NEWS ROUNDUP, October 30, 2025 “Not Your Mother’s Chamber Music Concert!” says the press release about the concert featuring the LOTUS SAXOPHONE QUARTET brought to town by the San Antonio Chamber Music Society. The group’s “genre-defying program blends classical, jazz, and pop that moves beyond traditional classical boundaries.” Formed in 2022, the quartet “literally stormed the classic music world,” winning …
INTERVIEW with RUTHIE BUESCHER, founder and leader of the TURNIP ENSEMBLE THEATER
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor of ARTS ALIVE SAN ANTONIO
Tell us about how and where you developed an interest in theater?
Like a lot of theater-makers, I was exposed to theater at a young age. My grandma, Jean, used to take my siblings and me to see musicals at the Pittsburg Civic Light Opera every summer, and I grew up idolizing the performers. In high school, I acted in some plays, and decided to minor in theater in college. By that time, I knew musical theater was not for me, and I was searching for a new way into theater. Luckily, the college I attended had a small theater program with deep roots in ensemble and physical theater methods that broadened my horizons immensely, and introduced me to directing.
What aspects of theater work appealed to you most and why?
As early as high school, I began to sense that acting was not my future. It never felt natural to me, and because of that, it never felt fun in the way that producing, directing and teaching would come to feel. For me, there is nothing more satisfying than helping a story get told… What I love to do is make theater possible, in whatever way is needed.
Tell us about deciding to pursue a career in the theater?
Most of my career has felt like a pretty windy journey. But looking back, I can see how the opportunities I’ve had, have equipped me for exactly what I do., and what I am doing now. I have worked with some really excellent professional theaters but I’ve also spent a lot of time doing my own projects, or doing projects with small groups of people in community settings, churches and schools. The result is that I have a lot of adaptability, and a lot of self-initiative. Theater for me has been less of a career (I still have a day job and likely always will) and more of a calling. I always have and will always have my hand in theater. I do it because I love it and because I believe everyone should have access to really good, really generous spaces to explore this art.
What do you appreciate most about San Antonio’s thespian scene?
I love being in a city that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I have encountered so much generosity from theater-makers here, and a similar self-starter mentality. And I have found a group of artists who are committed to working together as part of an ensemble, which is incredibly hard to find. One of the reasons I started Turnip Ensemble Theater last year is because I looked around and saw this amazing group of thespians around me, and said, I have to do this now or I’m going to miss the opportunity to work with all these fantastic artists around.
Tell us about the Turnip Ensemble Theater. We never heard about it until recently.
After staging my original script, “We Sail on in Darkness” which sold out almost every performance, I looked around and realized I was surrounded by a group of several artists who had similar training, ideas and similar interests. We began meeting regularly to talk and dream about the next step. It became clear that the time was right to start a theater company that would present cutting edge development of new works.
Are you the artistic director of the company?
Yes, I am.
According to the press release we received, the Turnip Theater is about to present its first main-stage production: ”The Wild Swans.” Tell us more about it.
As an ensemble, we were drawn to this because it’s a fairy tale that doesn’t have a traditional “happy ending” As an ensemble, we believe in asking more questions than we answer, and we want to invite audiences to go deeper. “The Wild Swans” is beautiful and heartbreaking; it has themes of courage in the face of adversity, persevering through heartache and tiptoeing into forgiveness. This play was developed collaboratively using two physical theater methods, called Viewpoints and Moment Work, through which we arrived at shared themes, images and ideas.
After generating some text from the ensemble based on their own experiences, my co-director
Alex Grubs and I used the words and themes the group developed and also adapted the original Hans Christian Andersen fairytale into a working script, which we are staging in November.
As we continue to develop this new play, we plan to use audience feedback from this 2025 production to provide crucial information about how we can push the piece ever further and stage a final version of it on the fall of 2026.
What is the story?
“The wild swans” tells the story of Eliza, a girl whose five brothers are turned into swans by their evil step-mother. She goes on the quest to free them and along the way she is captured by a Hunter King. Who makes her his wife. The play asks: What happens when not everyone gets a “happily ever after.”
Could you explain the term “devised theater” used to describe your company’s approach?
Devised Theater is a newer method of theater-making that is based in very old methods. It upholds the idea that within each of us, there is an essential creative spark; that we are better together than we are by ourselves. Devised theater is a process of creating a brand new piece with a group or ensemble of artists, using their own ideas and words.
(Performances will be at SAY Si located at 1310 S. Brazos Street, 78207; Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 7 at &:30 p.m.; tickets https://turniptheater.ticketspice.com/the-wild-swans)
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INTERVIEW with RUTHIE BUESCHER, founder and leader of the TURNIP ENSEMBLE THEATER By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor of ARTS ALIVE SAN ANTONIO Tell us about how and where you developed an interest in theater?Like a lot of theater-makers, I was exposed to theater at a young age. My grandma, Jean, used to take my siblings and me to see musicals …
NEWS ROUNDUP October 24, 2025 Music is always alive and well in San Antonio. Let’s start with Cinema Classics presented by YOSA, (Youth Orchestras of San Antonio). The YOSA Philharmonic will bring the magic of the movies to the concert hall in Cinema Classics, showcasing the powerful role orchestral music plays in films, including Mussorgsky’s thrilling “Night on Bald Mountain,” …
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NEWS ROUNDUP, October 9, 2025 As usual, let’s start with music. The San Antonio Chamber Music Society is bringing a famed chamber ensembleto us: the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble which is known for its precision, warmth and expressive depth. It’s one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras.The program includes works by Schubert, Francaix and British …
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Guadalupe River Floods- July 4, 2025 In angry tribulation the waters will tremble and rise” Gabriela Mistral – God Wills It The sorrow of the world gathered over Texas and let go.Guadalupe riverbanks trembled.A clearing of souls left bodies in tree limbs to spread sorrow, The river weptchildren from their bedswith rocks and pebblestumbled so wildly they landedon upside down …
