[ This Just In! ]

For Immediate Release
Date: April 29, 2003

SVT Presents World Premiere By Dan Dietz

AUSTIN, TX--Salvage Vanguard Theater proudly presents the world premiere of Dan Dietz's newest play tempOdyssey.

Only two years after the smash hit Tilt Angel , Salvage Vanguard Theater presents another world premiere production from the award-winning team of playwright Dan Dietz and director Jason Neulander. tempOdyssey fuses the epic drudgery of temp work with the epic mythology of The Odyssey. It's a comedy. It's a love story. It's a horror story. And much, much more.

Genny is a temp. It's her first day working as a receptionist for a bomb manufacturer. When her past and present lives collide, the results are explosive.

Dan Dietz and Jason Neulander have collaborated on more than a dozen theater projects in the past six years, including Dirigible (1999 Austin Critics Table Award, Best New Play), Terminal Hip (2000 Austin Critics Table Award, Best Actor, Dan Dietz), and Tilt Angel (2002 Austin Critics Table Award, Best Director). tempOdyssey is their most ambitious collaboration to date.

"Dan's play is extremely technically demanding," says Neulander. "We have to be able to change locations instantly, actors play multiple characters, the world flips back and forth from reality to mythology. Fortunately, we have an incredibly talented team of people to pull it off."

That team includes set designer Chase Staggs, the technical director of SVT's productions of MotherBone and 16 Spells to Charm the Beast; costume designer Marcy Rector, a UT costume grad student and designer of 16 Spells to Charm the Beast; the award-winning sound designer team of the Gunn Brothers; and SVT veteran lighting designer Diana Duecker.

The talented cast features award-winners Joey Hood; Lowell Bartholomee; Douglas Taylor; Shannon Grounds; and Jenny Larson as Genny.

tempOdyssey runs Thursdays through Saturdays, June 6 through 28, with two Sunday performances June 15 and 22. All performances are at 8:00 PM at the Off Center (2211-A Hidalgo St). Tickets are $15 ($12 s/s/a). Thursdays and Sundays are Starving Artist Nite, half off with a canned food donation.

On Thursday nights, Salvage Vanguard Theater will host an informal discussion with the actors and directors immediately after the performance. On Saturday nights, the company will present a pre-show talk about the play in the context of current events, one hour before the show begins.

For information and advance tickets call (512) 474-SVT-6 or click HERE.

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