Glass Half Full Theatre Reveals Additional Programming for 2025
Beginning this April, one of the Serpents will be presented at the University of Texas at Austin, as part of the Cohen New Works Festival, plus more.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 24, 2025
Award-winning theater company Glass Half Full Theatre has unveiled the remainder of programming for 2025, in addition to its previously set run of La Maleta de Maebelle (Maebelle’s Suitcase). This year, the company’s work looks to the skies and the soil for inspiration in its quest to continue making work that innovates performance structure and audience experience, transcending linguistic barriers. For more information visit glasshalffulltheatre.com.
Kicking off 2025, Glass Half Full will remount its charming Theater for All Ages piece La Maleta de Maebelle (Maebelle’s Suitcase) this April and May at Penfold Theatre Company’s brand-new venue in Round Rock and the Dougherty Arts Center in Austin, respectively. GHFT will offer performances for school field trips for both locations. For more information on school performances, please contact gricelda@glasshalffulltheatre.com. See full programming below!
2025 PERFORMANCES FOR GLASS HALF FULL THEATRE:
Glass Half Full Theatre’s La Maleta de Maebelle | April – May, 2025
La Maleta de Maebelle by Glass Half Full Theatre
based on the original book by Tricia Tusa
adapted by Gricelda Silva and Caroline Reck
featuring Stephanie Vasquez Fonseca and Sarita Ocón
puppeteer understudy: Maxwell Hanesworth
directed by Caroline Reck
original score by Kiko Villamizar
Penfold Theatre presents Glass Half Full’s La Maleta de Maebelle
April 5 and 12, 2025 at 4pm | April 6 and 13 at 2 & 4pm
Penfold Theatre | 2021 N. Mays Street, Suite 290 | Round Rock, TX 78664
Tickets are $15 (youth) and $20 (adults); children under 2 are FREE.
Glass Hall Full presents La Maleta de Maebelle
April 26, May 3, and 4, 2025 at 2pm Dougherty Arts Center | 1100 Barton Springs Rd. | Austin, TX 78704
Tickets are $10-20 (youth) and $15-25 (adult) and are on a sliding scale. Tickets can be purchased HERE.
A story about a bird preparing for migration and his Colombian human friend who rediscovers her roots, La Maleta de Maebelle asks why we hold on to physical belongings and what happens if we let them go. The play is an adaptation of Tricia Tusa’s Reading Rainbow book Maebelle’s Suitcase, enriched with Colombian hat-making cultural heritage, soundscape, and ecology. Maebelle features felt-head human puppets by acclaimed Venezuelan puppeteer Anatar Malmor-Gagné, bird puppets by Austin puppeteer Caroline Reck, and a score of Colombian rhythms and string melodies by Kiko Villamizar.
Age Recommendation: Recommended for ages 5 and up.
The Serpents Fly at Sundown | April 2025
The Serpents Fly at Sundown by Glass Half Full Theatre
Designed, and directed by Khristián Méndez Aguirre
original score by Laura Camacho
dramaturgy by Michael deWhatley
giant puppet build by Aurora Kenyon
The Cohen New Works Festival at The University of Texas at Austin
April 7, 9, and 10, 2025 at 8 pm
UT Austin | F. Loren Winship Drama Building Patio | 300 E 23rd St | Austin, TX 78712
More information, including the full festival lineup, can be found HERE.
Large puppets along with short shadow puppet pieces will accompany these performances. The parade routes will be derived from listening sessions held in the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri, research by Planet Texas 2050 UT Austin faculty and staff about the 2015 Memorial Day Floods, and the UT-City Climate CoLab.
Composer Laura Camacho will create music underscoring the serpent’s movement inspired by this research using structure, themes, instrumentation, and other elements to create a vivid sound.
Not only are the Serpents built by GHFT’s team of professional puppeteers, Glass Half Full’s history of creating opportunities for the community to learn puppeteering techniques will community volunteers helping to build the larger Serpents lending community members the opportunity add their voices to the story we are telling about environmental injustice through puppetry and performance.
Los Frutos de la Muerte | November 1–15, 2025
Los Frutos de la Muerte by Glass Half Full Theatre
story by Caroline Reck, Gricelda Silva, Delena Bradley, Minerva Villa, Khristián Méndez Aguirre, and Barbara Mojica
fungal dramaturgy by Jesus Garcia
November 1-15, 2025
CRASHBOX | 5305 Bolm Rd, Unit 12 | Austin, TX 78721
Tickets on sale at a later date.
Los Frutos de la Muerte follows two estranged, Guatemalan half-sisters cleaning up a deceased tía Adela’s apartment to avoid a huge fine. Ixq’anil, a janitor, wants to chemically clean the place because they don’t know what killed Adela. Isabela, a curandera, wants to cleanse the space with herbs so they don't disturb her aunt’s spirit. As the fight gets to a rotten place, they unearth an old journal with extensive properties of various fungi intertwined with their family histories, upending the family history they knew. Will they finish the task in time without killing each other? And where is that smell coming from?!
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