Tamarie Cooper's World Premiere at Stages is One Outrageously Funny Brain Fart

The legendary Tamarie Cooper’s original theatre work is well known to Houston audiences. For the past twelve summers she has presented an entirely original, full-scale musical, filled with new songs by various local composers and lyricists every single year.

It's another long, hot summer and it's time for one more piece in a series of brilliant, brand new works that have achieved cult status, as spectacular and entertaining as the one before, and always timely, personal, and poignant.

This year's offering is as hilarious and hysterical as we expect it to be and because Tamarie is with child and expecting in only three months, we get, thrown in as an extra bonus, plenty of preggers gags.

Cooper’s fabulous new show from The Catastrophic Theatre, being presented at Stages, is Journey to the Center of My Brain (In 3D!)

Singing neurotransmitters, brain farts, raging hormones, Tamarie’s inner child, id, and super-ego are just some of the characters featured in this journey of self-discovery, complete with a narrator that sounds like the narrator guy at the Museum of Natural Science.

Fabulous narrating, Paul Locklear!

In this world premiere musical extravaganza, the terrifically talented and notorious legend-in-our-midst Tamarie Cooper plays her ever-so- hilarious-self as she shares the stage with Catastrophic Theatre favorites:

Kyle Sturdivant, who once again reveals the comic genius that he is, as her Self-Control and later as Old and Bitter Tamarie,

tall, handsome, and beguiling Walt Zipprian as Dopamine and Ann Coulter among others,

the delicious Noel Bowers as a Blues-singing Brain Fart and a giant Whoopie Cushion,

the delightful Daniel Adame as an Endorphine, a Dancing (and Horny) Gilligan and Modern Dancer Tamarie,

the engaging Julie Boneau as Tamarie in her twenties and Housewife Tamarie,

the over-the-top irascibly irate Jeremy Carlson as Adrenaline and Angry Tamarie,

the tiny yet hugely talented Sara Jo Dunstan as a Female Hormone, Miss Elizabeth Bennet (from Pride and Prejudice), and Party Girl Tamarie,

the wonderfully riproarious Rebecca Randall Feit as Raging Hormone and Musical Theatre Tamarie,

the devilish and delectable DeWitt Gravink as Seratonin and Obama Choir Leader,

the comical Christian Holmes as a Dancing Gilligan and Nervous Tamarie,

the superbly talented Sean Patrick Judge as Mr. Darcy and Anal Retentive Tamarie,

the rollickingly splendid Richard Lyders as a Montessori Kid and Ballerina Tamarie,

and the gorgeous and matchless Karina Pal Montano-Bowers as Memory Bank Teller and Teenage Angst-Ridden Tamarie.

I've listed less than half of the roles this talented troupe of actors portray.

The Stream of Consciousness bit is a stroke of comic genius. Ya gotta see it to believe it!

Watching them all perform is like watching a well-oiled machine in a comedy factory, spitting out perfect bits and schticks each funnier than the next.

Many of these actors have been working together with Tamarie Cooper in this yearly summer show for years and years and years.

Tamarie refers to this summer gig as Tamarie's Summer Camp for Adults.

Cooper informed me after the show at a delightful reception that the show will be on hold for next summer while she practices her mothering skills.

Please! No! No! No!

We shall see about that!

How will we survive but one summer without our Tamarie Cooper Show fix?

Without the loving guidance and the zany and zesty brilliance of Tamarie Cooper's direction, the show simply wouldn't be as crazily funny and entertaining as it always is.

She also designs amazing and over-the-top and outlandish costumes with Tina Montgomery and cleverly choreographs the entire show.

How does she do it? And pregnant this year!

Tamarie Cooper is truly one of Houston's most tremendously talented theatre treasures.

 The show’s amazing book is written by Patrick Reynolds and Tamarie Cooper.

Thinking I am witnessing some truly remarkable and engaging comedic writing, I thumb through the program which reveals that Patrick Reynolds is a graduate of The Second City Training Center Writing Program in Chicago. No wonder!

This year’s installment of The Tamarie Cooper Show features new songs by Anthony Barilla, Joe Folladori, DeWitt Gravink, Andrew Lienhard, Keith Reynolds, Patrick Reynolds, and Greg Stanley.

My favorite songs are the riotous "Sex Me Up With Gilligan" by Barilla and Reynolds, the clever "Mr. Darcy" by Folladori,

and the politically incorrect (go!) and hilarious "My President" by Barilla and Gravink.

John Duboise's music direction is feverishly fun.

Vocal direction by Chris Bakos and Cathy Power is excellent.

The tight and tuneful orchestra features Chris Bakos, Kevin Blessington, John Duboise, Andrew Lienhard, Cathy Power, and Kirk Suddreath.

Jodi Bobrovsky's amusing set is comprised of two huge profiles of Tamarie Cooper's head facing the orchestra and revealing what really goes on in her talented brain, with two video screens next to her brains.

A huge brain painted on the floor and colorful fabric synapses and neurons are stretched and lit from behind.

The talented Bobrovsky also creates wonderful props.

As lighting designer, Kirk Markley beautifully, boldly, brightly, and magically lights what goes on inside of Tamarie's colorful brain.

I love the intense and bright flood of reds and greens and blues.

Chris Bakos' sound is eerie and totally in-sync.

Tim Thomson provides wonderful and inviting video collages on screens on either side of the stage.

Indeed, all of the production values of this yearly funnyfest have been upped as the result of Catastrophic Theatre's relationship with Stages.

I, hereby, bestow upon

The Tamarie Cooper Show

Journey to the Center of My Brain (In 3D!)

 "Houston's Best and Funniest Original Musical of 2009."

I will go back to this show multiple times during its run and take friends of friends of friends because I love to share wonderful theatre with the people that I love.

Dear Tamarie, Can I also bring my dog?  

No financial excuses accepted here!

In the great (and almost lost) tradition of true public theatre, The Catastrophic Theatre is offering all tickets to the show

PAY WHAT YOU CAN!!!!!!

Suggested ticket price is $25 per person but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.