*****JUST ADDED – 2nd show Friday, October 30th at 9:30pm! Get your tickets now!*****

One Ounce Opera Presents the world premiere of “There’s Beauty In the Beast,” just in time for Halloween.

Created and directed by Michael Nesline with musical direction and realizations by Steve Saugey — two original founders of Austin’s famous “Esther’s Follies” — this one-of-a-kind comic piece is a transgender tale of love, betrayal, and Frankenstein. The 45 minute, three act operetta is performed alongside special opening acts in the intimate, cabaret-like space of a private Central Austin home.

Starring One Ounce Opera Members Lara Britton, Daniel Cohen, Andy Fleming, Angela Irving, and Patrick Wright. Directed by Nesline and Saugey, with Charles Prewitt on cello.

FOUR PERFORMANCES LEFT!!! Friday & Saturday, October 30 & 31 at both 7 and 9:30pm*. Only 40 seats available for each performance. Enjoy special pre-show acts, complimentary beverages for those both over and under 21, and stuff to munch. Don’t miss out!

*FINAL SHOW HALLOWEEN AND CAST PARTY! Get down with the One Ounce artists and creators of “There’s Beauty In the Beast.” Saturday, October 31st, 9:30pm show only. Special private live band performance and other goodies included.

This OOO Production is sponsored in part by Classical 89.5 KMFA. One Ounce Opera is a sponsored project of the Austin Creative Alliance.

Synopsis: Dr. Frankenstein, with Igor’s assistance, is in the last stages of completing his Creature and is exultant. Madam Frankenstein, appalled upon discovering the nature of her husband’s work, realizes she has lost his love and affection. Meanwhile, Igor and Lazee Suzanne, the housekeeper, discover they have some very important things in common, especially when it comes to feeling comfortable in their own skin; Igor wonders if the doctor’s”brain wave” machine might be the answer to their dilemma. Mrs. Frankenstein, lovelorn at the loss of her husband’s affection, considers a different use for the device, one with slightly different results. Mayhem (and a little bit of murder!) results, but in the end, love is revived and everyone lives happily – if somewhat differently – ever after!

More about the creators:

Michael Nesline was a founding member of Esther’s Follies, where he was a principal performer from 1977 until 1979, when he moved to New York City with ambitions of becoming involved in the downtown performance scene, then in it’s heyday. Between 1979 and 1985, he originated the roles of Flo Ballard in Flo, She Don’t Know: The Unauthorized Story of The Supremes; Mounds in Peter Paul and Mounds: The Untold Story; and Lentil: The Little Bean That Could, based on Barbra Streisand’s opus Yentl. Along with Tri Garraty and Stephen Evasew, Michael opened Limbo Lounge, the legendary 1980’s East Village nightclub where numerous performers who went on to establish legitimate stage and screen careers first performed, including Karen Finley, The Alien Comic, Charles Busch and a very young Mike Iveson. In 1984 Michael costarred in Eva Braun: A Musical Fantasy, the infamous off-Broadway show where he learned the difference between drama and psychodrama when, during the second performance, the actor cast as Adolf Hitler went off script and threw his leading lady across the stage and into the audience by the scruff of her neck. A critic in the audience that night described the show as being “literally hair raising.”  

In 1985, in response to the exponentially increasing AIDS crisis, Michael earned a degree in Nursing Science and spent the next 25 years seeing to the medical and psychosocial needs of people infected with HIV. He was also a founding member of the AIDS activist group Act Up (the AIDS Coalition To Unleash power) as well as Gran Fury, the AIDS Activist Art Collective who’s award-winning public work continues to arouse conversation and controversy in addressing the social, corporate and political ramifications of the AIDS crisis. Gran Fury’s billboards, posters and signage continue to be seen around the world, most recently in Beijing, China. There’s Beauty and The Beast: a transgender opera of love, betrayal and Frankenstein, is Michael’s first opera. He is very happy to be back in Austin, renewing his artistic relationship with Steve Saugey.

Steve Saugey has been a bright light in Austin’s musical performance world since 1977 when his musical review, Microwaves; A Musical Salute to the Bicentennial debuted at Waller Creek Theater. In 1977, Steve was a founding member of Esther’s Follies; from the very beginning, he was a principal writer, performer and composer. In 2001, Steve left the Follies to serve as rehearsal pianist for Austin Ballet, a position he now holds at the University of Texas School of Dance. Steve has been the pianist for many of the musicals produced by Austin theater companies, including Austin Musical Theater, Austin Playhouse and the Penfold Theater Company. He has worked many times with Michael McKelvey, a well known presence in the world of Austin musical theater. With Lyova Rosanoff, Steve was commissioned by the Austin Lyric Opera (now Austin Opera), to write The Bat, a retelling of Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, relocated from Vienna, Austria to present day Austin, Texas. Steve is the composer for, and conductor and artistic director of The Austin Flops who have performed at the Paramount Theater on more than one occasion. Steve was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2014. Currently, an original ballet set to Steve’s musical mash-up of West Side Story and The Rite of Spring is being planned for spring 2015. His life is, in Steve’s words, just fine.