[ This Just In! ]

For Immediate Release
Date: September 5, 2003

Salvage Vanguard Theater Announces Next Resident Company Members

AUSTIN, TX--Salvage Vanguard Theater has added two more theater artists to its paid Resident Company: composer Graham Reynolds and actress Jenny Larson.

Resident Company Members are paid an annual stipend of $5,000 to live and work as theater artists in Austin. They have two commitments as part of their membership. First, each Resident Company Member must participate in some capacity, either as an artist or as a volunteer, on each of Salvage Vanguard Theater's shows. Second, each Resident Company Member must work actively in theater in Austin, with SVT and other companies.

Artistic Director Jason Neulander explains the reasons behind the program: "Austin is America's second most creative city, but we still don't pay our performing artists a living wage. As a result, our most talented artists move to other cities that promise a living wage, thereby limiting the maximum possible quality of work here in Austin. We're hoping that this program will help to change that paradigm."

"I am grateful to be a part of a company that values its artists and is doing something active to improve the living standards for artists in Austin," says Larson. "I love Autsin. The city nurtures my soul. I don't want to work on my craft anywhere else, and with the Salvage Vangurad Residency staying in Austin is an easier choice to make."

JENNY LARSON has been an actor in Austin for the past seven years. She graduated form St Edwards University with a BA, magna cum laude. In Austin her regional performances include: Limonade Tous Les Jours (Ya-Ya) and Laramie Project at Zachary Scott Theatre Center, Incubus Archives (Flea) with the Rude Mechanicals, Motherbone (Val) and tempOdyssey (Genny) with Salvage Vanguard Theater, and Ordering Seconds (Runaway) and Polaroid Stories (Eurydice) with Frontera @ Hyde Park Theatre. Currently she is Literary Manager for Salvage Vanguard Theater. Jenny does voice over work for A.D.Vision where she last recorded Sakura Wars as the title character. She has received local awards and nominations for her work in tempOdyssey, Laramie Project, Loves Fire, and Lend Me a Tenor .

GRAHAM REYNOLDS is a bandleader and composer living and working in Austin since 1994. His main project is Golden Arm Trio, an eclectic project that writes and performs music for chamber pieces, symphonies, film scores, dance pieces, operas, and plays in just about every combination of instruments imaginable. Reynolds began working with Salvage Vanguard Theater in 1999. Since that time he has scored the music for four plays and three operas with the company, including last Fall's MotherBone, which was Salvage Vanguard's biggest-attended, highest-grossing show ever. Reynolds is already at work composing Genghis Khan, a new opera to be premiered by Salvage Vanguard Theater in Fall 2004.

During his tenure, continuing Resident Company Member Dan Dietz has written tempOdyssey, which has been nominated for the 2003 B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding New Script, and won the coveted Heideman Award from the Humana Festival of New Plays at Actors' Theatre of Louisville.

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