The ‘Dillo
by Lane Michael Stanley
A man enters, hauling a plaque he’s stolen. The plaque, so old you can’t read what it’s meant to memorialize. This plaque, he tells the audience, stood for the Armadillo World Headquarters, the prime music venue in 1970’s Austin.
The man takes us on his journey of the ‘Dillo: running away from his conservative Houston home; meeting his first love, a thong-wearing older man named Davey; finding the ‘Dillo, where counterculture was born and enough people didn’t want to be caught that he and Davey could get away with their multi-generational gay love; picking up a guitar for himself and touring Texas; and eventually parting ways with Davey, who wants a bigger life in the city, only to return home to Austin and find that the ‘Dillo is long gone.
The man speaks to us now, bringing in memories embodied by other actors but always narrating from our present moment, speaking to our present world and our present Austin, where the only memory of the ‘Dillo is this plaque. What was this theater before it was a theater? he asks us. How will we remember it when it’s gone?
The ‘Dillo will be a highly entertaining play filled with Outlaw Country music with a narrator that brings irreverence and devotion all at once, in a gay Southern story that speaks to longing, loss, and our changing world.
Development Status
Winner, Best of Week, FronteraFest 2025 (for a 20-minute monologue version, directed by Trace Turner and starring Bryan Headrick).
Semi-finalist, New Harmony Project, 2025.
This monologue will be published as a short story with a literary journal this fall - but we can’t announce that yet!
Lane is actively writing the full-length script. In the meantime, you can read the short on the New Play Exchange.