VORTEX Repertory Company was incorporated in October 1988 to create innovative productions of original work. In its first year, VORTEX presented five productions at Mexic-Arte Multicultural Museum in downtown Austin. From 1990-94, VORTEX operated The VORTEX Performance Café on Ben White Blvd. and now owns its own facility, The Vortex on Manor Road, a cherished home for the arts in East Austin. VORTEX was the first theater to make a home for the performing arts in historically under-served Eastside, now a blossoming Independent Theatre District. The VORTEX facility is artist owned and operated.

VORTEX has successfully produced hundreds of quality performances for more than 16 years and is widely recognized as the pioneering leader in Austin’s alternative theater scene. VORTEX has received numerous awards for artistic excellence including 27 B. Iden Payne Awards and 15 Austin Critics’ Table Awards. More than 200 productions world premieres of musical theater and opera, world premieres of collaborative works and ritual theater, vibrant productions of classics, new plays by Austin playwrights, and Austin premieres of new works.

VORTEX proudly produces original cutting-edge work by internationally-recognized guest artists including Karen Finley, Tim Miller, Quentin Crisp, Heather Woodbury, Rob Nash, and Penny Arcade. This programming brings important work to Austin to enrich spectators and artists, broadens the public’s horizons, and spreads the word about great performers and audiences at The VORTEX in Austin, Texas all across the national arts scene.

DrakNet donates the hosting for the primary theater site at http://vortexrep.org as well as the Viva Vortex site, which is a fund raising site for the theater. Not only does the Vortex put on some fabulous and cutting edge shows, Vortex’s free Summer Youth Theater teams adult professionals with teenagers to instruct students in all aspects of theater and presents in a fully-designed production. This program has a thirteen-year history and has received funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the City of Austin.

DrakNet is proud to be the chosen host of such a cutting edge theater company, as we’re even more proud that we can donate the services so that theater can use their budget to do what they do best - provoke and entertain right in our backyard.

Tags: non-profit

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am and is filed under DrakNet Works. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.