GLORIA: A LIFE to Open as Cypress Stage's Inaugural Production
Performances will run October 2-18, 2026.
A new theatre is taking the stage in Cypress, Texas. Cypress Stage, a semi-professional performing arts theatre serving Cypress, Northwest Houston, and surrounding communities, will present Emily Mann's acclaimed Gloria: A Life as its inaugural production, October 2-18, 2026.
Directed by Deborah Hope, the production will be the first Houston-area staging of Gloria: A Life, giving local audiences the opportunity to experience Mann's play close to home.
Gloria: A Life tells the story of Gloria Steinem's journey from journalist to one of the most influential voices in the women's rights movement. Through Steinem's life and experiences, the play explores the people, events, and ideas that helped shape a generation and continue to resonate today.
The production carries special significance for local audiences: Steinem helped organize the historic 1977 National Women's Conference in Houston, a landmark moment in the women's rights movement that took place just a short drive from where Cypress Stage now calls home.
The play is structured in two distinct acts. The first act dramatizes Steinem's life story. The second act transforms into a "talking circle" - a live, unscripted conversation in which the audience is invited to reflect on the play, share their own stories, and discuss the ongoing fight for equality. The format was inspired by Steinem's own experience with talking circles, a tradition she encountered in India while walking with followers of Gandhi. As Mann has said of the structure, the first act is Gloria's story; the second is the audience's own.
Cypress Stage was created to establish a new home for professionally produced live theatre in Cypress, with plans for mainstage productions as well as theatre for seniors, youth productions, and other community-focused performing arts opportunities.
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