About BRAD McENTIRE

Information... Biographical and Otherwise

Dribble Funk is what you're looking at right now. It is the website of low-rent jet-setter, ernstwhile blogger, budding webcartoonist and performing artist Brad McEntire (that's me). Under the Dribble Funk moniker I sometimes create and perform solo works for the stage and fashion various works of art as a self-initiating freelance theatre artist. Dribble Funk also happens to be the name of the long-form improvised solo format I continue to develop. I will now switch to the more official-sounding third-person...

Born and bred in Texas, Brad McEntire is a mask and puppet maker, playwright, performer, director and teaching artist. From 1999 to 2006 he was the founding Artistic Director of theatre group Audacity Productions. Since 2008 he has been the Artistic Director of Audacity Theatre Lab.

Brad recently served as the Literary Manager at the Undermain Theatre in Dallas (2007-2010). He was an original member of the DFW Playwrights' Alliance, 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 most recently performed with the improv group The Victims and is currently one half of the 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, especially as part of Ft. Worth's Hip Pocket Theatre's Annual Cowtown Puppetry Festival. Brad has also trained in European style clowning with Texas' Jeffry Farrell and Spain's Andreu Segura and American circus-style clowning with Barry "Grandma" Lubin and John "Mr. Fish" Lepiarz of Big Apple Circus as well as Larry Pisoni (Founder of the Pickle Family Circus) at the NY Goofs. Brad has studied improv with the likes of Charna Halpern (ImprovOlympic), Asaf Ronen (YesAnd.com) and Andy Eninger (Second City, Chicago).

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, A TALL TALE OF TEXAS, 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 only half a dozen or so 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.

He has blogged since 2000 and maintains the arts-and-adventures-oriented blog The Theatre, Thoughts and Travels of B. McEntire. In May of 2010 he launched a webcomic called DONNIE ROCKET TOASTER-FACE, which is updated weekly. Brad is also a steady contributor to TheaterJones.com.

Brad 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.

Artistic Statement...

Well, this changes periodically (which I think is a good thing), but for the time being it would be:

I have worked many different ways in the theatre, but I identify myself foremost as a playwright. I am a playwright in the most literal sense of the word. I am a maker of theatre. In my theatre, I aim to explore the relationship between the artist and the audience using both traditional as well as experimental performance tools as my means of communication. I strive to create dynamic and visceral writing that has importance; that makes a powerful, universal statement about how we as humans, sharing space, relate to each other. I challenge myself to construct theatre in a contemporary, spontaneous way; that is, above all, highly theatrical. My work, especially as a playwright, 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.

For more info...

My gig list since 2005 is available on this website. Visit my other online homes such as: LinkedIn. Facebook. LiveJournal. InfoZoom. MySpace. Or the old Audacity Productions website.

Contact Brad...

Feel free to E-mail me

* Special Thanks to Tony at Optimum Return for his help with this site. Thanks, dude!