Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2006 > July > 14
Friday, July 14, 2006
Long Center soiree
Parties: I’ve witnessed Cliff Redd’s PowerPoint presentation on the Long Center for the Performing Arts, oh, a thousand times. The dog-and-pony-show show gets better and better, and Redd’s campaign is down to the last 10 percent of the dollars required for design, construction and endowment.
Bettie Naylor, Dennis Karbach and Libby Sykora.
Thursday’s Long Center party for gay and lesbian supporters outdid most past fundraisers, partly because it was held in the four-story Congress Avenue townhouse of Robert Brown and Dennis Karbach. This clean-lined wonder, designed by visionary Tim Cuppett, takes what Eddie Safady did two doors down to a 19th-century brick structure, and stretched it up four stories, each more enticing and elegant than the one below it — with a sweet lawn, pool and spa on top.
An Affair to Remember did the catering — compact, intense finger food — and decked-out Hedda Layne provided the entertainment. We spent a good 90 minutes chatting with the handsome, smartly casual crowd before heading out for the theater. There was much talk of same-gender couples sponsoring chunks of the center.
Todd Dellinger and Stephen Moser.
Ken Stein, Ken Lambrecht and Stuart Moulton.
Bill Vandersteel and James Armstrong.
Ted Smith and Wayne Bell.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: By Michael Barnes
Robert Faires, actor
Theater: Honestly, we are not trying to pump up the Austin Chronicle staff in Out, but here’s another timely observation: Chron arts editor Robert Faires is an actor.
Scotty Roberts and Robert Faires in “In On It”
Oh, he’s been on the Austin stage since 1980, but in the past, he tended to “present” his characters, as if part of his consciousness observed the action.
Beginning with his smooth ensemble work in “The Compete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged),” Faires has relaxed inside this characters’ skins. Now, co-starring with the reliable and amiable Scotty Roberts in Daniel MacIvor’s “In On It,” Faires transcends previous performances; he really seems to live each scene of flirtation, argument, wonder, etc.
Frankly — and this comes with age for some actors — Faires could work in any medium in any market right now. We’ve joked for a long time about how he and wife, Barbara Chisholm, are Austin’s Lunt and Fontanne, but now they are both playing at the top of their games.
This complicates Faires role as a journalist, but not mine. Were this a formal review, I wouldn’t go on and on about his performance, but the blog format frees me up to state the obvious: Already an accomplished writer, editor and director, Faires can now firmly attach the appellation “actor” to his name.
Let’s toast Lowell Bartholomee of the Dirigo Group for producing this play about two participants in a car crash, which we first saw during the performance art festival at the University of Texas a few years ago.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: By Michael Barnes
