Bite Me is a funny-stupid one act show that incorporates music, magic, and live action puppet movies with the most famous of fairy tales in order to overthrow the patriarchy one bite at a time. Created by CB Goodman, Hilary Chaplain, and directed by Aitor Basauri it navigates modern beliefs regarding age, gender, and beauty while confronting the issues surrounding what it means to grow up as a woman. Bite Me invites us all to embrace our individual power and live boldly as a community to try and discover the potential of an equal society and all its many layers.
Postponed Due to Coronavirus
Content Warning: adult themes and situations including depictions of birth, blood, death, and sexual assault.
The Vortex - 2307 Manor Rd, Austin TX, 78722
Tickets $15 - $37
Tickets and Info: www.vortexrep.org or call 512-478-5282
Blue Star Theatre: Discounts for Military, Veterans, and their families
Facilitated Discussion with SAFE on Sexual Assault
Pay-What-You-Wish: Wednesday May 27
ASL Interpreted: Saturday May 30
2-for-1 Admission: every Sunday with donation of 2 canned goods for SAFE
Radical Rush Free Tickets: Limited free tickets for each performance in the spirt of sustainability, accessibility, and the gift economy. Released at 7 pm each night in-person only.
Directed by Aitor Basauri
Created and Performed by CB Goodman and Hilary Chaplain
Sound and Projection Design by Lowell Bartholomee
Original Music by Toby Park
Lighting Design by Patrick Anthony
Costume Design by Aaron Flynn
Puppetry and Set Design by CB Goodman
Choreography by Kelsey Oliver
Technical Director Zac Crofford
Lighting Assistant Emily Scott
Production Stage Manager Mary Ruth
Aitor Basauri (director and Spymonkey Joint Artistic Director/ES) - is one of the most sought after and leading teachers and directors of clown and physical comedy in the world. Spymonkey was founded by Toby Park, Petra Massey and Aitor Basauri in 1997. With their dark, edgy physical comedy rooted ‘somewhere between Monty Python, the Marx Brothers and Samuel Beckett’ (The Houston Chronicle), they have proved to be a truly international phenomenon, enjoyed by and accessible to a wide range of international audiences. Aitor regularly runs Spymonkey masterclasses in London, Brighton and New York, has directed numerous comedy shows, and is a staff tutor at Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas.
CB Goodman - (founder Grackle Jack Prod./puppet designer/performer/TX) is an artist specializing in creating theatre that wrestles with the American dream and incorporates disparate source materials, original writing, and puppetry. Her work has been presented at venues in Austin, New Orleans, Charlotte, and New York City. Her 2018 project co-produced with En Route Productions, *some humans were harmed in the making of this show, based on the life of Topsy the elephant and combined drag, clown, self help testimony, and puppetry was named on two top ten lists of best theatre in Austin, Texas for 2018 and won 4 B. Iden Payne awards for Best Actor and Actress in a Drama and Best Sound and Projection Design.
Hilary Chaplain - (performer/NY) has been recognized as one of America’s foremost professional physical comediennes, performing her original solo A Life In Her Day and ensemble work for over a decade throughout the US, Canada, South America, Europe, and Asia. Uncovering the humor in everyday life, Hilary’s extraordinary work has won accolades worldwide. She is also a founding member of the New York Goofs (est.1998) appearing with them in prestigious New York venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Medora Musical, and on tour at Wolf Trap with Bob McGrath from Sesame Street.
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Lowell Bartholomee - (sound/video design/TX) was the sound/video designer for CB’s Some Humans Were Harmed in the Making of This Show for En Route, for which he was awarded two B. Iden Payne Awards and a longing wish to still be doing that show. Meanwhile, his work has been seen and/or heard in Hyde Park‘s Wakey Wakey; Cap T’s Dry Land and It is Magic; Penfold’s Crime and Punishment, Henry V, and Ghost Quartet; Different Stages’ Frankenstein and Gliders, Ground Floor’s Single Black Female, and three new semi-disturbing plays by UT students at UTNT. He has appeared sporadically on stage, most recently in Heartland at the Vortex and Tiny Beautiful Things at Austin Playhouse. He is a company member of Rude Mechs and Hyde Park Theatre and an associate member of Scriptworks.
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Toby Park - (composer and Spymonkey Managing Artistic Director/UK) was the musical director and composer for: Guy Dartnell’s Would Say Something (1998), winner of the Time Out Best of the Fringe Award; acro-dance-theatre Mimbre’s Sprung (2001), Trip-Tic (2003) and The Bridge (2007); site-specific pieces with Graeme Gilmour at Kielder Water Northumberland (2006) and Forth & Clyde Canal Glasgow (2007), and with Phil Supple/The Electric Estate for the National Trust at Cragside Northumberland. His directing credits include: Director of physical comedy for Chichester Festival Theatre's 'Mack & Mabel' (2015), Fabulous Bäckström Brothers, a clown opera in Helsinki (2014) and Tom Adams' Howl At The Moon. Co-director and composer for Spike Theatre's The Games (2010), Sink of Swim (2013), Georgia Pritchett's Telling Tales, Unity Festival opening and closing ceremonies at the Wales Millennium Centre (2012).
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Patrick Anthony - (lighting design/TX) is a freelance lighting and scenic designer based in Austin, Texas. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Loyola University: New Orleans, and studied Scene Design at the Lir Academy of Trinity College Dublin. Patrick has worked in the Austin community since 2009, designing over 200 productions of theatre, musical theatre and dance. Frequent collaborators include Austin Shakespeare, Capital T Theatre, Present Company & The Vortex Repertory Company. He has also designed internationally at the Dublin Fringe Festival. He recently designed for Teatro Vivo’s Aftershock/La Replica and Swimming While Drowning. He is the recipient of the 2012 & 2016 B. Iden Payne award for Outstanding Lighting Design, as well as the 2016 & 2017 Austin Critics' Table Award for Lighting Design. He teaches Stagecraft in the Department of Theatre at Southwestern University.
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Aaron Flynn - (costume design/TX) has been designing for the Austin theater community since 2015. His costumes for The Hidden Room’s The Rover won a 2019 Critic’s Table Award, and this spring’s Arden of Faversham has been well received. He is currently at work on the Rude Mechs original play High Crimes, as well as continued explorations with the physical theater collective Frank Wo/Men. This will be his first time working with CB Goodman, and he is excited to join creative forces with her and her team.
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Kelsey Oliver - (choreographer/TX) is an Austin native, is a freelance choreographer and performer in the digs for ridiculously experimental theatre, film, and concert dance. She is currently Artistic Director of physical theatre troupe Frank Wo/Men Collective, which spawned from a desire to create collaboratively fervid, humorous, and idiosyncratic devising processes with multi-fielded artists. Kelsey has collaborated on works with the Rude Mechanicals, Underbelly Theatre, Magdalena Jarkowiec, The Theorists, Body Shift, Capyac, UT New Theatre, Ground Floor Theatre, Heloise Gold, Cordova Quartet, + more. Kelsey has also been an adjudicator, choreographer, and dance instructor for studios and teams throughout Texas. She received a B.F.A. in Dance in 2015, studying at the University of Texas at Austin and Le Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, France. (Kelsey-Oliver.com)
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Emily Scott - (lighting assistant/operator/TX) has a BA in Theatre from Southwestern University. She has designed and stage managed shows there, as well as around the greater Austin area.
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Mary Ruth Knackstedt - (production stage management/TX) is making her stage management debut at Grackle Jack Productions. She is gearing up to graduate from Southwestern University and pursue theatre professionally. Mary Ruth is a jack of all trades when it comes to making theatre, but her true passions lie in directing and stage management. Select credits include: As You Like It: Public Works Dallas (Dallas Theatre Center), Drunk Enough To Say I Love You? and Here We Go (Second Thought Theatre), The Wolves, December Dance Recital, Heathers: The Musical (Southwestern University). Thank you to CB for this incredible opportunity.
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Special Thanks to Amanda Huotari and the Celebration Barn Artist Residency program which helped get this project on its feet and getting it finished, Lucas House Retreat where we began to write the show and develop the characters, and Spymonkey for supporting this project from the inception to the world premiere. We are forever grateful.