[ This Just In! ]
For Immediate Release
Date: February 12, 2004
SVT Celebrates It's 10th Anniversary with a Month-Long Birthday Bash
AUSTIN, TX--Salvage Vanguard Theater turns ten years old this March. To celebrate, the company is coordinating the SVT Birthday Bash, a month-long birthday celebration, in March and April. And everyone is invited.
"When I founded the company in 1994, I didn't think it would last five years," says Salvage Vanguard Theater's Artistic Director Jason Neulander. "Now, ten years later, I'm already looking ahead to the next 20. I'm proud that Salvage Vanguard Theater has become an Austin creative mainstay."
To kick off the Birthday Bash, Mayor Will and Anne Elizabeth Wynn, along with Salvage Vanguard Theater's Board of Directors, are hosting a party on Friday, March 26 at the Mayor's home. At the party, attendees will burn Salvage Vanguard Theater's old slogan ("I hate theater") in a bonfire and the company will announce a new slogan, selected from entries submitted by SVT's audience. Additionally, the Mayor will present a proclamation stating that March 26, 2004, is officially the City of Austin's "Salvage Vanguard Theater Day."
In the weeks following the party, Salvage Vanguard Theater will be presenting nine different performance events, looking back at ten years of combining the different artistic disciplines under a theatrical roof. In fact, for its first two years, Salvage Vanguard Theater didn't produce work in a theater at all, but rather at a rock music venue, The Electric Lounge.
Many of the company's early projects mixed spoken word and theater (Reverberations, a spoken word collision), music and theater (starting with its very first production Kid Carnivore), and dance and theater (The American Demons with Deborah Hay). In addition, the company even produced series of nontheatrical site-specific events, A F*&#ing Riot.
The Birthday Bash performance events include a "hoot night" of original music from the company's shows, featuring Golden Arm Trio, The Transgressors, and other local bands; "Salvage Vanguard Cinema", a festival of short film/music collaborations at the Alamo Draft House; a series of performances produced by some of SVT's new company members; and a play reading series featuring the work of Alice Tuan, Carlos Murillo, and Rinne Groff. Tickets for all of the events will be sold at 1994 prices: $5.00.
Company member and local poet Hilary Thomas is coordinating one of the projects, a spoken word event commemorating ten years of Salvage Vanguard Theater.
"As this special evening of performance comes together," says Thomas, "I feel a deep sense of pride and gratitude that I live in such a kick-ass town where a group like Salvage Vanguard has the opportunity to successfully break boundaries and challenge audiences and do it for ten years and counting."
Shannon McCormick, another Salvage Vanguard company member, is producing Everything Must Go!, a performance and sound/video installation.
Says McCormick: "I'm excited to be producing a show for Salvage Vanguard's Tenth Anniversary. It's an honor to be able to contribute to SVT?s ongoing promotion of artists creating new and engaging experimental performance work."
In addition to nine local performance events, Salvage Vanguard Theater is coordinating a road trip to the Humana Festival of New Plays at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville to watch and celebrate the performance of former co-Artistic Director and current Resident Company Member Dan Dietz's 10-minute play A Bone Close to My Brain at the festival on April 3.
"Dan's growing career is one of many examples of Salvage Vanguard Theater launching the careers of local artists," says Neulander. "We thought it would be fun to include Dan's latest national success in our birthday celebrations."
In the past ten years Salvage Vanguard Theater has produced dozens of world premiere plays and has launched the careers of numerous playwrights by producing their first professional productions, including Dan Dietz, Ruth E. Margraff, and Lisa D'Amour. The company has hired more than 550 local artists to work on its shows. It has raised more than two-and-a-half tons of canned food donations through "Starving Artist Nite". SVT has published dozens of scripts and released six CDs of music from its work. Most recently, it has created a paid Resident Company, encouraging local theater artists to stay local.
The SVT Birthday Bash runs March 26 through April 17 at various locations around Central Austin and in Louisville, Kentucky.
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