Big Sexy poster 2016

As I have for the last few years, I designed the poster for Alternative Comedy Theater's Dallas Big Sexy Weekend of Improv.

Looking Back at 2014

The last twelve months have been very busy and as I look back I am pleased that there's so much to be grateful for, proud of and draw inspiration from.

Since last January, no less than nine of my own plays - large and small - have been presented to the world (5 of them World Premieres).

January... 
* Directed/produced/designed/ teched Andy Eninger's THE LAST CASTRATO for Audacity
* Teamed up with TheaterJones and Elaine Liner to sort of adopt the YOLO Solo Fest which featured
* Premiered my short solo show I BROUGHT HOME A CHUPACABRA (dirercted by my lovely wife Ruth and featuring the kick-ass Lauren Moore)
* Taught two classes as adjunct for Tarrant County College (one film class, one theatre)

February...
* Journeyed to the Comedy Parlor in Tulsa to perfom Fun Grip Improv (also taught joint improv workshop there with Swearingen).
* took seven hours to drive back to Dallas from Tulsa due to ice storm. Ruth and I spent time to hatch plan to save money and get out of crappy rent houses.

ROBERTS' ETERNAL GOLDFISH

March...
* Ruth and I move to crappy Irving apartment to save money... which we do.
* Taught Playwriting Workshop to high schoolers at Dallas Public Library for Junior Players.
* Attended Austin's Staple! Fest and sold prints of my comic MY SECRET ISLAND. Drove back in another ice storm.
* Premiered my solo show ROBERTS' ETERNAL GOLDFISH at the 2014 Out of the Loop Festival. Won a Best of Fest Award.
* Hosted the Alternative Comedy Theatre's fourth annual Monologue Jam at Cafe Bohemia in Plano, TX
* Created Kickstarter campaign for Dallas Solo Fest. Raised $1,325 in two weeks.

April...
* Got hand-made letter-press cards from Lilco Press. She used my design. Expensive luxury, but they are so sweet.

May...
* Participated in "Method In Madness" Playwriting Panel at Denton Community Theatre.
* My play ARSENIC & ROSES was read at the "Method In Madness" event as well.
* Produced national festival of one-person shows called Dallas Solo Fest. Local acts as well as acts from around the country. Very successful.
* Taught Intro to Drama summer school session for Tarrant County College.

June...
* Finished last illustration in a series of art prints based on Samuel Beckett plays.
* Directed student-written one-act THE HOLDING FIX for the Junior Players/ Kitchen Dog Theatre event PUPFest.
* Co-Produced the 6th Annual Big Sexy Weekend of Improv with Alternative Comedy Theater.
* Taught workshop called "But I Suck at The Administartive Stuff" at Big sexy.
* Also performed Fun Grip and Dribble Funk at Big Sexy as well as hosting Monologue Jam.
* Taught a two week Drama Camp at Fretz Rec Center for Junior Players. My niece Kylie was in the camp. The kids performed the show I wrote for them TALKING JELLO WANTS A NEW PHONE.

The kids of Fretz Rec

July...
* Updated my ebook "7 Considerations For the Solo Performer"
* Taught Drama Camp at McKinney Rec Center for Junior Players. The kids performed the show I wrote for them THE SEARCH FOR MAGICAL STRAWBERRY SYRUP.
* Drove to Austin and PrintBombed BookPeople.
* Got horribly sick for about two weeks. Which sucked.

August...
* Emceed a three-day Benefit for Matt Tomlanovich at the Margo Jones Theatre.
* Had two plays done at Kichen Dog Theatre as part of the One-Minute Play Fest. They were I HATE IT HERE and CHUPACABRA RIGHTS.
* Sundown Collaborative Theatre did one of my short pieces LIZARD BOY EATS A DORITO as part of their "A Mix Tape: We've Done It Again" series of short works. It is performed in Denton and in Dallas by the delightfully weird Robert Linder.
* Begin teach the Fall semester as an adjunt at Tarrant County College. Two classes (Film and Theatre)
* Produce and host the first of a quarterly series called the Audacity Solo Salon, a sort of workshop for DFW area solo performers.

September...
* Teach two weeks of workshops of Improv for adults at S.T.A.G.E.
* My folks and Ruth treat me to Fogo de Chao for my birthday.

October...
* Ruth and I head to NYC to cacth Peter Brook's show The Valley of Astonishment at Theatre for a New Audience. Also meet up with Friends, including Will Harper and get 3:30 a.m. meatballs at Meatball Shop. Ruth and I stay in New Yorker Hotel suite. Fancy. Almost forgot how wonderful travel is...

November...
* Jeff Hernandez and I resurrect the long-dormant podcast Bike Soccer Jamboree.
* I help Brandon Potter produce his solo show SEX, DEATH AND LIGHT SWITCHES with some hosting from Audacity Theatre Lab.
* Taught workshops called "Making Your Characters Awesome Through Improv" at the 2014 Texas Thespians Festival. At Omni Hotel in Downtwn Dallas. One workshop had 85 high schoolers.
* Hosted pimped out version of Monologue Jam, produced by MINT Presents at Margo Jones Theatre.

CORNER OFFICE SKY

December...
* Finished fall semester at TCC. Filling for absent teachers, I ended up with four classes by the end of the semester. Big workload.
* Read excerpt of CYRANO A-GO-GO at second Audacity Solo Salon.
* My one-act play CORNER OFFICE SKY was presented as part of Nouveau 47 Theatre's "A Very Nouveau Holiday." It was directed by Becki McDonald.
* TheaterJones.com does a write-up on me as one of the "Forward Thinkers" in Dallas Arts in 2014.

Besides the month-by-month breakdown above, I read about 30 books and am contemplating writing (another) one of my own. I enjoyed my second full year of marriage to the wonderful Ruth and welcomed the addition of a new niece. I officiated my sister’s wedding last fall.I moved on from my manual labor job unloading trucks weekly at the Container Store to get another weekly manual labor job as a part-time ranch hand at a spread in Southlake.

As I wrote on my Tumblr around my birthday this year... "It seems so vacuous to list stuff off like this, but a lot of the time I get bogged down in the day to day. I look around at the continually shifting piles of disorder in my office or the unending pile of laundry that needs to be washed and/or folded and put away and just wanna bury my head in the sand. It is good to know I’m still moving and that the movement is in a progressive direction."

I am very excited about 2015. It will see way more travel, more teaching, more writing/performing/directing, more reading. It will also include exciting new projects - some outside my usual domains. It will also be the last hoorah for my 30s, so I plan to blow it out for real and take everything up a notch.

PrintBomb Summer 2014

On Tuesday evening, July 22, 2014 I headed down to BookPeople in Austin, Texas. I placed a series of a dozen and a half prints in assorted places - on shelves and walls, and especially in books. The original prints of my design Tiny Robo-Knight Vs. Giant Dodo, are on heavy-bound archival paper and individually signed. On the back I listed my website.

Along with P. Terry's for a cheeseburger and occassionally Flightpath for a coffee, BookPeople is one of those places I ALWAYS frequent when I am in Austin. I can spend hours browsing along the aisles. I usually spend more than I plan to when I go in. 

The prints are a free gift to whoever finds them. Here are few pics to document the project. 

The last time I did a PrintBomb Project was back in January 2013. Read about it... HERE.

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Let's Go We Can't print

"Let's Go We Can't" print by Brad McEntire

The last in my series of illustrations inspired by the plays of Samuel Beckett is now up at my Society 6 store. Get a premium quality art print for as low as $15. Get the whole set of 4 for a flat out $60. FREE SHIPPING until June 8. Act now!

Check 'em out HERE.

WMC 2013

Ruth and I attended the 2013 Weapons of Mass Creation Festival in Cleveland, Ohio last weekend. It was a blast! Held at the Cleveland Public Theatre (great space!), the WMC Fest is primarily for designers and bands. What was super wonderful about Ruth and I attending was that, unlike when we go to Fringe Festivals of theatre-related stuff, at WMC we were not part of the design community. I dabble in illustration and cartooning a bit, but Ruth doesn't at all. We were like strangers in a strange land and that made it all the more exciting. Most of the speakers were great, many giving really inspiring talks about the creative process in general.

I rented a car and drove out to Cleveland from Dallas. Stayed at a hostel in downtown Nashville to split up the drive. It was refreshing to get up and chat with a New Zealander over coffee. Hostels are good reminders of how big the world actually is. Ruth flew in to Cleveland on Friday night and I picked her up (she had to turn in grades).  

It was so nice to get out of town. Compared with last year, we have been somewhat sedentary this year. No big trips and just a handful of jaunts off to gigs out of town (Austin, OKC). It sure was  a big reminder of how much we miss traveling. We plan to take care of the time and money issues that have prevented us from jetting about, so next year is filled with big adventures like WMC.

They had big chalk in the "beer Garden" next to the main venue so I added Little Goldfish to the landscape.

Ruth and I enjoyed lots of good drink, music, talks, arts and eats.

Timothy Goodman did a talk called "I Want to Get Away with Sh*t"... totally a highlight!

Des Ark was awesome!

I bought this sweet print by AirType Studios

The Cleveland Public Theatre was an awesome venue!

Other highlights included F. Stokes rapping freestyle in the center of a pulsating circle, Jacqui Oakley talking about developing one's style, Caroline Moore discussing what she's cribbed from the DIY punk scene, and especially Brandon Rike's talk about just putting your head down and getting to work.

In fact, the whole WMC experince was a nice bit of icing on the cake of a whole mess of creative thinking I've been doing lately. I have several awesome projects in the pipe line, some well outside my comfort zone. The festival was a nice reminder that, yeah, it is a good thing to live your life putting things out into the world.

Anything Is Possible on Rodster the Jr. Chef

My young friend Rodster the Jr. Chef did me the honor of including my print Anything Is Possible in the newest episode of his web series "cooking" show. This episode tells us how to make "Party Punch." 

Check out his whole series... HERE.

Also, get your own print of Anything Is Possible (for as little as $15, with FREE SHIPPING until August 11)... HERE.

Robot vs Giant Dodo

Today, I had this idea for a small postcard-size artwork. I wanted it to have a robot either fighting or riding a giant dodo. I thought it would be fun to draw a dodo bird. Here's a look at the sketchbook study, the piece and then a glimpse of it hanging on my office wall.

[as usual, click on the images to see them larger]

My Secret Island page 10

The little improvised comic, MY SECRET ISLAND, is coming along. It is a lot of fun and pretty low pressure since I only work on it every so often in my off moments. It is fun to see where it is taking me every time I hunker down to do another page.

You can see the whole comic to this point HERE or HERE.

New Print: Think Big

Available at my Society 6 shop... for as little as $15. Buy Now!

STAPLE! Expo approaches...

This is just a smattering of the inventory...

Hernandez, Ruth and I are headed down to Austin next weekend to the STAPLE! Independent Media Expo. I'm taking a bunch of Donnie Rocket books, collections of plays, some zine-like RASPBERRY FIZZ copies, postcards and art prints. This will be my first time to have a table at any kind of convention and I am super-excited. If you are in Austin and want to either get your hands on some tasty McEntire -made media or just stop and say hello, we'll be set up at table 51.

Saturday, March 2 from 11AM-6PM and Sunday, March 3 from noon to 6PM at the Marchesa Hall and Theatre, 6406 N. IH-35, Suite 3100, Austin TX 78752 in the Lincoln Village Shopping Center. Ticket info HERE.

My Samuel Beckett play series postcards will be for sell!

PrintBomb Project

On Friday evening, January 18, 2013 I headed over to the big Half Price Books store in Dallas and placed a series of ten prints in assorted places - on walls, shelves, in books. The original prints of my design Anything Is Possible, on heavy-bound archival paper, are numbered and signed. On the back I stamped my website.

They are a free gift to whoever finds them.

I nicknamed this little project PrintBomb.

 

 

 

 

Frustrated Efforts

The second print in my series of illustrations based on Samuel Beckett plays is up, online and on sale at Society 6. High quality art print for as little as $15.

This piece is my take on the play ACT WITHOUT WORDS I (1957). In it, the nameless character finds himself hemmed into a desolate landscape. Items are lowered and then pulled beyond reach. The mimed sketch is a gut-wrenching study in frustrated efforts.

Get it HERE.

Hopeful Futilitarian

I have a new print if up at Society 6. The first in a series of four illustrations based on the plays of Samuel Beckett.

This piece is my take on the 1961 play HAPPY DAYS (or OH LES BEAUX JOURS). In it, the character of Winnie spends the first act cheerily buried up to her waist in a mound of earth. Theatre critic Robert Brustein once labelled the eternally optimistic Winnie a "hopeful futilitarian."

And BONUS! Until Juanuary 13, I'm offering an Artist Promotion... FREE SHIPPING on all art prints, framed and otherwise. Promo link HERE.

Two Blue Smiling Robots

New print up at Society 6. Head over and purchase a framed print for someone you love. After all, 'tis the season for buying orginal art... especially sweet illustrations of smiling robots!

Get the goods HERE!