Elizabeth Marshall News

Rec Room Arts continues its fourth season with the Obie-Award winning play, Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Julia Oppenheim Traber. This riveting Houston premiere begins previews March 26, with an official press opening on Saturday, March 28, followed by an opening reception at Rec Room's Bar. Performances will run through April 18.

The year is 1967, the place is San Francisco, and the conflict? A young and optimistic mixed-race couple has just announced their upcoming plans of marriage to unsuspecting parents. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner extracts the nuances and subtleties of prejudice and plops them center stage, both literally and figuratively, in the living room of the liberal, upper-class Drayton family.

It wasn't the comedy of broadcasters who have absolutely no information to share but share it anyway that stayed with me, nor was it watching each of these characters disintegrate into their lowest common denominators as they desperately cling to order. It was instead in their attempts, on the last night of the world, to stay connected. They hold on to their microphones (quite literally) and to each other and their unseen audiences to their last coherent moment, 'speaking to keep loneliness at bay'.

Tamarie Cooper Directs The Catastrophic Theatre's Season Opener, TRAGEDY, A TRAGEDY 

The director has decided to look at the more giggle-worthy elements of PRIVATE LIVES, and has avoided some of the darker implications of this Noel Coward classic. Audiences should eat this one up like a buttered brioche with coffee the morning after a sordid affair.

Main Street Theater (MST) offers the perfect sparkling summer refreshment in the form of the wit and wisdom of Noel Coward's Private Lives. "It is by far my favorite of his plays," shares Coward specialist and the production's director Claire Hart-Palumbo. "In many ways Private Lives is an extraordinary play. The Twentieth Century equivalent of the Well-Made Play, it is elegance personified. The language is intelligent and delightfully witty. It's about the generation that was ravaged by World War I. He chose to write in a more familiar and recognizable style, with humor, wit, vivacity, and charm, but his characters express the same doubts and questioning with an elegance that is inevitably entertaining and astonishingly memorable." Along with Hart-Palumbo's insights, MST Executive Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden, who has a delicious cameo role in the show, offers, "It's just so brilliantly funny. I think we could all use a good laugh right now."

Main Street Theater extends its hit production of the unconventional new comedy The Secretary by Kyle John Schmidt.  Added performances are Friday and Saturday, February 15 and 16 at 7:30pm.  The production runs through February 16 at MST - Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd.  Performances are Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 3pm.  Tickets are $36 - $48, depending on date, section, and availability.  All tickets are on sale via phone at 713.524.6706 or online at MainStreetTheater.com. 

I realize part of the fun of THE SECRETARY is it never comes down heavily on one side or the other on the gun debate, but that also means I sat there frustrated as I felt there was little point to whipping out pistols and taking on issues.

Main Street Theater kicks off 2019 with the unconventional new comedy The Secretary by Kyle John Schmidt.  MST's marks the Second Production of the play which tells the offbeat story of a small town, its wacky residents, and guns with a mind of their own!

Main Street Theater kicks off 2019 with the unconventional new comedy The Secretary by Kyle John Schmidt. MST's marks the Second Production of the play which tells the offbeat story of a small town, its wacky residents, and guns with a mind of their own!

Main Street Theater kicks off 2019 with the unconventional new comedy The Secretary by Kyle John Schmidt.  MST's marks the Second Production of the play which tells the offbeat story of a small town, its wacky residents, and guns with a mind of their own!

Main Street Theater (MST) is currently playing the Regional Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will. 

In a way it is like watching a heady special episode of CHEERS set in London in the early 1620s. It seems like a place where everybody would know your name, and in the case of Will they did.

Main Street Theater (MST) will open its 43rd Season with the Regional Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will.  This compelling play tells the tale of how Shakespeare's First Folio came into existence thanks to the loyalty and love of his dear friends, particularly John Heminges and Henry Condell.  "As the Folger Shakespeare Library put it, the First Folio is 'the book that gave us Shakespeare,'" shares Book of Will director and MST Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden.  "That being so, it can then be said that Heminges and Condell gave us the book that gave us Shakespeare."  "[THE BOOK OF WILL] serves as homage to those who sacrificed to make the first folio happen and to Shakespeare's magnificent words." - Westword (Denver, CO). 

Main Street Theater (MST) will open its 43rd Season with the Regional Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will.  This compelling play tells the tale of how Shakespeare's First Folio came into existence thanks to the loyalty and love of his dear friends, particularly John Heminges and Henry Condell.  "As the Folger Shakespeare Library put it, the First Folio is 'the book that gave us Shakespeare,'" shares Book of Will director and MST Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden.  "That being so, it can then be said that Heminges and Condell gave us the book that gave us Shakespeare."  "[THE BOOK OF WILL] serves as homage to those who sacrificed to make the first folio happen and to Shakespeare's magnificent words." - Westword (Denver, CO). 

Main Street Theater (MST) will open its 43rd Season with the Regional Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will.  This beautiful play tells the tale of how Shakespeare's First Folio came into existence thanks to the loyalty and love of his dear friends.  Gunderson "has peopled the stage with lively, historically based characters... She paints a vivid portrait of the times in language sometimes formal, sometimes poetic and often...contemporary... [THE BOOK OF WILL] serves as homage to those who sacrificed to make the first folio happen and to Shakespeare's magnificent words." - Westword (Denver, CO). 

Planned a year ago as the opening of their 2017-18 season, no one had any inkling how ironic the title HARVEY would be. Playwright Mary Chase's merry little romp seemed like a good idea at the time. And as it turned out, it was.

TREVOR is what the Catastrophic Theatre does best - funny and provocative work that has much to say about the human condition. It's fascinating it takes a celebrity-obsessed chimpanzee to deliver the most human and touching of performances thanks to the combination of Kyle Sturdivant's acting prowess and a whipsmart script from Nick Jones.

The Catastrophic Theatre presents Trevor by Nick Jones, running February 10th - March 4th, 2017 at The MATCH, 3400 Main Street, with performances on Thursday, Today and Saturday at 8 pm.

The Catastrophic Theatre presents Trevor by Nick Jones, running February 10th - March 4th, 2017 at The MATCH, 3400 Main Street, with performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm.