By: Joe Folladori Ten years is a long time. In the past 10 years, the Houston scene has come a long way – significantly, most people finally agree that there is one. Here’s a look back at some significant events in local music history. Nostalgia is totally killing the scene. March 8, 2003 – David A. Cobb’s Houston Calling blog publishes its first post – a listing of the 2003 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo concert lineup, followed by an invitation to readers who didn’t give a shit about those bands to stick around and watch him shine a light ... Read More »

Playwright Miki Johnson discusses Fleaven - a play that "sings and plays, rhymes and raps, dances and roller-skates its way through a Seussian disco dreamscape." Read More »

By Alex Wukman I hate to admit this but, for years I had studiously avoided going to see any of the Tamarie Cooper shows for various reasons, most of which involved me being a self-righteous ass.For much of the 2000s I thought, like most 20 somethings do, that any “yearly theatre experience” that had been going on since the 1990s had to be moldy, outdated and was only attracting audiences because of the cult of personality. And like most 22-year-olds, I was wrong. Tamarie Cooper’s new show, the United States of Tamarie, is fantastic. From the opening number America is ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman Summer in Houston means a few things: shorts, mosquitoes and musicals. From the big budget musicals of Theatre Under the Stars, who close out this season with Urban Cowboy, and Broadway Across America, who bring back the world famous Lion King, to smaller companies like Stages, reviving their smash production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical, summer in Houston is a time for musicals. In fact it was five years ago this summer that Catastrophic’s previous incarnation debuted what many consider to be their most well known play Speeding Motorcycle. And this summer Catastrophic Theatre will ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman There are plays that are entertaining for both the audience and the actors. There are plays that challenge the audience or actors, either through the difficulty of the script or the themes that are explored; and then there’s Catastrophic Theatre’s production of Sarah Kane’s play Crave. The performance doesn’t so much begin as unfold; the audience is admitted into a smoky theatre filled with a diffused light that offers little clue as to when, or even where, the play is set. It could be on a fishing pier in a British coastal town with an oddly descriptive name, like  Walton On The Naze or Broadstairs, in 1995 or it could be  inside someone’s mind. The costumes and the four ... Read More »

Friday night, Houstonians will get another opportunity to see the lauded original production by Houston local Jason Nodler and drama company, Catastrophic Theater. Hunter Gatherers is riveting, ribald, and anything but your average theater experience. Alex Gilbert from 29-95 said this about the play, “It’s cerebral, it’s visceral, it’s hysterically funny. I don’t mean that in a stuffy, traditional-theater sense — I mean really funny and full of food for thought… An unusually intense and entertaining evening at the theater.”  The plot chronicles the journey of four unassuming partygoers from stuffy to savage. Past productions have been wildly popular so ... Read More »