Patty Ortiz, executive director of GCAC, points out that the Guadalupe does underwrite community use of the theater, concentrating on finding outside grants instead of rental fees as matching funds for City grants. “Because GCAC is multi-disciplinary, we feel a commitment to local and international productions,” said Ortiz. “We began last fall with Lisa Cortez and Attagirl Productions’ Detained in the Desert, and also brought in the Spanish-language version of The Vagina Monologues. But the theater is a multi-use space, so it’s juggling times and schedules.” As for those who believe the Guadalupe isn’t opening up enough to local talent, she says, “Apply. Next spring we are looking for local groups to perform.”

The San Pedro Playhouse, located in a City-owned facility in San Pedro Park, is the oldest continuing theater in San Antonio, having been founded as The Little Theater in 1930. Now known simply as the Playhouse, they receive $138,000 a year from DCCD, pay actors, and forego rentals. Asia Ciaravino, president and CEO, was one of Classic Theatre’s founders, and since she took the helm at the Playhouse, has been making quiet structural changes — one she hopes to implement next year is the ability to extend runs. Like the Guadalupe and the Classic, the Playhouse mounts vigorous grant writing campaigns. Said Ciaravino, “the more you write, the more you receive.”

Jump-Start Performance Co. is also a recipient of a DCCD grant, $201,750 annually. They produce strong, but short-running, shows of their own, though they offer educational programs and are aggressive in bringing in performances by other companies. Now looking at the loss of their space in Southtown next year, the organization is faced with deciding whether they will need to shrink in size, or have opportunities to expand; topics, says Jump-Start’s Foxx, that are under discussion with DCCD and the Center City Development Office, which is exploring available locations within downtown that might be a fit for the theater company.

Some companies of high merit receive very small grants. The Classic receives $23,000 annually in DCCD grants, and plans to perform the first part of their 2013-14 season at the Jump-Start space. It is exploring both the option of remaining with Jump-Start, if an adequate facility for both companies is found, or going out on their own.

AtticRep, one of the few companies with the professional talent needed to forge an Actors Equity house, currently receives only $13,000 in DCCD grants. One of their greatest limits is that they are in residence at Trinity Universty’s Attic Theatre, and must schedule around the demands of students. Rick Frederick, actor, director, and interim managing director of AtticRep, believes his company is ready to go fulltime. At present, all members work day jobs, though actors are paid, and equity members have received waivers to work with the company. The company, however, would have to find a large endowment to move to a facility that could house a fulltime theater company. At present, Trinity gives them their space rent-free.

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Rex Hausmann, local artist and arts advocate, recently opened his latest exhibition in the massive showrooms of Gallery Nord with a cohort of more than 30 participants, quite a crowd for a solo show. But Hausmann, who runs Alta Vista studio and exhibition space Hausmann Millworks with his family, and has toured groups of SA artists to Kansas and New York, loves a big social mix. His paintings have been exhibited at institutions such as UTSA’s Institute of Texan Cultures, Southwest School of Art, and at galleries in Los Angeles and New York, but collaboration has long been at the heart of his work.

The evening opened with a reading by SA poet Jim LaVilla-Havelein and continued with subtle programming. Models in cosplay costumes milled about, attended by stylists and followed by photographers Kat E.V. Day and Ernesto Ibañez. Dresses made of paper, by SA-based fashion designer Samantha Plasencia, held positions next to mock-ups of window displays filled with bits of ephemera and studio notes. A film and a slide show rolled, while a group of enthusiasts played the table-top game Warhammer. And that was just part of the ground-floor happenings, which also included an almost manic dispensing of donuts, treats that were seen in paintings done in his chaotically colorful signature style.

Two new series express Hausmann’s fascination with child’s play. Deep, canvas-like mono-colored squares are embellished on the edges with tiny clusters of plastic figurines. One large work depicting, says Hausmann, a trip to China, has the toy people stuck upside down on the bottom edge of a bare canvas, an allusion to the childhood story of people on the other side of the world walking upside-down.

On the second floor is a set of 15 line drawings — simple, but deftly executed. Like much of Hausmann’s output, there is an air of nostalgia; happy scenes of fishing trips are mixed with a drawing of a woman striding buoyantly into the day.

But why this outpouring of disparate work, much of it no longer on view at the gallery? Not just part of an ambitious opening party, Day’s photography and Plasencia’s architecturally constructed dresses are featured in Hausmann’s central project: a 95-page book, his sixth in a series. Part comic book, designer’s flip-book, and artist’s rendering for a film, it is a celebration of collaborative art making. The book, on sale for $40, costs a fraction of what the drawings and paintings, props for the pamphlet, go for. Hausmann is a hustler indeed, but though he plays the game of selling art for a living, he’s a San Anto boy, a populist through-and-through.

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