[ This Just In! ]

For Immediate Release
Date: March 8, 2000

Terminal Hip opens in Two Weeks!

Salvage Vanguard Theater presents Dan Dietz in Mac Wellman's solo performance play Terminal Hip, directed by Jason Neulander. The show opens Friday March 24 and runs Saturday March 25 and Thursday through Sunday, March 29-April 8. All performances ate at 8:00 PM at the Hideout, 617 Congress Avenue. Tickets are $12.00 ($8.50 students/seniors/AcoT). Thursdays are "Starving Artist Nite": half-price with a canned food donation. For reservations, call 474-SVT-6.

Terminal Hip is a criticism of latter-day 20th Century America, evoking images of pop culture, politicians, sports figures, and religion. The play examines how language is used to communicate or miscommunicate information. Terminal Hip's only character, the Speaker, attempts to explain modern American life to his audience through "bad language". Playwright Mac Wellman says: "Inevitably, if you start mismatching pronouns, getting your tenses wrong, writing sentences that are too long or too short, you will begin to say things that suggest a subversive political reality." The Speaker, however, quickly gets caught up in his own struggle to communicate. He takes on the personas of those he criticizes: the preacher, the TV spokesperson, the sports announcer, the political candidate. His efforts become more and more agitated until he lets loose a verbal explosion in the form of the classic "Who's on First" routine: the ultimate failure of language to contain the threats inherent in the nuclear age. Finally, he realizes that there is no language that can communicate his terror. At the close of the play, he dreams of a ghost who, even after the world is destroyed, can still sing.

Jason Neulander, the director of the project, says: "I am really excited about the work we're doing on the show. I just got off the phone with Mac Wellman and, after talking with him, it seems to me that we're giving this very difficult show a very honest production. I'm looking forward to having an audience!" Terminal Hip received the 1990 Obie Award for Best Play.

Salvage Vanguard Theater is a nonprofit arts organization located in Austin, Texas, committed to fostering a dynamic exchange between visionary artists and audiences new to their work. To that end, Salvage Vanguard Theater seeks to combine explosive energy with expert technique, creating forms which defy theatrical traditions and define a new American avant garde.

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