Comedy from GHFT

A collection of our original works that feature our comedic approach to the problems, big and small, that assail us and our planet.

The Missionary Position: Pleasure Journeys for the Intrepid Lady Explorer is a Queer and Feminist comedic lecture series packed with physical comedy. Amelia Weatherbeaten and Eleanor Dangerbottom are Victorian-era Lady Explorers and Spokeswomen for Hartman’s Hygienic Towelettes for Ladies, the first commercially available menstrual products for women. They travel around the world at the turn of the 19th century, hocking their products and lecturing hilariously on topics of interest to the Society of Learned Ladies, Where Ladies Share Knowledge with Ladies. Part Sideshow, part Geographical Salon, these ladies offer a seat at their table but you won’t stay in it for long.

Polly Mermaid: Apocalypse Wow: When rogue particle physicist Dr. Deborah Degudere tries to “solve” Earth’s garbage disposal problem by zapping plastic into outer space, she accidently zaps Polly Mermaid, a mutant mermaid from a future time of sentient plastic, into her lab. Deborah and Polly save each other (and all of humanity) from themselves in this adult sci-fi eco-fable.

Simple Sundries takes a darkly comic look at the commodification of culture in Austin, Texas and the displacement of people and animals to feed Austin’s “progress.”

Don Quixote de La Redo spotlights the hallmarks of Glass Half Full Theatre’s Lecoq-based approach to performance: wry humor and inventive use of actor as scenery and puppeteer as character, with Beckett-esque use of physical language and shifts in scale between tiny puppets, human actors, and large-scale puppets. The show explores the modern realities and imagined consequences of life in the borderlands between two cultures whose fortunes have shifted.

FupDuck is an original puppetry performance for Adults and Also Children who Already Know the F Word, accompanied by live Old Time Americana Music by The White Ghost Shivers. FupDuck is an adaptation of the novela Fup, by Jim Dodge, an anti-authoritarian fable about life, death, whiskey, ducks, and the untamed spirit of the West.

The Austin Puppet Incident is an annual two day festival featuring live acts of puppetry for adult audiences since 2011 in Austin, Texas. The Incident is a joint venture of Glass Half Full Theatre and Trouble Puppet Theatre Company.

Trash Talks with Polly Mermaid featuring Polly and her friend, Basurana, who used comedy and optimism to counter global environmental dilemmas.

”Not a moment is wasted in keeping the audience entertained . . . The ensemble cast work perfectly together, their timing and physical comedy couldn't have been more in tune. Reck and Alys are an energetic team working in harmony and are a delight to watch. The script by Caroline Reck is as whimsical as it is passionate and ingenious . . .”

Simple Sundries is first and foremost a human comedy, drawing humor from our foibles and frailties . . . The gentle satirical jabs at life in our town in this moment serve to keep us mindful of what's going on around us, to note when something has gone missing and to discover why, to be aware of what makes a home and be vigilant lest we lose one.

Don Quixote de La Redo began as a retelling of the Quixote legend set along the Mexico-Texas border, but took a different and darker turn after the 2016 presidential election, after our current president announced plans to build a giant wall along our country's southern border. As serious as the subject matter could be, the entire play crackles with humor – humor of all kinds, everything from literary references to dry wit to a good old-fashioned diarrhea joke.

. . . Twin currents of good cheer and imagination pull us away from the realities of our world into an oceanic realm that's enchanted, eccentric, and fun, where puns are as plentiful as plankton, where our watery heroine has an appealingly earthy side, where the inanimate plastic castoffs of the surface world come to life as talking cups heartsick for the people who drank out of them, takeout-food clamshells that need their teeth brushed, and clear vinyl umbrellas that pulsate and propel themselves like jellyfish. It's like The Little Mermaid was imagineered not by Disney, but by the Pee-wee's Playhouse gang.