show was a resounding success.
DECEMBER 7 and 8, 2001, at 9 PM
LITTLE CITY downtown
[ AWARDS AND HONORS ]
CitySearch.com
In 2001, Salvage Vanguard Theater was elected "Best Local Performing Arts Group" by people logging on to the CitySearch web site. CitySearch was effusive in their assessment of the company: "[SVT] has produced some of the best work found anywhere in Austin."
The Houston Endowment
In November 2000, the Houston Endowment, Texas' largest private foundation, announced that it had awarded Salvage Vanguard Theater a $45,000 grant. The funds, divided into three $15,000 payments over three years, will be used to support the company's operations. The grant was the biggest Salvage Vanguard Theater had ever received and, because it is a multi-year grant, will help ensure the company's financial stability for the long-term.
Top 10 ... four X!
This year, both Wallpaper Psalm and Tilt Angel were awarded "Top 10" honors from both the Austin Chronicle and the Austin American-Statesman. The Chronicle had this to say: "A pair of magical mystery tours inside the heads of some offbeat characters, both smartly staged by Jason Neulander. An intense score from Golden Arm Trio, Ruth Margraff's deliberately disoriented text, production designs creating a stark, spectral space, and fierce, fearless performances evoked in unsettling fashion the unsettled minds of Wallpaper Psalm's elderly heroines. Dan Dietz's imaginative script, salted with spectacularly florid dialogue rich in regionalisms and humor, revealed the shape of grief inside Tilt Angel's loquacious Tennessee simpleton, a figure made splendidly real by Jason Phelps' blazing performance."
Austin Critics Table Awards
This year the company was honored with a special award from the local critics: "Best Direction of New Opera" for "pioneering a new art form in Austin, Texas." Wallpaper Psalm received seven nominations and The Intergalactic Nemesis received one.
The Wall Street Journal
In its new Arts section, the Wall Street Journal listed Salvage Vanguard's production of Tilt Angel as one of 10 avant-garde arts events around the country to see this fall. Tilt Angel was right up there with a Picasso exhibit and a Philip Glass opera, making playwright Dan Dietz a serious contender! Click HERE to see the article.
City of Austin
In 2001, Salvage Vanguard Theater was ranked third in the City of Austin arts funding process, over theater companies with budgets 10 times larger than SVT.
PlayLabs
This year, co-Artistic Director Dan Dietz was one of three playwrights accepted into the prestigious PlayLabs new play development workshop at the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. For two weeks in July, Dietz, and director Jason Neulander worked with Minneapolis-based actors to create a staged reading of Tilt Angel. As a result of the reading, theater companies in Seattle, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta have expressed interest in the play.