Dive headfirst into the lo-fi psychedelic wonder of Cinéma Povérté. It's a mesmerizing and kaleidoscopic journey where DIY ethos intersects with musical escapades. Taking a playful nod from "cinema verité," this film’s title winks at its bootstrap beginnings, giving a shoutout to making epic stuff on the kind of budget you'd find under your couch cushions. Born amidst the isolating echoes of the COVID-19 pandemic and presented in its gloriously degraded and occasionally pixelated splendor, Caouette integrates a mix of found footage, shot footage, archival content, and numerous films. From these, he stitches together 15 unique music videos. This kaleidoscopic voyage often evokes the feeling of tripped-out 1970s Saturday morning or instructional TV shows — that've been left out in the sun too long on LSD—Each segment seamlessly transitions into the next, creating a detailed auditory and visual tapestry that defies conventional structures. By interweaving memories, dreams, and reality, Caouette crafts a journey that feels less like a series of individual tales and more like a pure, emotional odyssey. 

Please note: The film features intense stroboscopic visuals. Those sensitive to flashing lights should proceed with caution.  Read more

CELEBRATE THE 50th ANNIVERSARY of the legendary BATTLE OF THE SEXES tennis match held on September 20, 1973 in the landmark Astrodome.

Don your best tennis whites or hippest 1973 attire and join us for a screening of the 2017 hit film, Battle of the Sexes, followed by a conversation with Houston’s own Zina Garrison, moderated by Gina Gaston.Read more

Celestina, a woman who exists beyond the bounds of time, serendipitously meets an unlikely friend, Aníbal, during a once-in-a-lifetime storm in Los Angeles. Amidst environmental and political turmoil, they come to love each other in the safety of Aníbal’s home.Read more

The 2023 Houston Fringe Festival and Houston Cinema Arts Society are proud to co-present a benefit screening of Jonathan Caouette's seminal film, Tarnation. 

Part documentary, part narrative fiction, part home movie, and part acid trip, Tarnation is a psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, old answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of ‘80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments that create an epic portrait of an American family travesty. The story begins in 2003 when Jonathan learns that his schizophrenic mother, Reneee, has overdosed on her lithium medication. He is catapulted back into his real and horrifying family legacy of rape, abandonment, promiscuity, drug addition, child abuse, and psychosis. As he grows up on camera, he finds the escapist balm of queer music theater and B horror flicks and reconnects to life through a queer chosen family. Then a look into the future shows Jonathan as he confronts the symbiotic and almost unbearable love he shares with his beautiful and tragically damaged mother.Read more

Tamarie and her merry band of musical maniacs are taking on the great state of Texas. 27 installments of all-new, full-scale original Tamarie Cooper musicals and there’s never been one about Texas? What? We’ve been saving it for you.

Expect huge dance numbers, massive songs, and gigantic belly laughs. Why? Because everything’s bigger in Texas, you tourist. This scorched, humid, political hornet's nest is ripe for spoofing from the collective minds of Cooper and Patrick Reynolds. Bank on douchey Austin tech bros, horny toads, the Alamo, sticker burrs, the TEA, and a certain governor, bless his heart. Plus, all the actual wonders that Texas has to offer: Tex-Mex, big hair, What-a-Burger, and the best city in the Lone Star State, H-Town, Baby! 

Tamarie's Texas Toast is both a toast and a roast of all things Texas. As always, Tamarie will be joined by a live band and a cast of Houston's funniest performers, bringing you an entirely original and completely irreverent musical bonanza. All from the bottom of Tamarie's Texas-sized heart. Read more

"LOVE ME OR KILL ME"

In her brief, boundary breaking career Sarah Kane’s work prompted the term “a theatre of extremes,” yet CLEANSED comes soaked through with hope. Explosively aching, hauntingly poetic, and disarmingly tender, Kane delivers a fever-dream fable of unimaginable brutality and miraculous beauty.

Given our country’s immediate threat to the bodies and lives of those of us who look, live, or love beyond the confines of conservative ‘norms,’ 26 years after it was written, CLEANSED feels nightmarishly prescient. More than a play, in 2024’s America, CLEANSED feels like a cause.

"Once you have perceived that life is very cruel, the only response is to live with as much humanity, humor and freedom as you can.” -Sarah KaneRead more

Two penniless tramps stand waiting together on a country road for the enigmatic Mr. Godot to arrive to somehow improve their diminishing circumstances. Just before nightfall, a messenger arrives to inform them that Godot will not come today but will surely come tomorrow. Meanwhile they pass the time in every way they can imagine, each leaning on the other, as they struggle to hope for better days to come. Read more

The Turn of the Screw is a new environmental and multimedia theatrical adaptation of the celebrated Gothic ghost story of the same name by Henry James. In Victorian England, a young governess journeys to the isolated country estate of Bly to caretake two orphaned children. In time, she begins to witness mysterious apparitions of human figures on the estate grounds and startling and troubling changes in the behaviors of her young charges.

The Turn of the Screw combines environmental staging, toy theatre, puppetry, live cinema, and a haunting soundscape into a meditation on the tipping point between the innocence of imagination and a nefarious refutation of reality.

Conceived and co-directed by Catastrophic core artist Afsaneh Aayani and New York City-based creative director and multimedia designer Adam J. Thompson, with book by dramatist and dramaturg Bradley Michalakis, this new The Turn of the Screw is an invitation to pull up a pub seat and share a drink as performers and guests collaborate to manifest one of the world's most celebrated and hotly contested ghost stories.

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Deb and Sandy are auditioning Tim for the role of the Wolf in a production of The Three Little Pigs, but there’s a mysterious haze in the basement of the Mortier Civic Playhouse and that, in addition to interruptions from the director of ‘the Scottish play’ that’s having its opening night upstairs, is making things difficult. Then, the mysterious Liz shows up throwing the room into utter chaos, revealing the deep, ancient evil at the heart of the community theater audition process.

It Is Magic is the latest play by Mickle Maher, writer of such Catastrophic favorites as There Is a Happiness That Morning Is, The Hunchback Variations, Song About Himself, the world premiere of Small Ball, co-produced by former Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, and others.

Directed by core artist Jeff Miller, whose past directing credits include Catastrophic hits Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, Baby Screams Miracle, and The Book of Grace.Read more