EVEN
MORE AND MORE About Arts on Real Theatre and Soundstage
Reprinted from
the Austin Chronicle
With
Naughty Austin,
there's
more than meets the eye
Not
Just Another Pretty Face
BY ROBERT FAIRES
OK, judges, here
comes your first contestant in the Miss Glamouresse competition. As
she sashays down the runway, take careful note of the wiggle in her
walk, the wobble in her wave. You can see, she has all the makings
of a traditional beauty queen: the meticulously coiffed hair, spray-starched
into immobility; the industrial-strength mascara, generously applied,
the igloo-white teeth gleaming between twin layers of glistening lipstick,
the five o'clock shadow ...
That's right,
judges, if you didn't realize it before, a closer inspection of this
miss reveals a mister under all that pancake and padding. In fact,
all the gals in this title hunt are really guys. That's how it works
in Pageant, the widely produced musical comedy by Bill Russell and
Frank Kelly, receiving its local premiere from the Naughty Austin
theatre company. The show sends up old-school beauty ... er, scholarship
pageants with six maids (Miss West Coast, Miss Great Plains, Miss
Industrial Northeast, Miss Bible Belt, Miss Deep South, and Miss Texas)
facing off, as it were, in the categories of Evening Gown, Swimsuit,
Congeniality, Physical Fitness, and Spokesmodel. In its tussle for
the tiara, the show generates guffaws with lampoon versions of pageant
staples -- over-the-top regional costumes, a smarmy, lounge-singer
host, canned self-serving answers to lame questions, "talents"
that range from a ventriloquism act to an accordion solo played while
on roller skates -- with the Cool Whip topping on the parodic parfait
being that surefire laugh-getter since Aristophanes was a pup: men
in skirts.
The spoofery of
show-biz glamour, vanity, and the lust for the spotlight makes Pageant
a natural fit for Naughty Austin. After all, this is the company that
got its start mocking the hometown theatre scene. That was in 1997,
when Blake Yelavich and a few pals put together a cabaret show poking
fun at everyone on local stages from Austin Musical Theatre to the
Zilker Summer Musical. They teased Vortex Repertory Company actors
for their eagerness to show skin, caricatured that year's cabaret
trend as "one step removed from karaoke," and imagined Zachary
Scott Theatre Center's extravagantly lighted Rockin' Christmas Party
at the Paramount as sucking all the power from Congress Avenue. But,
as I wrote at the time, they "did it with such finesse -- the
word carefully chosen, the impersonation sharply observed, the tone
bemused, not bitter -- as to be artful." Their targets appeared
to take the joshing in good humor; the show was a hit and led to three
sequels over the next year. Naughty Austin quickly made a name for
itself as a company keen on having fun.
Still, as there
is frequently more to a pageant contestant than a glossy smile and
well-filled swimsuit, there's more to Naughty Austin than jokey escapades.
While other groups have been reaping more attention and awards, Naughty
Austin has been quietly growing into one of the most successful theatre
companies in the city.
At first glance,
Blake Yelavich himself might appear to be simply the brawn of the
outfit. He has a stevedore's arms and the broad shoulders that show
he knows how to use them. But while it's true the Naughty Austin founder
can swing a mean hammer -- he builds most of the elaborate sets for
the company's shows -- Yelavich also penned all the clever barbs in
the four Naughty Austin cabarets, plus five full plays staged by the
company.
Behind the imposing
physique and leading-man features is a sharp intelligence (and a wicked
one), capable of skewering an inflated ego in a few lyrics layered
onto a familiar tune, constructing the twists in a theatrical thriller,
and firing off answers in the high-stakes pressure-cooker of TV game
shows. (Yelavich's turns on Win Ben Stein's Money and The Weakest
Link earned him almost $50,000.)
The most telling
indicator of Yelavich's smarts, however, may be the success of his
theatre company. In seven seasons, he's shepherded it from ragtag
cabaret troupe performing in other companies' spaces to established
group presenting a four-show season in its own theatre. And he's done
it all while keeping the company in the black. That's right: Naughty
Austin has been financially sound from the start -- and remains so
even after the grim turn in the economy and launching a venue.
Part of the secret
to the company's success is a commitment to thriftiness. Yelavich
has a strict formula for budgeting his productions: Calculate the
maximum amount that could be made over the course of the run. Multiply
that by a third, and that's the budget. The shows may be trim, but
the company is well-served by the approach. Not only has Naughty Austin
not lost money, but when it has had a hit, it's been able to make
use of the profits instead of having to use them to pay off debts.Making
Porn, the 2002 production featuring adult film stars Ryan Idol and
Chris Steele, was seen by more than 2,000 people, breaking box-office
records at Hyde Park Theatre and earning Naughty Austin $17,000. Yelavich
was able to channel that cash, along with his game-show winnings,
into the company's new Eastside home on Real.
That Naughty Austin
has had hit shows -- and continues to have them, as the thousands
of Web site hits and hundreds of reservations for Pageant testify
-- speaks to Yelavich's ability to connect with an audience that appreciates
his work. Much of Naughty Austin's full-length work has focused on
dating and relationships (Personals, Mr. 80 Percent, Beyond Therapy),
frequently with strong gay characters (Tricks, Aidan's Bed,Bianka's
Wake, Angel's Balcony). Yelavich has successfully tapped a market
of young singles, gay and straight, who will turn out in droves to
see that onstage.
Of course, Yelavich
hasn't created all this by himself. No one artist could, and he is
quick to credit the friends and supporters working beside him, notably
partner Kirk Addison and pals/fellow performers Jody Lanclos and Paul
Parkinson. Still, when you consider his hands swinging that hammer
on all those sets, writing all those plays and parody numbers, directing
all those shows (all but two to date), generating all that marketing
and PR, and doing who knows what else, Yelavich is clearly the brawn,
brains, heart, and soul of Naughty Austin.
This year, Naughty
Austin joined the ranks of the East Austin warehouse theatres. After
attempts to establish home bases at Hyde Park Theatre and Austin Playhouse
fell through, Yelavich and company began searching for a place of
their own, and something in this 5,900-square-foot former icehouse
and meat processing factory struck Yelavich as ideal for a theatre.
When Addison agreed, they persuaded the rest of the Naughty Austin
crew to sign on, formed a new nonprofit called Arts Entertainment
Group Inc., and sealed a 20-year lease-to-own deal with landlord Larry
Rother.
When it came to
renovating the big cinder-block shell, Yelavich, as you can imagine,
did most of the work. Putting up walls, putting in seats, wiring,
plumbing -- you name it, he did it. And he put that abiding thriftiness
to good use. The truss work for the lighting? Acquired from the music
store Mars when it closed. Cost: $15,000. The 100 theatre seats? Bought
from a theatre in Houston that was damaged in last year's floods.
Cost: $1 apiece (even though these seats weren't touched by the water).
The mirrors in the dressing rooms, restrooms, and behind the bar?
Pulled off the walls of the downtown World Gym when it closed. The
26-foot-long bar with stainless steel front? In what he describes
as "truly an HGTV moment," Yelavich built a frame of 2-by-4s,
on top of which he poured concrete mixed with black dye. "Two-by-fours
are two bucks, right?" he asks. "Concrete is a dollar a
bag. The stainless steel on the front is flashing for a roof, underneath
your shingles: seven bucks. The entire bar, minus the lighting, was
300 bucks."
Ultimately, he
built the whole shebang -- convertible thrust/proscenium theatre with
22-foot-by-24-foot stage, rehearsal room the same size as the stage,
seating for the audience, two dressing rooms, three offices, scene
shop, lobby, and exterior -- for roughly $48,000. An amazing accomplishment
on so little, especially considering that it looks as if it cost 10
times that.
With that much
investment of cash and sweat equity in the place, you might expect
Yelavich to put a pretty high premium on anyone else using his theatre.
But he's not only eager to have other companies use Arts on Real,
he's also making it available at a bargain rate: a flat $1,000 a week
-- as many rehearsals and performances as the renter likes, just one
grand for seven days. All Yelavich wants is enough cash to cover his
rent and utilities on the space. With some arts spaces costing as
much as $400 per performance to rent, that's an offer local arts groups
couldn't refuse, and they lost no time in taking Yelavich up on it;
he booked 42 weeks of rentals in three hours, and a month away from
the new year, he has only eight weeks left open for booking in all
of 2004.
Clearly, the community
isn't holding Yelavich's old mockeries against him. And will the satirist-turned-venue-renter
return to his eye-poking ways any time soon?
"I'm not
sure we would want to do Naughty Austin right now," he says.
"When we did Naughty Austin the first time, it was fun to tease
Austin theatre because Austin theatre was flourishing in a way. Austin
Musical Theatre was new and big and strong, so it was fun to tease
the new kids. Zach Scott was big and strong. When theatres are narrowing
down this much ... I'm glad we're not hurting, but it's hard to be
proud and successful when you know that other people are hurting."
So Naughty Austin
is sensitive to its fellow arts groups. Who knew the beauty queen
that started out with the bitchiest mouth in town would wind up as
Miss Congeniality?
Pageant runs
through Jan. 3, Thursday-Saturday, at Arts on Real, 2826 Real. For
information, call 472-2787 or visit www.artsonreal.com or www.naughtyaustin.com.
Read
what the Barry Pineo of the AUSTIN CHRONICLE said about this fabulous
new theater space!
Arts
On Real was featured as a cover story in the American Statesman XLENT.
Read it here!
