The world-renowned composer of Zorbas the Greek, Mikis Theodorakis, is considered to have been the greatest Greek composer of the twentieth century, a symbol of Greece, and a hero in Greece’s political struggles. His music has travelled the world like that of no other Greek composer before him. His endless numbers of songs were sung by the Beatles, Shirley Bassey, Nat King Cole, Edith Piaf, and many more. The internationally renowned Greek contralto Alexandra Gravas has had the honor to work with the great composer on various occasions from the start of her career on stage and on recordings including the Symphonic song Raven with the composer himself conducting the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella Symphony Orchestra. She has travelled the world singing his songs in her recitals to high acclaim.  “Each of Alexandra’s interpretations is a thorough penetration into the most hidden aspects of my work.” -Mikis Theodorakis 

Following a brief introduction to the legacy of Mikis Theodorakis by Dr. Alex Kalamarides, Alexandra will interpret with her unique voice an assortment of songs representative and evocative of the great composer and his times, accompanied on the piano by Mexico City resident pianist, Mr. Jozef
Olechowski.

The event is sponsored and presented by the Hellenic Cultural Center of the Southwest (HCC-SW) and the Hellenic Professional Society of Texas (HPST). Read more

In recognition of National Gay Men HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NGMHAAD) is to raise awareness about the impact of HIV on gay and bisexual men in the United States.

Black Boy Symphony Live! is a multi-disciplinary exploration into the lives of queer Black men amid a challenging year. COVID-19, mental health, isolation, HIV/AIDS, and social injustices will all be revealed through storytelling reflected though spoken word, dance, video, and sound. The T.R.U.T.H. Project recognizes art as a universal language and hopes to reach an audience through an intentional lens. The T.R.U.T.H. Project aims for this love letter to unapologetically share stories that inspire.

Social Art. Education. Awareness. Community

This event is kindly supported by ViiV Healthcare.Read more

Tamarie and her cast of musical comedy maniacs are back for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the 26th installment of her hit original musical series juggernaut! In a time when truth is often stranger than fiction, Tamarie’s chock full of veracity, spouting truths about her show, society, basically the whole stinking world. And also her flossing habits. Tamarie and her mostly fearless, occasionally fearsome crew will snark, sing, and dance their way through twisted encounters with Tinkerbelle, Pinocchio, Ben Franklin, Kenny Rogers, and Tamarie's psychic high school attendance clerk, Mrs. Jones, who could catch you in any lie (and find stuff you lost too). Tamarie’s got some personal stuff to tell you too. Some real, some fake. Depends on where you get your news. 

If you’ve seen a Tamarie Cooper Show you’re unlikely ever to have missed another one and, if you haven’t, The Totally True Revue is the perfect opportunity to hop on board. Truth.Read more

The latest work by local interdisciplinary theatre artist Candice D’Meza is a genre blending, experiential exploration of the quantum mechanics that use imagination to liberate oneself from the confines of linear time. A thematic continuation of D’Meza’s surreal, Afrofuturist film series 30 Ways to Get Free, also produced by Catastrophic, A Maroon’s Guide uses film, technology, performance, and audience imagination to create the perfect environment to escape into space—where a new and better world is waiting for us. 

A Maroon’s Guide is D’Meza’s third original performance piece, following Fatherland at Stages, 30 Ways to Get Free, and Wail at Diverseworks Artspace. A consummate theatre artist and self-described “artivist,” D’Meza’s first performed at Catastrophic in 2014 but she has dazzled on most Houston stages and her acting plaudits are many. As a creator of new work for the theatre, her star is on a meteoric rise.Read more

“You’re a mirror, Eddie.”

Eddie dreams of escape—from the office where he suffers at the hands of his co-workers, from a doctor whose treatments seem far worse than any possible disease, perhaps from even the play itself! He dreams of escaping to Poetry City, a place he imagines to be Paradise. When he arrives, however, he finds that Poetry City “melts language,” and totally disrupts the normal laws of cause-and-effect. Entirely disoriented, Eddie attempts to navigate this new and bewildering reality, and slowly comes to consider that his confusion, struggles, and failures may comprise a sort of poetry in themselves and may provide access to Paradise after all. Not in Poetry City, but right here and now, hidden in between moments, but accessible to those who know where to look.

Foreman’s plays, particularly under the direction of Catastrophic core artist Greg Dean, are imagination machines. They provoke laughter or even tears from places so deep within, you didn’t know they were there. They poke and yank at the nerves and thrust you, id-first, into waking dreams. When you wander back into the world, you’ll find yourself awake in ways you hadn’t realized possible and you might find yourself in a new world, one vibrating with new possibilities.Read more

Using found text, music, stylized physicality, and an abundance of pop culture references They Do Not Move winds its way through an imagined American future in which democracy has been defeated and a disorganized band of vagrants, waifs, and strays are hunted by monarchist forces. Their only defense? An expressionist cavalcade of song and dance. There will be a beauty pageant. There will be a sitcom. There will be conversion therapy. Horror movies, cancel culture, and Texas law feature prominently in this oddly moving, frenetically funny love letter to our city, a devised dance-theatre piece that could only come from the mind of Brian Jucha. Like each of his works, They Do Not Move is sublimely derivative and apropos of everything.

Jucha previously collaborated with IBP and Catastrophic to create Last Rites (1997), We Have Some Planes (2002), and Toast (2019). In its cover story, American Theatre magazine called We Have Some Planes “darkly hilarious and compelling… like the best of remembered dreams” and said, “Jucha and the extraordinary Infernal Bridegroom company have given us a way to open our eyes.” 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

Seven traditional Venezuelan songs, all translated into English as an homage to the warmth welcoming of Venezuelans immigrant into the United States. Traditional south American country 's rhythms sung in English language. Music by worldwide renown Musician and Directors. A night to remember!

Emerging Venezuelan artist Juan Carlos Ruiz will release in Houston the first volume of his third album titled Venezuelan Songbook, presented by Doray Castillo and Anny Paez, to connect and unify Venezuelan and American cultures. The first volume of the Venezuelan Songbook contains seven traditional Venezuelan songs, all translated into English as an homage to the warnth  welcoming of Venezuelans immigrant into the United States. Also, this concert will show outstanding contributions from other celebrities of Venezuelan and world music like Eddy Marcano, Leo Blanco, Gonzalo Teppa, and Juan Pablo Romero.Read more