Rude Mechs Based in Austin, Texas, Rude Mechs has created a mercurial slate of twenty-three theatrical productions that represent a genre-defying cocktail of big ideas, cheap laughs, and dizzying spectacle. What these works hold in common is the use of play to make performance, the use of theaters as meeting places for audiences and artists, and the use of humor as a tool for intellectual investigation. We tour these performances nationally and abroad, maintain The Off Center, a performance venue in Austin for arts groups of every discipline, and run a year-round arts mentoring program for teenage girls. For more information, visit www.rudemechs.com.
Thomas Graves (ensemble) is a co-producing artistic director for Rude Mechs. As such, he has developed, performed in, and produced Cherrywood, Have You Ever Been Assassinated? Decameron Day 7: Revenge, the Rudes' re-enactment of Dionysus in 69 (William Finley), and recently made his first appearance at The Humana Festival at ATL (The Method Gun). Graves recently co-directed with Lana Lesley Rude Mechs' new western operetta by Kirk Lynn and Peter Stopschinski, I’ve Never Been So Happy, which premiered April 2011. Other performances in Austin include Rubber Repertory's The Casket of Passing Fancy. Thomas holds an M.F.A. in performance as public practice from The University of Texas at Austin.
Heather Hanna (ensemble) has been developing work and performing with Rude Mechs as a company member since 2004, including Cherrywood, Have You Ever Been Assassinated?, a revival of Pale Idiot, and Decameron Day 7: Revenge. Other performances in Austin include dirigo group's Human Interest Story and various performances for FronteraFest and Austin Script Works. Heather holds a theater studies B.F.A. in from Southern Methodist University and is currently the business manager for Salvage Vanguard Theater.
Hannah Kenah (ensemble) has been developing work and performing with Rude Mechs as a company member since 2008, including I’ve Never Been So Happy, and Dionysus in 69. Other theater: Voices Underwater (Salvage Vanguard Theater), 1+1+1, and Work of Consequence (Hyde Park Theatre’s FronteraFest), The Idiot Servants (Dell’Arte’s Mad River Festival), The Blind (Vortex Theater Company, NYC), With Claws and Beak (Workhorse Theatre Ensemble), Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Vortex Repertory Company, Austin). Kenah holds a B.A. in drama from Dartmouth College and is a graduate of Dell’Arte International. In addition, she spent three summers working at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Kenah is currently writing, and co-devising with Jenny Larson, Guest by Courtesy to premiere October ‘11 at Salvage Vanguard Theater.
Lana Lesley (ensemble) is a founder and co-producing artistic director for Rude Mechs, and has worked as a collaborator, producer and actor on nearly thirty original Rude Mechs productions, including, most recently, Get Your War On and I’ve Never Been So Happy. With Rude Mechs, Lesley has performed at Humana Festival 2010, Arena Stage, Dance Theater Workshop, Galway Arts Festival, Kiasma Festival, Szene Salzburg, Edinburgh Fringe (Winner, Total Theater Award for Best New Play by an Ensemble), UCLA Live!, Bumbershoot, the Walker Art Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Wexner Center for the Arts, On The Boards, and DiverseWorks. With SITI Company, Lana toured their piece systems/layers to the Krannert Center and Utah State University. With The TEAM, Lana has toured their piece Architecting to BITE Festival, Culturgest, The Arches, and to Theatre Junction. Lana recently co-directed with Thomas Graves Rude Mechs' new western operetta by Kirk Lynn and Peter Stopschinski, I’ve Never Been So Happy, which premiered April 2011.
E. Jason Liebrecht (ensemble) has been developing work and performing with Rude Mechs as a company member since 1999. Rude touring: Walker Art Center, Wexner Center for the Arts, On the Boards and Bumbershoot Festival (Seattle, WA), UCLA Live, Szene Salzburg (Austria), Woolly Mammoth (Washington D.C.), Live Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Under the Radar (New York, NY), Kiasma Festival (Espoo, Finland), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), and Galway Arts Festival (Ireland). Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.), Yale Rep and The Humana Festival at ATL (2010). Off-Broadway: Lipstick Traces (Rude Mechs / Foundry Theater), Get Your War On (Rude Mechs), Cowboy Mouth, The Unauthorized Moving Picture of John Dillinger (Hourglass Group) and Steve Earle's Karla (Culture Project), and The Method Gun (Rude Mechs / DTW). Film: David Byrne's True Stories, Richard Linklater’s Waking Life, Matt Zollar Seitz's HOME and The Bed Thing, Spencer Parsons' Chainsaw Found Jesus.
Kirk Lynn (playwright) is a founder and co-producing artistic director for Rude Mechs. With Rude Mechs, Lynn has written and adapted more than a dozen plays including Lipstick Traces, Requiem for Tesla and I’ve Never Been So Happy, winner of a National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Award. Kirk also wrote Major Bang for The Foundry Theatre (NYC), with whom he is working on a new commission about “value” and its myriad meanings in America. Kirk received his M.F.A. from the Michener Center for Writers and currently teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.
Shawn Sides (director) is a founder and co-producing artistic director for Rude Mechs. With Rude Mechs, she has co-conceived, -adapted, and directed a new work every year, give or take, since 1996, including Get Your War On, and Lipstick Traces. Sides’s work has toured to Walker Art Center, UCLA Live!, Wexner Center for the Arts, Galway Arts Festival, Edinburgh/Aurora Nova, Szene-Salzburg, and Kiasma Festival (Espoo/Helsinki). She co-directed The Provenance of Beauty by Claudia Rankine with Melanie Joseph at the Foundry Theatre, and the Rudes’ re-enactment of The Performance Group’s Dionysus in 69 with Madge Darlington. She most recently worked with Kristina Wong on Wong’s latest piece, Cat Lady. She is the Alpert/Hedgebrook Residency Prize recipient for 2010.
Lowell Bartholomee (stage manager/projection designer) has been developing work and performing with Rude Mechs as a company member since 2005, including most recently, I’ve Never Been So Happy, and Get Your War On. Rude touring: Arena Stage’s New Play Festival, Humana Festival 2010, Bumbershoot Festival (Seattle, WA), Under the Radar (New York, NY), Kiasma Festival (Espoo, Finland), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), and Galway Arts Festival (Ireland). Off-Broadway: Get Your War On (Rude Mechs), blah, blah, blah (Bayou Radio Productions). Other Theatre: Up In the Old Hotel (Refraction Arts Project), Nightswim (State Theatre Company). Film: Holy Hell and My Name is Buttons. Bartholomee holds a B.F.A. from New York University.
Madge Darlington (production manager/technical director) is a founder and co-producing artistic director for Rude Mechs. In the collaborative spirit of the Rudes, Madge has worked on almost every show the Rudes have made in some form or fashion including directing, acting, production managing, technical directing, stage managing, and designing. Of special note is her direction of the only known staged production of Shelly’s Prometheus Unbound. Recently Madge co-directed the Rudes' re-enactment of The Performance Group’s Dionysus in 69 with Shawn Sides, and worked with Nadine Mozone on her one-woman show, Delta Rhapsody. Darlington co-directs Rude Mechs’s Grrl Action, a year-round arts mentoring program for teenage girls.
Michael Mergen (projection designer) has been developing and designing work, and performing with Rude Mechs as a company member since 1999, including most recently, I've Never Been So Happy. As a performer, Mergen has toured with Rude Mechs to the Walker Arts Center, Wexner Center for the Arts, CSPS 122, and DiverseWorks. Mergen has created original video design for Rude Mechs on El Paraiso, and Decameron Day 7: Revenge (including a five-episode original soap opera called Harbor Cove), and directed a revival of Kirk Lynn's Pale Idiot.
Graham Reynolds (sound designer/composer) creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs, and concerts halls with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater to DJ Spooky to the Austin Symphony Orchestra. As leader of the Golden Arm Trio, he’s released three critically-acclaimed CDs and performed throughout the United States and Europe. As co-artistic director with Peter Stopschinski of Golden Hornet Project, Reynolds has produced more than fifty concerts of world-premier alt-classical music. His music has been heard throughout the world on TV, in films and on radio, from HBO to the Cannes Film Festival to the BBC and on NPR’s All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, and Marketplace. More at www.grahamreynolds.com
Brian H. Scott (lighting designer) is a company member of Rude Mechs, and has designed The Method Gun, How Late It Was, How Late, Lipstick Traces, Match-Play, Cherrywood, and Get Your War On with the company. As a SITI Company member he designed American Document, a collaboration with the Martha Graham Company, Freshwater, WhoDoYouThinkYouAre, Radio Macbeth, Hotel Cassioepia, Death and the Ploughman, bobrauschenbergamerica (Henry Hewes Design Award 2004), War of the Worlds Radio Play, and systems/layers. Other recent projects include, Titus Andronicus (The Court Theatre, Chicago), The Age of Iron, The Tempest, Hamlet, Richard II, and Richard III (Classic Stage Company, NYC), Songs from an Unmade Bed (NYTW), and The Importance of Being Earnest (Arena Stage).
Leilah Stewart (scenic designer) is a freelance scenic designer and performance artist based in Austin, Texas. Stewart has been designing with Rude Mechs as a company member since 2003. She is currently designing The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler (St Edward's University). Her recent design projects include: Hula, an independent feature film (production designer), The Imaginary Invalid (scenic design), Rude Mechs’s I’ve Never Been So Happy (scenic design), City of Angels (St. Edwards University), and bobrauschenbergamerica (St. Edwards University), both of which were nominated for “Best Scenic Design” by the 2010 Austin Critics Table Awards. Stewart designed Dress Suits To Hire for The Split Britches Company (La Mama) and Pheonix Fabrik for Daniel Alexander Jones (Pillsbury House Theatre). Her recent performance installations received commissions from Austin Scriptworks and the Fuse Box Festival. Stewart earned an M.F.A. in scenic design from the University of Texas at Austin.
