Alley Theatre Reveals Programming Supported By Our Town Award From NEA

Alley Theatre has revealed its programming supported by an Our Town Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Our Town is the NEA creative placemaking program, investing in projects where arts, culture, and design foster community connection, local identity, and equitable development. The Alley initiative will engage residents, artists, educators, and preservationists in reclaiming historic Houston spaces as hubs for learning, creativity, and collective memory, while building sustainable collaborations among cultural and community institutions. 

The NEA Our Town award supports a two-year partnership between Alley Theatre, The Ensemble Theatre, the Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum, the Mayor's Office of the Arts and the City of Houston to activate Freedmen's Town and other historic Houston districts through the arts. Running January 2026–June 2027, the project uses theatre, storytelling, and place-based programming to strengthen community identity, foster collaboration, and highlight Houston's historic Black neighborhoods as national centers of cultural resilience and vibrancy. 

​Programming includes:

Staged Readings: Community-based staged readings of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Gem of the Ocean, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, presented in historic Black communities and culturally significant venue spaces. These readings will explore themes of heritage, migration, gentrification, home, identity, memory, and cultural legacy.

Public Programs & Workshops: Place-based activations centered on Freedmen's Town and other local historic cultural sites; collaborations with local artists, creators, students, educators, cultural workers, preservation workers, and local institutions; and activities such as site-based storytelling, performance and writing workshops, community discussions, panels, screenings, community performances, sound activations, museum exhibitions, and visual art exhibitions.

Arts Education Residencies: A curated series of workshops held in schools and community spaces using a universal design for learning model. These theatre-based workshops will engage students and community members' visual and performance art.
Placemaking & Preservation Work: Exhibitions, arts education activities, and community resources centered on placemaking, cultural preservation, community preservation, and the history of Freedmen's Town and other historic Houston communities.