In response to its influx of tech conglomerates and massive corporations, the city of Austin, Texas, coined the slogan “Keep Austin Weird.” Following that campaign, its neighboring city produced a slogan of its own: “Keep San Antonio Lame.”
The ironically loving tribute to the Alamo City does not apply to its theater scene, which can be characterized instead as small but mighty. Home to a diverse field of community and semiprofessional companies producing everything from highly experimental new work to mainstream musicals, San Antonio is the kind of place that presents a reliable infrastructure for new and up-and-coming artists. In the last two decades, the city has increased funding for arts programs and education, sponsoring events throughout the year, including the epic Luminaria festival in October.
It’s at such festivals that audiences catch a glimpse of the future of theater itself: collaborative, varied, progressive. Mellissa Marlowe, president of the board of the San Antonio Theatre Coalition, says the city is experiencing “a little renaissance in multidisciplinary performance work, which I am really excited about, personally.”
The integration of technology and the arts, she
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