Sky Candy's COSMICOMICS Opens Today

Sky Candy Aerial and Circus Arts Collective and B. Iden Payne award-winning director Rudy Ramirez are thrilled to announce their collaboration on COSMICOMICS, an aerial theatre adaptation of the internationally beloved short stories of Italo Calvino, running today, June 21 - 29, 2014, at the Rollins Theatre at the Long Center.

COSMICOMICS, Sky Candy's sixth theatrical production and their first collaboration with an established and award-winning Austin director, will represent an artistic leap forward in fully integrating aerials with theatrical dialogue and movement. Adapted from World Fantasy Award winner Italo Calvino's internationally beloved short stories about the origins of the universe, COSMICOMICS will draw from the aesthetics of silent film, commedia dell'arte and turn-of-the-century circus arts to tell stories of climbing ladders to the moon, the love-life of the last living dinosaur, and why the ultimate answer to the question "Why are we here?" just might be "pasta."

"We are proud to be one of a handful of companies around the world to be granted the rights to Calvino's work, and we will live up to that exceptional honor by creating a dazzling, romantic aerial theatre piece for the whole family that is as Austin as it is Italian," said director Rudy Ramirez.

The cast of COSMICOMICS includes Sky Candy artists Andy Agne, Donnesh Amrollah, Julie Cullen, Winnie Hsia, Chelsea Laumen, Poet Powell, Irene Tapia and Joanna Wright and guest artists Laura Artesi, Jennifer Coy, Ja'Michael Darnell, Trey Deason, Chris Humphrey, Jonathan Itchon and Julie Moore. The design team includes Set Designer Ia Ensterä, Lighting Designer Zac Crofford, Costume Designer Midi Soliz, Props Designer Helen Parish, and Hair and Makeup Designer Wendy Sanders of Blood and Glitter Makeup. Sky Candy will also be collaborating with Meredith Johns of HawgFly Productions, Inc. on prosthetic designs to help create fantastical creatures from the dawn of time.

COSMICOMICS opens on Saturday June 21st and will be held at The Rollins Theatre at the Long Center, located at 701 West Riverside Drive in downtown Austin. Tickets are $22, $17 for students and seniors, and $12 for children under 10. Tickets can be purchased at http://thelongcenter.org/event/cosmicomics/. The show will run from June 21st through June 29th. All shows will be at 8pm, except for a 2pm performance on Sunday June 29th. There will be additional 2pm matinees on Sunday, June 22nd and Saturday, June 28th.

The 2pm performance on Sunday June 22nd and the 8pm performance on Friday June 27th will be ASL-interpreted by Visual Voice Interpreting.

Sky Candy is proud to be East Austin's own Aerial and Circus Arts Collective, and their mission is to share their love of aerial and circus arts with Austin, TX. Founded in 2010, the Sky Candy Studio offers classes in Silks, Lyra, Static Trapeze, Handstands, Partner Acrobatics, and more, as well as open studio, private instruction and workshops for Austinites of all ages and abilities. Since 2011, Sky Candy has delighted Austin audiences with their innovative circus theater productions including The Red Shoes, The Time Machine, The Circus, and Land Without Evil, a collaboration with Agent Red which was featured on PBS Arts in Context. For more information, visit www.skycandyaustin.com.

Rudy Ramirez is a director, writer (of words and music) and performer living in Austin, TX. He is Associate Artistic Director of The VORTEX Repertory Company, with whom he conceived and directed Sing Muse (Outstanding Direction of Music Theatre and Outstanding Original Score, B. Iden Payne Awards 2013), as well as directing Stars and Barmen, Qualities of Starlight (Outstanding Direction of a Comedy, Outstanding Production of a Comedy, BIP 2013), The Physicists (Outstanding Direction of a Show for Youth, BIP 2011) and Lear. As Performance Director for the Austin Bike Zoo, he has created Midsummer in Motion (Nominee: Outstanding Direction of a Comedy, BIP 2012) and Wheels of Wonderland. Other directing highlights include Diana Grisanti's River City (with Lydia Nelson; David M. Cohen Award for Best New Play 2012) at the University of Texas at Austin, Trey Deason's Cardigan for Purple Crayon Productions, Luna Tart Died (co-created with Laura Freeman) for FronteraFest and a 2013 workshop of Fanatical with American Demigods at City Lights Theater in Chicago. He is the writer of two autobiographical shows, Promised Land: A Radical Queer Revival and Footnotes for People Who Don't Speak Spanish with Beliza Torres Narvaez and has performed with The Dick Monologues and at numerous venues around town. He has acted in roles at The VORTEX, with [humdrum collective] and at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is currently working on his PhD in Performance as Public Practice.

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