“This is a farewell show. ZM3 Live Productions is closing its doors,” says Zell Miller III, whose production company has been presenting shows in Austin for over two decades. “We didn't get funding again, so this is a farewell show. So it's A to Z, all things in between.”
As Austin's poet laureate enters this transitional period of his artistic life – ZM3 is closing but he has no plans to stop creating art – he’s doing one last show at Hyde Park Theatre. From A to Z and All Parts In Between will be a heartfelt goodbye to the city and to this part of Miller’s performing life.
“It is an intimate night of me and my musician Thomas Wheeler,” he says, “and I'm going to be telling true live stories about living in Austin for over 50 years, being an artist for over 26 years. Amazing stories of how like one day … I met Ann Richards. I was catching the bus [and] her limo pulls up, she rolls the window down. She's like, 'Hey!' and I'm like, 'Hey!' And so we started having this conversation."
The light turned green, he says, and she told her driver: "Don't you leave, don't you take off. I'm talking."
Not all of Miller’s interactions with local politicians went as well. He’ll also be sharing the story of how he "almost" got into a fight with Kirk Watson when he was running for mayor the first time.
“I've had some ups and downs," he laughs.
Miller will also be covering some more personal stories, using poetry while Wheeler layers music underneath.
“The birth of my children,” he says. “You know, being married a second time."
Miller says closing ZM3 Live Productions isn’t about ending his artistic or performing life, but about needing to find a new approach to what it means to be a working artist. Even as Austin’s current — and first ever — poet laureate, he’s struggled financially to produce work in the city.
“I'm tired of fighting in Austin and for money,” he says. “This is the first time in my life I'm a full-time artist, so I'm looking at every avenue and every door and starting to look at things I didn't look at before about how to move work around and how to do it."
He's currently working on a book and will be getting on the road to support it over the next few years.
"We'll see what happens along the way.”
He says From A to Z is "like a love letter to Austin.” he says.
“We'll see if the voice is needed or wanted for the future and what that may look like, how we may come back again. But we are closing the doors on this chapter. I would want people to take away just the love of the city, some of the characters that are in the city, and I hope that they take away the work that we brought [to Austin]. We were a unique voice for Black people, but we also told American love stories in the city of Austin, Texas.”
From A to Z and All Parts In Between will run at Hyde Park Theatre through Sept. 13.
