Gideon is a stableboy who yearns to be a Royal Cavalier. Alanna is a young viscountess who wants to be free. Thrown together by chance, the two must contend with bandits, a treacherous forest, and a giant monster that just wants to eat everyone.

Gideon and the Blundersnorp combines witty characters, pulse-pounding excitement, and a rousing cinematic/medieval-folk score. Underlying the fun is a positive message: aspiration is fueled by personal character, not social class.Read more

Out of the Depths takes a raw look into the lives of those who deal with mental illness, and shines a light on common misconceptions surrounding the subject of mental health.

Our diverse cast of eighteen performers tackles a complex subject through various facets of expression including music, dance, film, and even humor. This original 90 minute production is suitable for ages 10 and up.Read more

Karen Stokes Dance premieres the evening length dance theater project Mapping & Glaciers.

Mapping & Glaciers explores human interaction and nature through the vast, contradictory, and beautiful identities of maps. The project examines manmade and natural boundaries that challenge humans through tribalism and constructs of power, and the shifting shape of our geological environment under the influence of climate change. While the work questions the often-devastating absurdity of human choices, it also speaks to the resiliency of human nature. Mapping & Glaciers creates space for hope, for the possibility of connection and interconnection. 

Choreography/film/direction by Karen Stokes, original music by Samuel Lipman, lighting design by Clint Allen, costumes by Ashley Horn Nott. Performers:  Brittany Bass, Bethany Logan, Bryan Bradley Peck, Michelle Reyes, Davis Stumberg. Read more

Sultry songstress, Lenora, invites you to The 21st Night of September -- an inaugural concert presented by the Julius and Lenora Carter Scholarship and Youth Foundation, and powered by the Forward Times multimedia company.

Inspired by the Earth, Wind & Fire smash-hit “September,” The 21st Night of September’s purpose is to bring the community together for a night that honors and celebrates the past, while embracing the future. B

acked by her 5-piece band, along with the help of a horn section, featured background vocalists and nationally acclaimed dancers, Lenora is looking to take you back to the golden standard of music; music that moves you and stirs the soul!

A portion of the proceeds from this special night will benefit the Julius and Lenora Carter Scholarship and Youth Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that awards scholarships in the areas of Journalism and Digital Communications to students who aspire to excel in the industry.Read more

Uptown Dance Company presents Take Off, our professional company's kickoff performance of the season with three world premieres.Read more

“Here all is strange.” 

Beckett’s existential tragicomedy Happy Days concerns itself with the plight of Winnie, a middle-class, middle-aged woman who is quite literally stuck, buried to her waist in crusted earth. Her husband Willie lives in a hole behind her mound, physically and emotionally out of reach. Even in his company she is essentially alone.

Armed with a shopping bag of everyday items and routines, a series of half-remembered stories, songs, and prayers, and a heroic capacity for optimism, she presses through an endless series of unforgiving days to the merciful night to come. The bell rings again and when the blazing sun comes charging back, she is buried up to her neck. Her last resources depleted, her arms and body sunk and gone, her predicament is irreversible, hellish, seemingly eternal. Through it all she perseveres, struggling with that which remains to make real her impossibly hopeful exclamation: “Oh this will be another happy day!”

The Houston Chronicle wrote that Catastrophic’s productions of Samuel Beckett’s plays “demonstrate exactly why this company and its artistic director Jason Nodler are so important to the city’s cultural life.” The Houston Press opined, “If man’s wretched existence ever needed a finer hand to paint comic despair, look no further than director Jason Nodler with his superlative interpreters all in the service of the apocalyptic vision from Samuel Beckett.”

Catastrophic’s co-artistic directors Tamarie Cooper and Jason Nodler reprise their roles as Winnie and director, as they did with Infernal Bridegroom Productions (IBP) 22 years ago. Greg Dean rounds out the cast as Willie.Read more

On a visit to see his Nana, CJ is introduced to the people in her community – Vernon, the blind bus passenger, Grandma Posey and her grandson Jojo, who eat at the soup kitchen – teaching CJ about friendship, empathy and finding joy in unexpected places. Last Stop on Market Street celebrates the bond between a young boy and his grandmother in this heartwarming and energetic musical.

Recommended for Pre-Kindergarten and older.Read more

Open Dance Project launches its 2022-23 season with Shortcuts, an evening of 5 world premiere dance theater "shorts" by ODP company members Joshua de Alba, Sonia Engman, Atticus Griffin, Lizzy McGoldrick and special guest choreographer Laura Harrell. “Our company members are a dream team of collaborators. They invent, transform, and develop movement ideas for our ensemble works all season long. Shortcuts gives us an opportunity to focus on their ideas from start to finish and to support the birth of new works by some of the very strongest new choreographers in the dance world,” says ODP Artistic Director Annie Arnoult. Younger audiences are encouraged to join us for our special Family Matinee on Saturday, October 1st at 4:30 PM with a special pre-performance “Behind the Scenes” workshop on stage with the choreographers from 4-4:30 PM.Read more