RICH LOPEZ | Staff Writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com
Two years ago, local singer/songwriter Danny Anchondo debuted his stage show Selfie-Conscious at the 2024 Festival of Independent Theatres (or FIT Festival) held at Theatre Three. He describes that experience as more of a workshop and, in some ways, a precursor to this weekend.
Anchondo is bringing back the show as part of the current season of The Elevator Project. With a whole new stage and two years of additional perspective, Selfie-Conscious gets the full treatment Anchondo intended.
“We have more of a set-up in this space, which helped me be able to flesh out the show a bit more,” he said. “It’s the same structure with that talk show vibe, but I’ve added a new character and even a new song.”
Mr. PIXIE presents Selfie-Conscious opens Friday, Jan. 9, and runs through Sunday, Jan. 11 at the Wyly Studio Theatre.
And who is Mr. PIXIE?
That moniker has been a longtime stage persona for Anchondo. But here, the artist gets super meta by presenting the alter ego as the show’s main character — and all this within a story about the fallacy of social media and its false securities.
“The show is a commentary on followers and influencers and social media,” he said. “And yes, I’ve written in my stage persona for a show that explores how we create representation of ourselves online.”
In his show, Anchondo plays Mr. PIXIE who is creating his own social media platform. Behind that guise, PIXIE hopes to collect all the data in a somewhat stumbling fashion.
The show is an interactive and musical and satirical look at today’s relationships with our digital presence versus our real one. PIXIE guides the audience as that audience helps him create an avatar for his new social network by taking real-time selfies.
With the time in between productions, Anchondo found he was able to explore the idea of creating personas and how that facilitates what people present online.
“That was an intriguing idea for me to build on. Here I am with a different persona commenting on people who do that for followers. There’s such a push to create a brand, and then we marry that with our actual lives. Those ideas and messages coalesced a lot better this time around.”
When he first spoke about the show with Dallas Voice, Anchondo said he was hardly a playwright, as his focus has always been music. In fact, Anchondo’s own album soundtrack to the show will be released simultaneously on streaming platforms.
But the phenomenon of online presence inspired him to craft a new pathway for his creative side. Since his premiere, he’s gathered even more inspiration.
“I’ve been so fascinated by con stories like Anna Delvey, Elizabeth Holmes, that Fyre Festival guy,” Anchondo said. “They each had their own alter egos and presented as silly or incapable, but they have this talent for conning people. That’s been helpful for this show.”
Anchondo has said that this iteration of Mr. PIXIE may be a bit more dark and more demented than he was before, but not to worry. The character may be dark, but PIXIE is not at all threatening.
“The show is funny, and I do like the silly nature of it. You have this menacing character, but he’s also a very unserious person,” he said. “But also, I love that this show has this ability to live and breathe, and I think of what it can be in the future.”
And with the advent of AI, Mr. PIXIE may just have more stories to tell.■
For tickets, visit ATTPAC.org.