Play Gets Audience Involved

Audience participation takes a new turn at a theatre in DeSoto, TX.

With "Eat the Runt," being performed at the DeSoto Corner Theatre, 211 E. Pleasant Run Road through Oct. 1st, actors have to learn their lines and the audience's too.

Act I Productions presents the show in septuplets about a job candidate's rough and more twisted interview day as he tries to get a position at an art museum.

The roles have no gender specific names and their race can cause quite the controversy when mixed into the soup of politics.

The outline is explained to the audience before the show and then the actors "audition" for their characters live.

Avery Crozier, who wrote the play, gives the viewers their wish when they want to see one actor in a different role in which he or she has been cast. The production was seen back in 2001 in an Off Off Broadway production, a play without pronouns. And those voters who in real life, wish to participate in an electronic voting system, get to do so in this play - one of the only kind like it. It is the unusual casting method that lends itself well to the show.

And, like a good smorgasbord, you never know what you're going to get, but, rest assured, according to critics, it is worthy. What's also great about the premise is it doesn't take long to move beyond its preface. The seven-actor performance has the gift of being rewritten at every show so you can't really tell your friends, "Wait till you see……!"

Crozier is said to have called the show an actor's nightmare since each actor does not know what role they will be playing till the audience decides.

The DeSoto Theatre is 15 miles south of downtown Dallas in DeSoto Town Center. It has been home to such productions as "The Complete Works of Williams Shakespeare" and"The Rainmaker" among others.

"Eat the Runt," which started production Sept. 8th, is directed by Robin Armstrong and stars Raymond Banda, Ginger Goldman, Joel McDonald, Becca Shivers, Octavia Thomas, Maureen Whisman, and Brian Witkowicz. The show is rated R for strong language and adult themes.

Show times are Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.

Admission prices are $15 with discounts for students, seniors, Dallas Theatre League members, and column subscribers.

For more information, call 214-641-9993.