Press

AtticRep on Texas Public Radio “The Source” with Terri Gildea
June 30, 2011 · In 2006, a small professional theatre ensemble took up residence at Trinity University. AtticRep produces some of the most entertaining and thought provoking work in the Alamo City. Terry Gildea sits down with Artistic Director Roberto Prestigiacomo and Managing Director Rick Frederick to talk about the life of the company.

Smudge by Rachel Axler

AtticRep on San Antonio Express-News “AtticRep repurposes art installation for set of new show ‘Smudge’

AtticRep’s delves darkly comic dephts in ‘Smudge’

AtticRep’s “Smudge” opens with a burst of music, courtesy of Jeremiah Teutsch, that sounds a bit like something that would play under a fairy tale. The sound is somewhat whimsical, and there’s a hint of birdsong in the mix. It sets a playful tone for the surreal dark comedy that follows. More

The Irish Curse by Marting Casella

‘Curse’ magnifies men’s issue

It takes about 10 minutes for the men in AtticRep’s “The Irish Curse” to get down to business. They spend the opening moments starting a pot of coffee, hunting around for snacks, joking around, and gabbing about sex, manners and the priest’s acting career. The priest — Father Kevin (Rick Frederick) — reminds newcomer Keiren (Rodman Bolek) and the other guys that they are a support group. More

First Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema kicks off.

Two years ago, Susana Morrow kicked off an Project work about immigration with “Mujeres de Juarez,” a haunting movement-based performance piece with video created by Ana Carillo Bear. The two artists have collaborated on another work, “Palimpsest,” which they’ll present as part of the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema, hosted by AtticRep this weekend. More

Straight by David Schmader

AtticRep’s STRAIGHT well worth catching

AtticRep’s fifth season is off to a typically strong start with “Straight,”David Schmader’s sharp solo show about his excursion into the world of conversion therapy. More

.US. company created and The Reason of the Insane Ones by Roberto Prestigiacomo

AtticRep closes fourth season with flair. More

Slasher by Allison Moore

AtticRep’s ‘Slasher’ is bloody good fun

“Slasher,” native San Antonioan Moore’s comedy about the making of a horror movie, follows the basic template of the genre. More

Forum Theatre Project on Love and Marriage by AtticRep

AtticRep’s Forum series tackles right to marry. More

Lydia by Octavio Solis

Lydia. Rosa Flores prides herself on knowing precisely what is going on in her household. She knows, for example, when her sons have spent the night drinking, stealing swigs from the bottle their dad keeps stashed in his armchair. And she believes she knows all there is to know about Ceci, the much-adored daughter who has been brain damaged since a car accident two years earlier on the eve of her quinceañera. More
Read also the SA Express-News story ‘Trinity graduate earning buzz for latest play’

The Power of Pocho
A Conversation with Octavio Solis

Octavio Solis’s breakthrough drama, Lydia, has made the El Paso-born playwright a national sensation in the theater world. But for the 50-year-old Solis, who has toiled in the theatrical trenches for half his lifetime, the idea of overnight success chafes a bit. He’d prefer to be described as an “up-and-coming” playwright. More

A Story from Texas Public Radio

AtticRep, one of the city’s professional theatre ensembles, is opening its new season this week with a play about a Mexican American family navigating life in 1970’s El Paso. “Lydia,” by playwright Octavio Solis, explores the quest of immigrants searching for an American identity while trying to understand their Mexican heritage. It also deals with some uncomfortable dynamics of a dysfunctional family using both realism and fantasy. Director Marisela Barrera joined Terry Gildea in the studio to talk about this rich and complex play. More

The Goat or, Who is Sylvia by Edward Albee

‘Sylvia’ may get your goat

“Some things are so awful, you have to laugh.” So says Stevie (the amazing Gloria Sanchez), the wife in “The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?” She spends most of the play enmeshed in a cruel lesson about just that sort of thing — her much-adored husband Martin (Andy Thornton), the love of her life, has just been revealed as a cheater… More

Goats in the machine

Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia? uses one of society’s few remaining unmentionable taboos to explore the limits of tolerance. It begins as a conventional drawing-room family comedy,then verges on absurdist farce only to metastasize into blood-soaked Shakespearean tragedy…. More

Forum Theatre Project on Immigration

Forum Theater Project ‘Walls and Borders’

The basics of each Forum Theater outing are the same. Director Roberto Prestigiacomo chooses a topic; he and the rest of the company spend weeks researching that topic, including conducting interviews with people on every side of the issue; then they create a short theater piece…. More

Texas Public Radio Story on “Borders and Walls”

Act, participate, discuss: Play explores immigration

True West by Sam Shepard

Just a few minutes into AtticRep’s crackling production of “True West,” younger brother Lee has already peed in his mother’s spotless kitchen sink, made a serious dent in the six-pack he’s lugging around and attacked his older brother…. More

Lincolnesque by John Strand

Performances stand out in timely, funny, winning ‘Lincolnesque’

He doesn’t seem entirely OK — he does believe that he is Abraham Lincoln, and frequently expresses himself through the 16th president’s speeches — but he doesn’t appear to be dangerous… More

Back of the Throat by Yussef El Guindi

‘Back of the Throat,’ front and center

To borrow an absurd expression, if you’re being racially profiled, you might as well sit back and enjoy it. Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat begins abruptly as two investigators search an obliging Khaled’s (Nate Beal) inner-city apartment after a terrorist act…

Listen to the Story on Texas Public Radio

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‘Throat’ fades to black, sinister

In a short period of time, Arab American writer Khaled set up a series of clandestine meetings he didn’t tell his girlfriend about, and, according to a dancer, behaved oddly at a strip clup. More

‘Back of the Throat’ a post-9-11 study

Did he or didn’t he? And – more to the point – is he or isn’t he? Those questions are a pretty good jumping-off point for discussion of “Back of the Throat,” a post-9-11 black comedy receiving its San Antonio debut this weekend courtesy of AtticRep. More

Mr. Marmalade by Noah Haidle

‘Mr Marmalade’ disturbing, fun

AtticRep’s “Mr. Marmalade” is a carnival ride of a play: It’s thrilling, and might make you a little sick, but it’s also so much fun that it’s likely to send you to the back of the ticket line at the end, ready to take another ride. More & More

The secret lives of toddlers

The way I remember it, pretending to be an adult was much more fun than actually being one. That’s not the case for the youngsters of Noah Haidle’s Mr. Marmalade (who are, admittedly, much more worldly than the tots of yesteryear), but their trials are certainly entertaining to watch. Most of the time. More

Just a Kiss by Catherine Bush

Strong acting, directing marks ‘Just a Kiss’

“Just a Kiss”? Ha! There’s a big wink in that title, since every smooch in the AtticRep production is weighted with meaning. There is no such thing as “just a kiss” in the backstage universe created by playwright Catherine Bush. More

Troupe enters second year with reputation of smart work

Roberto Prestigiacomo figures that timing has played a major role in the formation of AtticRep. A quick look around the table at a few of the company’s collaborators gathered for a recent chat does seem to bear him out. More

AtticRep — Best Theater Event of 2007

OK, it’s no secret that the Current has a big hard-on for AtticRep, Trinity University’s resident theater company reborn last spring under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Roberto Prestigiacomo and Executive Director Timothy Hedgepeth. More

Fat Pig by Neil LaBute

‘Fat Pig’ a thoughtful look at self-esteem, body issues

When two people click right away, it’s a rare and beautiful thing. “Fat Pig,” the final offering in AtticRep’s stellar debut season, begins with that kind of meeting between Helen (Jennifer Colacino) and Tom (Eric Lozano) at a crowded diner. It’s a meeting straight out of a romantic comedy, and it probably would proceed as one, except for one thing. More

Phat Pig

You are what you eat. You’re also who you drink with, or so Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig deftly intimates. Yes, in the corporate world of non-work and non-play, it’s your non-friends who define you, and usually they’re assholes. More

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Cast, staging sparkle in ‘Last Days of Judas Iscariot’

AtticRep launched its first full season last weekend with a richly rewarding staging of “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.” Stephen Adly Guirgis’ challenging and frequently funny script digs into meaty matters such as faith, justice, betrayal, God, life after 9-11 and whether Judas got a fair shake. More

The Play’s the Thing

Theater in San Antonio is currently weighted in favor of two very specific demographics — everyone under 16 years of age, and everyone over 65. If you don’t fall into one of those groups, you’re pretty much screwed. More

On for the Road by Harold Pinter

Intense drama short, but powerful

Nick, the central character in Harold Pinter’s “One for the Road,” is a man who loves his work. After all, as he notes to the mostly silent man seated before him, “I can do absolutely anything I like.” The only indication of anything sinister in the first few minutes of the play, the debut offering from the AtticRep, is the stark terror in the eyes of that man. The more Nick talks — and he does almost all of the talking — the more unsettling the show becomes. More