The Texas Book of Beasts

A One Act Play

By Jeff Irvin

Jeff Irvin’s “The Texas Book of Beasts” is told through a series of 25 short scenes featuring four characters: a property developer, a university professor, an idealistic biologist, and a toad. This cast of characters is involved in raucous public meetings as the twenty-something woman learns to organize a diverse community to save the endangered toad's habitat from a large encroaching development. Featuring metaphors in verse, interjections in unison, and group movements that mimic Texas fauna (a gar tells dad jokes and daddy long-legs make up the Legislature) Texas Book of Beasts is a melodrama and romantic comedy about learning to recognize a sharp brain and a good heart.

Jeff Irvin is the author of “High Noon in the Styrofoam with Timely Nick and Betty Brown” (Dramatic Publishing), a series of three comic melodramas commonly used as community fundraisers. “The Texas Book of Beasts” is derived from a series of shorter 25-minute works: “Emily’s Unusual Morning” (workshop performance at State Theatre in Austin), and three pieces performed at the FronteraFest Short Fringe (“The Texas Book of Beasts,” “The Texas Book of Beasts: Year of the Gar,” and “The Texas Book of Beasts: Year of the Rooster”) at the Hyde Park Theatre in Austin in 2018, 2019, and 2020. He has been a member of ScriptWorks since 2015.

Presented by Drag Strip Courage on Monday, March 14, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Featuring Nicholas Zeburn, Matt Craft, Gianina Lambert, Caleb Hall, Alex Zaharie, Elizabeth Webb, and Seth Johnson