Ready or Not, a one-man, one-act musical featuring original songs, stories, and skits centered around the process of aging, will make its world premiere on Sunday, February 2, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. at Urban-15, 2500 S. Presa, San Antonio, TX 78210. The show is written, produced, and performed by Rudi Harst, a seasoned singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and performance artist with more than 50 years of experience in the arts.
This engaging show is an uplifting journey through the realities of growing older, woven together with eleven original songs performed on acoustic guitar, mountain dulcimer, mandolin, harmonica, and flute. The production is made possible by the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture Individual Artist Grant.
The performance is designed as a low-tech, highly mobile production, easily adaptable to a wide range of venues—from community centers to theaters and conventions. A second performance will be scheduled for late February 2025.
Equal parts memoir, musical, observational comedy, and cabaret, Ready or Not offers a candid, humorous exploration of the changes, challenges, and choices that Baby Boomers—and people of all ages—face as they navigate life in a youth-driven culture.
“I wrote and perform this piece with the hope of offering my peers—and their younger friends and families—a heartfelt and entertaining look at the realities of growing older,” says Harst. “The show invites us to laugh at, reflect on, and share our experiences of aging in a culture that often prioritizes youth.”
The songs in the show encompass a range of musical styles, from reflective ballads to upbeat folk-rock, rumba, polka, and country swing. Each song features witty, insightful lyrics and catchy melodies, all bound together by Harst’s virtuosic musicianship.
The production is directed by Chuck Squier, an accomplished actor, director, and founding member of the Jump-Start Performance Company in San Antonio. Squier has been a key figure in the city’s arts scene since 1985, and in addition to directing and writing numerous plays, he was an associate professor of drama at Palo Alto College for 18 years. He also directed Harst’s previous theatrical works, including Hurry Slowly, which had successful runs at Jump-Start Theater in 2005 and 2006.
The show aims to provide life-affirming, uplifting entertainment to an often-overlooked demographic—seniors—by addressing the universal challenges of aging, Ready or Not highlights stories seldom told in mainstream culture, offering an authentic and entertaining perspective on the aging experience.
Tickets available at Eventbrite. Suggested choose your price donations from $5 – $50.
URBAN-15 is happy to announce a collaboration with Film San Antonio at this year’s Josiah Media Festival Locals Only Screening. Beginning at 1pm on January 25th, Film San Antonio will resume their Coffee Talk networking mixer series, an opportunity to connect with film professionals from around San Antonio, the San Antonio Film Commission’s team, local film educators, and emerging filmmakers. For more information about Film SA’s Coffee Talk, visit events.getcreativesanantonio.com/event/film-san-antonio-coffee-talk-josiah-media-festival
All attendees are invited to stay afterward for this year’s Locals Only Screening of the Josiah Media Festival, kicking off the same day at 2:30pm. Featuring several films from around South-Central Texas, the screening will highlight some of the best work that young filmmakers from around the San Antonio area have produced over the last year.
URBAN-15 carefully selected films created by artists all throughout south-central Texas, including Austin, Houston and San Antonio. These were chosen from among the hundreds of Josiah Media Festival submissions due to their innovative filmmaking, gripping storytelling, and local origin. The screening will culminate with an awards ceremony, during which winning filmmakers will be presented with prizes for their important contributions to the local film industry. URBAN-15 invites friends, family, and film lovers of all kinds to attend this celebration, meet the filmmakers, and learn more about the developing film industry in San Antonio.
The 18th Josiah Media Festival premiered on December 16th, and will continue streaming until Saturday February 8th, 2025 at urban15.org/live-stream. All 50 films are being streamed in five blocks, rotating every 48 hours. For a full schedule of these blocks, please visit urban15.org/2024-schedule.
Attention all dancers! URBAN-15 is on the look for dancers for their 2026 season of performances! This Open Call is for people of all ages and gender identity who are interested in serious participation within URBAN-15’s performance ensemble. Free introductory classes take place every Thursday at 6 p.m. at URBAN-15 Studios (2500 S. Presa) and will cover the rhythmic movements that accompany URBAN-15’s Afro-Latin and experimental musical compositions. Dancers will be required to attend multiple classes before formally auditioning for a role within the ensemble.
Interested parties please be aware that URBAN-15 no longer participates in the yearly Fiesta Flambeau parades, but does regularly still take part in events such as Día de Los Muertos, Luminaria, Cochineala Nature & Art Series, Pollinator Festival, Global Water Dances, and many more performances. Dancers who are admitted into the ensemble will be expected to participate in multiple events per year and are asked to perform in illuminated costumes created by Artistic Director Cathartine Cisneros.
The 18th Josiah Media Festival will begin streaming online for free at 8pm on December 16th through the end of January 2025. The continuous 24 hour stream will begin with a two-day showcase of the winners from the 17th Josiah Media Festival. After 48 hours, streams of this year’s films will begin to run on a continuous 24 hour loop in two hour blocks. At the end of January, films will be judged by a panel of judges and cash prizes will be awarded to the young filmmakers.
Open only to filmmakers 21 years old and younger, the Josiah Media Festival is URBAN-15’s annual nationwide film and media event. It is named after Josiah Miles Neundorf, a talented film and media artist from San Antonio, Texas who passed away in 2006 as a result of osteosarcoma. Despite his short twenty years with us, Josiah expanded the lives of those around him through his brilliance, joy, and determination to create outstanding work amid the physical ravages of illness. In honor of this artist, his parents Marcus and Nancy Neundorf and the URBAN-15 Group created the Josiah Media Festival, an annual film festival designed to showcase outstanding works by young film, video, and media artists.
Join the URBAN-15 ensemble during their annual Día de Los Muertos Procession at Elmendorf Lake Park. Carnaval de Los Muertos is a magical spectacle of motion, imagery, sound, and color. The dancers in their costumes of embedded lights and the glowing banners personalized with photos, proceed in an illuminated procession that evokes floating spirits passing through our city.
URBAN-15 has appeared as Carnaval de Los Muertos since 1985; where they have offered a sense of the ethereal space between life and death. As a metaphor of today’s current events in which reality is easy to lose grasp of, this procession of impressionistic apparitions carries both the pain and joy of this era.
Occurring in conjunction with URBAN-15’s procession will be the 4th annual Día de Los Muertos
Lantern Release Celebration at Elmendorf Lake Park hosted by Westside Stories Magazine. Beginning at 5pm, visitors may expect vendors, arts & crafts, food and entertainment. For more information, contact organizer Yvonne Pena at (210) 872-7319 or email at westsidestoriesmagazine@gmail.com.
Take part in the City of San Antonio’s official Day of The Dead Celebrations with URBAN-15! You can catch the URBAN-15 drum and dance ensemble in their spook-tacular hand-crafted costumes on October 26th at La Villita! But that’s not all, Day of The Dead celebrations will be taking place all weekend long at La Villita from Oct 25th – 27th, and will include activities for children and adults alike!
It’s official! URBAN-15 and the Laser Wizard Tim Walsh will once again collaborate at this year’s Luminaria, this time to bring our audience the LARGEST LASER SHOW EVER IN SAN ANTONIO HISTORY!!
Join us on Saturday, October 19th for our most ambitious production to date: encompassing the entire North face of the Alamodome in Laser Beams! This “Laser Mapping” show will be controlled by Walsh while URBAN-15’s illuminated Dance and Drum ensemble perform original pieces! Just as last year, Walsh’s laser beams will be programmed to automatically react to specific instrumentations in our Drum ensemble, blending sounds and visuals in a surreal presentation.
Don’t miss out on what is sure to become a memorable moment in Luminaria and San Antonio history!
Saturday, October 19th @ 10pm CST
HEB Plaza at The Alamodome (located in front of North entrance)
An exclusive screening of one of URBAN-15’s most acclaimed works, “TEMPORAL”. “Temporal” is a ten-movement work commissioned by URBAN-15 in 1991. The work was created, directed and choreographed by Puerto Rican performance artist and dancer, Myrna Renaud during her five-month workshop residency at URBAN-15. “Temporal” is a vibrant visual and sound tableaux of life on a small Caribbean island. Each of the movements was choreographed to depict a community’s awareness that survival is at the mercy of the surrounding sea. Renaud explores the continuing cycle of Life, Death, and Recovery, using the URBAN-15 Ensemble as her creative instrument.
Screening begins Monday, September 16th at 8pm CST, and will run hourly through Monday, September 23rd at 8pm
The Movements Are:
1. Power of the Ocean / Oshun
2. Orbits of H20
3. A Beautiful Day
4. Gods at Play / Ogum
5. Huracán
6. Grief / Tracamandacas
7. Funeral Procession / Maracatu
8. A Call to Prayer / Moro
9. Joy To Be Alive / Comparsa
10. A Beautiful Day / Ritmo
URBAN-15 will host its 19th Annual Holiday Laser Show in Our Lady of the Lake University’s Mabee Gymnasium, located within the University Wellness and Activities Center (UWAC) on Sunday, December 22, 2024. It is a multimedia spectacular of technology artforms with choreographed laser beams, colorful 3-D animation and light effects set to traditional holiday favorites and original electronic compositions.URBAN-15 once again is featuring the genius work of the Laser Wizard, Tim Walsh, with what has become the newest traditional Holiday event. This show is a blending of high-tech laser projections, animations and beam work, all choreographed with Holiday musical favorites. The show also features collaborative works of Tim Walsh and George Cisneros.
The Holiday Laser Show is presented at no charge to the community and features two shows on one day.
Tickets are limited, and may be reserved for free here. The Holiday Laser Show has become the new traditional holiday event in Central Texas after a two-year absence during 2020 and 2021, in respect for the City of San Antonio’s COVID-19 protocols and with an abundance of concern for the public safety of our audience. Originally slated to occur in Thiry Auditorium, the Holiday Laser Show was moved to a venue more accommodating of the large number of ticket reservations that have occurred in the last few weeks
Important: Tickets must be reserved ahead of time online via the Universe Ticket Service here. Due to limited seating, downloaded ticket must be shown upon entry (print or on phone). These will be verified by front of house staff. Reservations will not be made at the door.
In celebration of URBAN-15’s 50th anniversary events, Robert Rivera Ojeda and the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture presents “Tribute To La Musica Chicana, The History and Influences on Music by Mexican American Musicians.” Performed by Robert Ojeda’s Bronze Band, this tribute forms part of a musical performance art piece series chronicling the influence and history on the Mexican American culture from the Indigenous, to the 1930s up to 1960.
Join us live at the URBAN-15 Studio on Saturday, August 10th from 5-7pm CST for a musical journey across the rich history of Mexican American sounds.
Robert Ojeda, a respected musician, educator, and historian, states that the Tribute to La Musica Chicana is to fill the gap in San Antonio’s music history by preserving, promoting, and performing the music of San Antonio’s history. He is a 2024 grantee of the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture Individual Artist Grant. These grants support a diverse portfolio of artists in their creation of new original work in the literary arts, media arts, multi-disciplinary arts, performing arts, and visual arts. Ojeda is thankful to the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture in recognizing the need to showcase music and histories of Mexican American music. The Bronze Band is a group of seasoned musicians that will perform a myriad of genres created over the years, including Indigenous, Tex-Mex, Chicano rhythm and blues, country-western swing, cumbias, boleros, oldies and much more that reflects the creations by Mexican American musicians. Ojeda, Musical Director, will introduce each song with historical information.
URBAN-15
