Make Every Media

Do You See Theatre

Tribute Page

2009 – 2017

Not This American Life

The format, tone, and enthusiasm for transformative stories of the NPR radio show, but on a comedy or theatre stage in Austin, TX starring “Not Ira Glass.” Usually but not always funny, parts improvised, parts scripted, always live!

Happiness is a Choice

Performance scientists who use improv and meta-theatre to learn about each other and the moments they inhabit on stage. Current Public Experiment Underway: Mapping the Mind thru MetaCartography.

Sondheim For One

All the romantic duets, show-stopping ensemble pieces, complex polyphonies and daddy issues of a Sondheim musical like INTO THE WOODS or SWEENEY TODD, but it’s all improvised by ONE actor and a pianist.

Confidence Men

Award-winning and internationally toured improvised plays in the style of David Mamet. Two acts & a musical intermission.

Band of Liars

They say music is love in search of a word. The Band of Liars is love in search of music. Based on suggestions from the audience they summon an entire album of improvised songs, never before heard, never to be listened to again.

Doctor Who Theatre

Improvised Adventures in Time and Space. Performed by two actor-improvisers, a lighting improviser, and a sound fx improviser. In the style of The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged.

(where we are now)

DYSTHEATRE: MISSION & COMPANY

1. Support community art spaces through digital preservation, multimedia documentation, and the production of new works in every media.

2. Foster an inclusive discourse on artful strategies for enacting positive changes in one’s self & community.

Michael Ferstenfeld

Producing Artistic Director

Todd Mein

Artist

Jeff Britt

Cofounder & Writer

Linda Ramsey

Writer

Lindsey McKenna

Cofounding & Costumery

Julie Moore

Resident Clown

SCRIPTED WORK

new plays. classics. first plays.

American Buffalo

April 2009

Vince Hannemann’s Cathedral of Junk lent its idiosyncratic soul to our incarnation of this essential work in American Theater. Our first play as a company, and the first to be performed against the backdrop of this celebrated Austin landmark, American Buffalo was found theatre at its best, most sacred, and most profane.

SLAG

July 2010

DYSTHEATRE opened our first full season of theatre with the play that Noel Coward once described as “five very good scenes and one bad one.” David O’Hare’s first, written in the back of a van with a typewriter on his knees over a period of four-days.

The Duck Variations

December 2010

A stellar cast of men and women, young and not so young, explored myriad unwritten relationships–mother and son, brothers, a married couple, a pair of hardened gangsters–without changing a single word or meaning of the script, of course.

True West

May 2011

Nine consecutive rounds of sibling rivalry constitute this burgeoning bout of domestic proportions, from safe inside this sweet suburban silence in southern California.

This Feather House

September 2012

The world premiere of the world’s first Wasserstein Prize winning play, from Japanese-American Austin local Linda Ramsey. A technicolor tale of ads and auras.

The Balcony Play

April 2013

A 20 minute romp through the greatest balcony romances ever written performed in partnership with ZACH Theatre.

FESTIVALS & COLLABORATIONS

What is a DYSFUNCTION? It’s a workshop, it’s a festival, and it’s a show. It’s all three in every show. It’s a smorgasbord fiesta safari of localized ART. Theatre, dance, puppetry, film, storytelling, stand-up, sketch, performance art, videogames, fine art. All based on a central theme.

The DysFunction

An event geared to bring a bunch of Austin theatre groups into one room to show their stuff and help raise funds for our 2011 production of Sam Shepard’s True West. Hosted by the inimitable singer/songwriter Southpaw Jones, a dozen or so theatre companies each presented on theme of familial dysfunction.

The Winter of Our DysContent

Beware the Ides! In March of 2013, Dystheatre garnered the forces of a dozen Austonian Theatre Troupes for a fine display of piteous moans, resplendent visions, undying love, and pontiferous fissions, to celebrate the Bard of Avon’s grande influence on our global communities.

ALL THE TIME TRAVELS ALL THE TIME

SEVEN showcases in 2014 concerning “Time Travel And Other Quantum Phenomena.” There was/is/will-always-be Late Night Time Machine, fine arts, time-travel novel excerpts read by the author, music, improv, stand-up, devised plays, select cenes from ongoing quantum-entanglement plays, mindmaps, revivals, dancing between eras, a travelling salesrat, and more!

MIXED MEDIA

audio & video. installation. interactive.

MetaCartography: Mapping the Mind

The Ongoing Calibration of an Iterative Mind and Memory Mapping Invention Installation.

event

This American, LIVE!

Public radio theatre for the eyes. A mix of script and improvisation, interviews and monologues, video, sketch, dance. The format, tone, and enthusiasm for personal stories of This American Life, but this is NOT Ira Glass. And this is not your car radio, this is a improv comedy stage in Austin, TX!