WordSpace Texas UnBound Summer Festival -- Be There or Be Square

WordSpace at Undermain Theater August 10-19

Two Sizzling Weekends of Poetry, Fiction and Music

Undermain Theater in Deep Ellum is the cool venue for 20 hot poets, novelists, playwrights and musician when WordSpace launches Texas Unbound 2006. Mark your calendars now for August 10, 11, 12, 13 and August 17, 18, 19, 20. All evening performances are $7 and begin at 7 p.m. (unless otherwise noted) at Undermain's basement theater at 3200 Main Street, Dallas, TX.

Opening night poet Tim Seibles has a large and long-standing audience in Dallas for his extraordinary poetry readings -- developed over the ten years he wrote and taught high school here. The author of four collections of poetry, including Buffalo Head Solos (2004) and Hammerlock (1999), Seibles is an NEA fellow and a graduate of SMU and Vermont College at Norwich University. He now lives in Norfolk, Virginia and teaches at Old Dominion University. A resounding voice, fully founded in both body and spirit, Seibles' poems sing true songs for his varied and enchanted muses.

Other writers in this years Texas Unbound include award-winning Texas novelist and journalist Bryan Woolley, National Book Award winner LeAnne Howe, and emerging novelist Cristina Henriquez whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Glimmer Train, and the Virginia Quarterly Review; musicians and dancers of the African-American artist collective Kumaasi; performance poet Will Richey.

Friday play nights include new works by award-winning playwrights Tom Sime and Vicki Cheatwood read by top Dallas actors, and readings of work by playwrights Alex Argyros and John Fullinwider round out the festival's theater offerings.

Cliquez &c. for the full schedule.

OPENING NIGHT: TIM SEIBLES
THURSDAY, AUGUST 10
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $7
7:00 P.M.

Poetry from TIM SEIBLES and presentation of WordSpace's "Contribution to Literature Award” to Paperbacks Plus.

Tim Seibles is the author of four collections of poetry: Buffalo Head Solos (2004), Hammerlock (1999), Hurdy Gurdy (1992), all published by Cleveland University Press, and Body Moves (1988), published by Corona Press. He is a former National Endowment for the Arts fellow and has led workshops for Cave Canem -- a retreat for African American writers -- and for the Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Foundation.

THEATER NIGHT
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $7
7:00 P.M.

Staged readings from ALEX ARGYROS (“Bronx Vic.”) and JOHN FULLINWIDER (“Shadows”).

Alex Argyros teaches literary studies at the University of Texas as Dallas. His plays have been produced in Dallas, New Jersey, and New York. John Fullinwider’s play Eula Harris won Teco Theatrical Production’s New Play Competition in 2004 and was presented at WaterTower Theater’s Out of the Loop Festival. His play Bridges was presented by the Emergency Theater Group at Teatro Dallas in 2005.

BRONX VIC. is about two characters, Irma, who is obsessed with time and poetry, and her husband, Chester, who has spent a lifetime studying maps. As they bicker about the relative merits of time and space, the light of the world slowly fades and, simultaneously, the world is reduced to the Bronx. In the end, Irma and Chester must decide whether they will acquiesce to the end of time or risk a union that might give birth, once again, to what Beckett calls the feasting and famine of the ages.

A gangbanger with the soul of a poet, a father on death row, two sisters haunted by a secret, a dead police detective, and a city about to discover that its war on drugs is fake – SHADOWS is part murder mystery, part family saga, part love story, and portrays the dangerous, desperate pursuit of happiness from the dumps of Mexico City to the streets of Dallas.

POETRY NIGHT
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $5?
6:30 P.M.

High school poets from around Dallas read from their work in our bi-annual “Conspiracy” event. WILL RICHEY & FAINT IMAGE will present “Artist Night Out at the Undermain.” Richey is a popular Dallas performance poet who has participated in many literary festivals in the area, and helped organize readings for poets and performance writers in many venues.

PERFORMANCE NIGHT
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $7
7:00 P.M.

VENUS OPAL REESE performs her one-woman show Split Ends. One of the last performances before the show goes to New York.

DUETS: RECREATING DALLAS BLUES
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $7
7:00 P.M.

BRUCE DUBOIS and AKIN BABATUNDE present a biographical theatrical performance as Dallas historic figures Jimmy Rodgers and Blind Lemon Jefferson. With master of ceremonies ALAN GOVENAR.

THEATER NIGHT TWO
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $7
7:00 P.M.

WordSpace presents staged readings from Dallas playwrights TOM SIME and VICKI CHEATWOOD.

Tom Sime is a visual artist, playwright, and currently managing director of Contemporary Theater of Dallas. His award-winning visual work is represented in galleries in Houston and New York, and his plays have been performed in Dallas and other cities. His most recent play won the Peterson Emerging Playwright Award in spring 2005.

Vicki Cheatwood’s acclaimed plays have been produced in theaters around the country, including Six Figure Theater Company, Vital Theater and the International Center for Women Playwrights, all in New York City. Her work has also been produced at Ground Zero Theater Company and Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas.

FICTION NIGHT
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $7
6:30 P.M


The evening begins with Next On Deck: Writers from North Texas Universities read from their work. At 8:00, fiction readings from various writers.

CRISTINA HENRÍQUEZ'S debut story collection, Come Together, Fall Apart, was published by Riverhead Books in April. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and other journals, and she was featured in Virginia Quarterly Review as one of "Fiction's New Luminaries." She is also the recipient of an Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award, founded by Sandra Cisneros.

National Book Award winner LEANNE HOWE is the author of Shell Shaker and other works of fiction. She has published short stories in Story, Fiction International, and many other magazines, and currently teaches literature and writing at the University of Mississippi.

BRYAN WOOLLEY's many awards for his journalism and 12 works of fiction include a PEN West Literary Award, a Spur Award for Best Historical Novel, and four Texas Institute of Letters journalism awards. A senior writer at The Dallas Morning News, Bryan's novels include Some Sweet Day, Time and Place, November 22 and Sam Bass.

BILL SWART holds degrees from the University of Texas and Texas Tech University, and is a partner at the Dallas law firm of Hughes & Luce, LLP. He has written a variety of plays, novels, and short stories, and his legal writing has appeared in Texas Banker and Texas Bar Journal.

KUMAASI is a collective of African artists who share the vision and purpose of reclaiming and re-instituting Traditional West African culture through the music and dance of this rich and diverse region of their ancestral homeland.

PERFOMANCE NIGHT
SUNDAY, AUGUST 20
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UNDERMAIN THEATER
3200 MAIN STREET $7
7:00 P.M.


DANCING TONGUE is a collaborative performance poetry ensemble presenting the poetic word in a variety of media. Founded by poet TIM CLOWARD in 1989, the troupe combines music, theater, dance, video, and visual art to create unique poetry theater, and includes percussionist/artist CHAD EVANS, musician/performance artist KIM CORBET, mezzo soprano LISA HUFFACKER, visual artist DAVID DARNELL, performance poet FRAN CARRIS and video artist RICHARD ALLEN.