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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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

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

In a former university, society’s ‘undesirables’ are imprisoned and subjected to a series of tortures designed to test the limits of human love on the battlefield of the human body. Graham has died. His sister Grace arrives to collect his remains. Little does but there are his clothes. There is cruelty and violence. There is also love. And there is grace. 

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. 

The regional premiere of Cleansed is co-directed by core artist T Lavois Thiebaud and founding artistic director Jason Nodler with production design by core artists Afsaneh Aayani and James Templeton, reuniting the creative team behind Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis which The Houston Press called “an imaginary bulldozer of a production.”Read more