The Paris News (Paris, Texas) November 5, 2007

Multi-national road tour makes stop in Paris

By Mary Madewell
The Paris News
November 5, 2007

A German/U.S. theatrical road show currently touring the country pulls into Lamar County Fairgrounds Friday, Nov. 9.

The 15-person mixed German/U.S./ Austrian cast is to perform “Start Up” at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 at the door.

The group travels in a converted school bus and is moving from New York City towards Los Angeles over seven weeks and 24 cities, performing the new play by Germany’s hottest contemporary playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig, written especially for the group.Information about the group’s tour can be found on their Web site at http://www.roadtheaterusa.org/.

“You can find reviews from our New York run at Performance Space 122 and from our performance in Pittsburgh on October 16th,” said Daniel Brunet, associate director/associate producer of German Theater Abroad.

A brief synopsis follows.

Three Germans drive into Anytown, USA, looking for their piece of the American dream. They’ve come all the way from Berlin to rent a building and START UP a business. There are just a few problems: one’s starving, one’s missing, one’s gotten involved in certain practices and they’re all broke.

The audience is treated to a unique, riotous and ever-changing performance event, a combination of the filmed “reality” of the tour and the theatrical “fiction” of the Schimmelpfennig play.

In “Start Up,” an assorted crew of merry pranksters come up with what they believe is their million-euro idea: to sell German culture to Americans, which is of course the exact same thing that German Theater Abroad is doing as it travels across the country presenting this fast-paced farce.

A video team documents this ambitious road trip, then mines the video material collected up to that point live during each performance where it is projected on set.

This always new and expanded dramatic “Road Journal” interacts with the production of the play “Start Up” as background and stage design.

Other cities on the 6,000-mile tour include Edmonton, Ky., Las Vegas, the original sin city, melting pots like El Paso on the Texas/Mexico border and even an actual ghost town, Death Valley Junction – until they reach Los Angeles on the Pacific Ocean.