For immediate release:

THE CATASTROPHIC THEATRE ANNOUNCES FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SEASON

Twenty years after Jason Nodler and Tamarie Cooper put on their first play

 

The Catastrophic Theatre’s fifth anniversary season is also the twentieth anniversary of artistic director Jason Nodler and associate director Tamarie Cooper’s first collaboration for the stage.  And if that weren’t cause enough for celebration already it is also Catastrophic’s inaugural season in its new facility at 1119 E. Freeway.

We’ve worked to see that each of these plays honors these artists’ common past while looking to the future.  We’ve got two world premieres, a return to company favorite Wallace Shawn, Samuel Beckett’s seminal work, and a limited run remount of 2011’s beloved hit There Is A Happiness That Morning Is

Catastrophic’s fifth anniversary season promises to be our best yet.  We know we keep saying that but we wouldn’t do it if it weren’t true.  Check it out, y’all.

 

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

March 22 – April 13 at The Catastrophic Theatre

Catastrophic artistic director Jason Nodler will direct Greg Dean, Troy Schulze, Charlie Scott, and Kyle Sturdivant in the most enduring play from the unwitting inventor of the Theatre of the Absurd. Last year Nodler directed Dean and Schulze in an award-winning production of Beckett’s Endgame, which led The Houston Chronicle to ask, “Does Beckett Get Any Better?” and The Houston Press to declare “The magnificent Endgame gets magnificent treatment from Catastrophic.”  We cannot think of any better play with which to inaugurate our new theatre.  As an elderly homeless man once said to Nodler upon seeing his Endgame t-shirt, “Samuel Beckett, heh, heh, heh…”  We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

 

There Is A Happiness That Morning Is by Mickle Maher

May 10 – 25 at The Catastrophic Theatre

Very Limited Run

Last summer’s 11-week, sold-out run of Maher’s beautiful ode to love, sex, and the poetry of William Blake inspired The Chronicle’s Everett Evans to begin his review, “I can scarcely contain my enthusiasm for Catastrophic Theatre’s ideally realized presentation of Mickle Maher’s delightfully original There Is A Happiness That Morning Is, so I’m not even going to try.”  On the morning after two university professors made love on the public green for all to see, they must successfully defend or apologize for their actions or risk losing their jobs, their love, and their lives as they’ve come to know them.  An extraordinary romantic comedy, told almost entirely in verse, Catastrophic is bringing this one back because you demanded it.  Nodler directs Catastrophic stars Amy Bruce, Troy Schulze, and Kyle Sturdivant in their original roles. Catch it early if you can. There’s an excellent chance you’ll want to return with friends.

 

Tamarie Cooper is Old as Hell by Tamarie Cooper, Patrick Reynolds, and friends

July 12 – August 24 at The Catastrophic Theatre

**World Premiere**

Tamarie’s back with the next installment of her series of super-popular, original musicals, but this time there’s a problem.  At the end of the opening number, The Musical Theatre Police arrive threatening to close down the show.  They cite Tamarie for being in violation of the Ingénue Code, which relegates all actresses over the age of 40 to play character roles like nosy neighbors, crazy aunts, and dotty maids.  The only way to save the show is to recast the role of Tamarie with a younger actress.  Removed from her own show, Tamarie attempts to connect with the youth of today in order to demonstrate her suitability to play the role of herself. Tamarie Cooper is Old as Hell features a live orchestra, an original score, an enormous cast, and more singing, dancing, and over-the-top hilarity than you can throw a pie at.

 

The Pine by Mickle Maher

September 20 – October 12 at The Catastrophic Theatre

**World Premiere**

This one’s been a long time in the making and we’ve been talking it up since The MAP Fund awarded Catastrophic a grant to commission a new play by Chicago playwright Mickle Maher, a favorite to Catastrophic artists and audiences. Maher has become familiar to Catastrophic fans through the production of three of his plays: The Strangerer, Spirits to Enforce, and There Is A Happiness That Morning Is. Set in the ghost of an old hotel, The Pine is a sort of fairy tale that deals in matters of love and death and grief.  This hotel, a way-station between alive and dead, is inhabited by such characters as a nine-foot tall green bell hop who likes to cut off his head to emphasize a point; a group of pilgrims that hold a book club to discuss “The Unread Book,” a book that no one in the world has actually read; a fellow whose only friend is a housefly; and his neighbor Steve, who happens to be Death himself. An extraordinary comic and genuine heartbreaker, Maher is drawing from a number of unlikely sources to create something much more than the sum of its parts.  Think “Desolation Row,” but better.  And did we mention it’s all in verse?  This one’s going to be a doozy.

 

MARIE AND BRUCE by Wallace Shawn

November 22 – December 14 at The Catastrophic Theatre

The Catastrophic Theatre’s love of Wallace Shawn is well documented by its hit productions of Our Late Night and The Designated Mourner, each of which was declared a ‘can’t miss’ production by each major critic in Houston.  For these plays audiences returned again and again, armed with friends.  Shawn, best known for his character roles in such films as The Princess Bride, Clueless, and Annie Hall as well as his more serious turns in the films My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42th Street.  Discussing his playwriting Public Theatre legend Joseph Papp called Shawn, “a dangerous writer.  A very rare species.  He tells people things about themselves that they don’t want to know.”  Nodler and Cooper first collaborated on this play in 1999.  In special celebration of their 20 years making theatre together they will reprise their roles as director and female lead in Marie and Bruce, a devastating comedy about a terrible marriage that will probably last forever.  Sounds like our kind of holiday play.

As always, all tickets are Pay-What-You-Can.