Last year The International Home Theater Festival was presented in the LT Box Theater in the Mission District of San Francisco, CA. This is a fancy way to say, we threw a show in the garage. Luckily, the garage opened up to 22nd Street, so all we had to do was open the door to present our work to The City. It was a raging success, so much so, that we did it again a few months later just for kicks. Who doesn’t want to walk around their neighborhood and discover there is a live show happening? The show was just one of many that were part of The Festival. The San Francisco Bay Guardian explains,
In 2010, Bay Area performance artist and provocateur
Philip Huang bucked the notion of institutionalized artistic legitimacy and challenged his friends to stage performances in their own homes. “We can legitimize ourselves,” his manifesto promised, calling the welfare state of professional arts organizations a “crock of sh*t.” One year later, the all-volunteer, thoroughly-DIY
Home Theatre Festival spanned the globe, with scheduled performances on four continents. The premise is simple: without paying hundreds of dollars to a venue for overhead expenses, artists can charge $8 at the door and still walk away with some profit, while audiences get to experience an intimately staged performance without an institutional filter. Whether home theater can or should replace all professional art space is up for debate, but it’s nice to be reminded that ultimately the art, not the venue, matters most.
[note: We will not be charging $8, because this is Denton, not San Francisco, but we will be asking you to participate monetarily because art makes the world a better place, and that is something we can all stand behind]
This year, we bring the festival to a new venue, a new state, and present new work. The LT Box Theater is now an entire house known fondly as The Jackrabbit, where all the magic will go down for the Texas Underground. Showcasing a variety of Texas’ talented artists, the home theater opens at 8:30 and starts right at 9pm. If you’re late you have to wait. The audience will be led around the house for different performances, including an interactive music making session with composer Martin Back (no musical experience necessary, and participation is not mandatory); musical parlor performances, such as Johnathan Jackson and Andrew Miller, Lily Taylor and Darcy Neal, Martin Back, and Austin’s How I Quit Crack; and video projections by Sean Miller. Doesn’t that sound like a nice evening? Come alone or bring a friend.
