Terry Allen: Dugout    Mar 4 - May 10, 2004

We are pleased to announce DUGOUT I at LA Louver Gallery, which is one component of a multi-venue, multimedia art exhibition and theater program by Terry Allen in Los Angeles spring 2004.

Initially written, directed, and produced by Terry Allen as an audio drama for New American Radio and presented on NPR in 1994, DUGOUT has evolved into a three-part series that includes writing, multi-media art works, installations, a music theatre piece, CD and/or DVD, and book. The presentation of DUGOUT in Los Angeles is the first opportunity to experience all aspects of DUGOUT concurrently.

DUGOUT is a made up world, constructed and based on the true stories and lies I heard and experienced as a boy growing up in the flat sprawl of Texas. It is about baseball and music and a man and woman who play them across the endless idea of America during the late 19th-century and the first half of the 20th-century. It is about the unexpected arrival and continuing shock of their teenage "kid" (WARBOY)… not to mention his own shock. DUGOUT is a love story; an investigation into how memory is invented… a kind of Supernatural-Jazz-Sport-History-Ghost-Blood-Fiction.

---------------Terry Allen

Six large "stages", or multimedia tableaux -- made up of a miscellany of materials, including old furniture, building parts, taxidermy, baseball memorabilia, musical ephemera and neon texts -- comprise the heart of the exhibition. Forty richly colored drawings with text, in pastel, gouache, ink and graphite complement the stages, and expand upon the theatrical thread that runs through the presentation. The third element of the exhibition is a soundtrack that includes a lively dialogue between the characters of DUGOUT, interspersed with Allen's ragtime/jazz/blues music, which is piped through the gallery.

DUGOUT I was first shown at Pillsbury Peters Fine Art, Dallas, Texas in May-August 2002. In conjunction with elements from DUGOUT II, DUGOUT I was exhibited at the Austin Museum of Art, Texas, November 22, 2003-February 1, 2004. It is presented at LA Louver Gallery in collaboration with Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas, Texas

****

DUGOUT II (HOLD ON to the house) - A visual bridge between DUGOUT I and DUGOUT III, Allen universalizes his West Texas roots by fictionalizing his Lubbock childhood memories into a skeletal house, suspended above the museum gallery floor, with multimedia interior tableaux.

Santa Monica Museum of Art
2525 Michigan Avenue, Building G, Santa Monica, CA 90404
Tel: 310-586-6488; www.smmoa.org
Exhibition dates: Saturday, February 28 - May 15, 2004
Opening reception: Friday, February 27, 7-9 p.m. No reservation required.
Media contact: Alexandra Pollyea, 310-586-6488, ext 31

****

DUGOUT III: WARBOY (and the backboard blues) - West-Texas inspired, this new multi-media play connects the past with the present, and the real with the imagined. Written and directed by Terry Allen and starring Jo Harvey Allen, with live music by Terry Allen, Richard Bowden, and Lloyd Maines.

Presented by L.A. Theatre Works and recorded for LATW's weekly show, "The Play's The Thing," broadcast on public and satellite radio nationwide. DUGOUT III: WARBOY (and the backboard blues) will air on KPCC, 89.3 FM on May 15 at 8 p.m. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90049 Media contact: Lucy Pollak, 818-887-1499

Performance dates: March 3, 4, 5 at 8:00 p.m. and March 7 at 4:00 p.m. ad 7:30 p.m. No performance on March 6.

Tickets range from $20.00 to $42.00. For reservations and information, call the L.A. Theatre Works Box Office at (310) 827-0889 or www.latw.org.

Workshops of DUGOUT III: WARBOY (and the backboard Blues) were performed at the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, June 2002; Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 2003, and the Austin State Theatre, Texas, January 2004.

****

DUGOUT conversation - A lively and informal conversation about DUGOUT with creator Terry Allen; actor Jo Harvey Allen; and critic/social commentator Dave Hickey. Convened by Paul Holdengräber, Director of the LACMA Institute of Art and Cultures.

Can late 19th- and 20th-century America be constructed through iconic forces such as baseball and jazz? How does DUGOUT connect to these realities?

LACMA Institute of Art and Cultures 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036; Tel: 323-857-6088; www.lacmainstitute.org Monday, March 8, 2004, 7:30 p.m. Bing Theater Media contact: Rachel Bauch, 323-857-6543

Tickets go on sale beginning February 26 at 11:30 a.m. sharp: tel: 877-522-6088 or visit the LACMA box office.

****

Scheduled for publication Fall 2005, the University of Texas Press will produced a book about DUGOUT, with essays by Dave Hickey, David Byrne and Terry Allen.

For further information about DUGOUT I or the entire project, please contact Elizabeth East, telephone 310-822-4955; fax 310-821-7529; e-mail elizabeth@lalouver.com.