This site will mostly encompass Brad's professional and creative endeavors.
Born and raised in Texas, Brad McEntire served from 1999 to 2006 as the founding Artistic Director of theatre group Audacity Productions. Since 2008 he has been the Artistic Director of Audacity Theatre Lab. He holds a BFA
in Theatre and Performance Arts from New Mexico's College of Santa Fe
and a Master's degree in Playwriting from Texas Woman's University.
Brad served as the Literary Manager at the Undermain Theatre in Dallas (2007-2010). He was an original member of the DFW Playwrights' Alliance, is a current member of UNIMA-USA, the Applied Improvisation Network, a member of The Playwrights Center of Minneapolis and a former company member with Dallas' innovative Our Endeavors Theater Collective.
He is an alumnus of Directors Lab West (2004) and the Chicago Directors Lab (2009). He was also a performer, director, resident playwright and instructor with Plano Children's Theatre where he worked intermittently as part of their Professional Touring Series for nearly a decade.
Brad is a veteran of several sketch and improvisational comedy troupes including Estranged Bedfellows (NM), Molotov Cockroach (NYC), The French Club Dropouts and the Mild Dementia Continuous-Play Variety Hour (both of Dallas, TX). He also performed with the improv group The Victims and is currently one half of the infamous comedy duo Fun Grip.
Brad studied shadow puppetry informally at Hong Kong's Ming Ri Institute of Puppetry and mask performance technique with international teacher/performer Hoi Chiu. Over the last several years Brad has worked with New York-based puppet artists Chris Green, Erin Orr and Lake Simmons, in particular as part of Ft. Worth's Hip Pocket Theatre's Annual Cowtown Puppetry Festival.
Brad has trained in European style contemporary clowning with Texan' Jeffry Farrell, Tom Greder of the Nouveau Clown Institute, and Spain's Andreu Segura (of l'Escola de Pallassos MallorClown). Brad has also had a healthy dose of American circus-style clowning, training with Barry "Grandma" Lubin and John "Mr. Fish" Lepiarz of Big Apple Circus, Tiffany Riley and Dick Monday (former Director of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College) as well as Larry Pisoni (Founder of the Pickle Family Circus) at the NY Goofs.
Though mostly self-taught as an improviser, Brad has participated in improv workshops with the likes of Charna Halpern (ImprovOlympic), Asaf Ronen (YesAnd.com), Andy Eninger (Second City, Chicago/ Creator of Sybil) Jill Bernard (Drum Machine) and Joe Bill (Annoyance Theatre, Chicago/Creator of Bassprov).
As an commercial actor, Brad has appeared in commercials for FedEx, SuperPages, First Choice Power, Piccadilly Restaurants and Apex Trucking. He is represented by the Mary Collins Agency. You can see my listing at: Casting Networks, Actor's Access and NOW Casting.
Brad's funk-musical shadow puppet retelling of RAPUNZEL, created in collaboration with musicians Lee Holt and Stuart Grant, played in 2006 and 2007 in Hong Kong. His stage works have been produced/developed by Austin's FronteraFest at Hyde Park Theatre, Texas WordSpace, Our Endeavors Theatre Collective, Expanded Arts NYC, Audacity Theatre Lab, Rover Dramawerks, Square Peg Collective, EndTime Productions, Project X, Tumorboy Productions, The Outsider's Inn Collective, Theatre In My Basement, Cry Havoc, Dallas' Festival of Independent Theatres, The Dallas Museum of Art, The New York International Theatre Festival, Hong Kong's DEER Theatre, Le Rideau Theatre Café, Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre, Alleyway Theatre and Plano Children's Theatre.
His plays include CHOP, I HAVE ANGERED A GREAT GOD, RUDNICK: THE CANDLE-HEADED BOY, RASPBERRY FIZZ, THE SUBTERRANEANS OF PRODOVILLE, THE DOLPHINS OF MARS, A TALL TALE OF TEXAS, CARTER STUBBS TAKES FLIGHT, DINOSAUR AND ROBOT STOP A TRAIN as well as FOR THE LOVE OF AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST and ARSENIC & ROSES which comprise his first published collection Two Plays (And Some Sketches) By Brad McEntire.
Brad is one of a handful of pioneering performers in the sub-arcana of solo improvisation (there are only maybe half a dozen or so consistent practitioners in the United States). He is the creator of the original solo improvisational story format Dribble Funk, a hybrid creation at the crossroads of longform improv, traditional theatre and storytelling. He currently specializes in teaching "Improvisation for the Solo Performer" workshops. For more information on Dribble Funk Solo Improv, visit the website: DribblefunkSoloImprov.Weebly.com
Brad also developed and continues to curate the deceptively simple story-telling improv format/show Monologue Jam with support from the Alternative Comedy Theater.
He has blogged since the year 2000 and maintains the arts-and-adventures-oriented blog on the ancient platform LiveJournal called The Theatre, Thoughts and Travels of B. McEntire. He is the creator and moderator of The Solo Performer, a blog about one-person theatre productions. Brad is also an occassional contributor to The Stage Directions Blog and TheaterJones.com.
As a visual artist, McEntire works mostly in pen and ink and, less often, in acrylic paint. In mid-2012 he launched a series of paintings based on the plays of Samuel Beckett. In May of 2010 he launched a webcomic called DONNIE ROCKET TOASTER-FACE, which is updated quasi-randomly. The first collection of comics, I HATE HAWK SEASON!, is available on Amazon.com.
Brad is one half (alongside artist and pop culture addict Jeff Hernandez) of the producing team and on-air voices of Bike Soccer Jamboree, an "extremely unnecessary" online semi-weekly podcast and contemporary culture aggregator. He is very slowly - like super slowly - writing a novel of tall tales for his young niece, posting the first draft online as he goes along. This can be viewed at Project Kylie Book.
Artistic Statement (for theatre)...
Well, this changes periodically (which I think is a good thing), but for the time being it would be:
My work, especially as a playwright, but also as a cartoonist and visual artist, explores idiosyncratic little worlds. These worlds are populated by eccentric misfits. Troubled, lost, amused, broken, absurd, desperate, isolated and forgotten - each is searching for his or her own sense of history, identity, and purpose.
