Austin’s Ground Floor Theatre (GFT) recently announced submissions are open for GFT In Residence, a new quarterly artist in residence program that began the end of 2020. This new program allows Ground Floor Theatre to expand their mission driven work supporting art by and for underrepresented communities. 

Artists will receive a stipend in addition to full use of GFT’s resources including mentoring from the GFT creative staff, and a fully supported showcase performance date at the theatre. Interested applicants may apply online at groundfloortheatre.org/residence. GFT is seeking Austin artists to support each quarter that cohere with their mission of working with underrepresented communities through GFT In Residence. GFT is seeking passionate theatre makers who will benefit from an environment that nourishes and challenges them. The program is for artists who are just establishing or need to re-establish their place in the Austin theatre community. 

The program’s inaugural artist was comedian, writer, and performer Laura de le Fuente who will have a live streamed showcase at GFT in the near future. Current artist is Michael J. Love, interdisciplinary tap-dance artist, choreographer, scholar, and educator whose embodied research intermixes Black queer feminist theory and aesthetics with rigorous practice to engage in thinking on Black cultural past and futurity. Michael’s GFT In Residence supported art “LIVE From The BEATBOX–Livestream No. 005” will stream live Saturday, March 20 at 4pm CST.

Applicants may apply online by filling out a simple form. All artists will be reviewed by members of the GFT staff, board, and stakeholders for final selections. Residency will be given to an artist quarterly. To learn more about the GFT in Residence program and submit an application online, please visit groundfloortheatre.org/residence.

“LIVE From The BEATBOX–Livestream No. 005” | Saturday, March 20 | 4pm CST

Tickets are $13 and available HERE.

“LIVE From The BEATBOX” is a series of monthly virtual performances by interdisciplinary tap-dance artist, Michael J. Love. Since November 2020, Love has been using the series to share in-process ideas, rhythm and movement sketches, and explorations of music, rhythm, melody, and embodied identity. In this latest entry and fifth in the series, Love will continue the narrative and theoretical arc of February 2021’s Livestream No. 004 and return to “rhythm-dreaming” of a future time, space, and place of uninhibited Black queer possibility.

Portions of the lobby and exterior space surrounding Ground Floor Theatre will be reimagined as the outer reaches of this futuristic location and a soundtrack anchored by house and electronic music will underscore Love’s improvised movement on top of a range of different types of surfaces. Tracing his movements and percussive sounds through sand and soil and over wood and pavement, he will spend Livestream No. 005 under the East Austin sky conjuring his own vision of a utopic Black “elsewhere.”

Trans Lives/Trans Voices – Extended!

Thursdays this Spring | 7pm

Original Music: Rocky Lane | Scenic Design: Gary Thornsberry | Lighting Design: Sydney Smith | Technical Direction: Hank Kerston | Graphic Design: Julia Zipporah

FREE; RSVP at https://www.groundfloortheatre.org/translives

Trans and non-binary people telling their own stories from their perspective. New stories premiere every Thursday night at 7pm with a live intro and talkback. Video’s will remain on GFT’s YouTube Channel. Subscribers of GFT’s YouTube Channel will be notified each week of new stories. 

Upcoming Stories: March 11: Faolán; March 18: Shane Whalley; March 25: Jyllian Mitchel; April 1: Remington Johnson; April 8: AQueen Austin; April 15: kt shorb & siri gurudev; and April 22: Emmett Schelling. Additional stories will be updated regularly.

Ground Floor Theatre is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.