HOUSTON: The Catastrophic Theatre has announced its 2017-18 season, featuring seven productions.
“May 6, 2018, is the 25th anniversary of the first play Tamarie and I made together,” said artistic director Jason Nodler in a statement, referring to Catastrophic cofounder and associate director Tamarie Cooper. “It feels really appropriate that we should be producing our most exciting, most ambitious season in all those 25 years.”
The season will start with Wallace Shawn’s Evening at the Talk House (Sept. 29-Oct. 21), about a group of friends reuniting at their old haunt to reminisce about the past. Nodler will direct.
Next up will be Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (Nov. 17-Dec. 10), the landmark avant-garde play about a sleepy town where ordinary citizens are turning into rampaging rhinoceroses. Nodler and Cooper will co-direct.
Following will be the world premiere of Leap and the Net Will Appear (Feb. 9-March 4, 2018), about a young woman’s quest for adventure, love, and truth that takes her on a whirlwind journey around the globe.
The season will continue with another world premiere, Small Ball (April 12-May 13, 2018), with book and lyrics by Mickle Maher and music by Merel Van Dijk and Anthony Barilla. The musical will kick off a mini-festival of three plays by Maher.
The next will be Maher’s The Strangerer (May 11-June 3, 2018), a surreal reimagining of real events in which George W. Bush plots to kill PBS newsman Jim Lehrer during the presidential debate with John Kerry. The cast of Catastrophic Theatre’s 2008 staging of The Strangerer will reunite onstage, including Paul Locklear, Troy Schulze, and Seán Patrick Judge. Nodler will direct.
The final play by Maher will be Jim Leher and the Theater and Its Double and Jim Lehrer’s Double (May 12-June 2, 2018), a horror/comedy about the retired PBS news anchor and his double, who is an aspiring playwright. The production, helmed by Nodler, will feature Seán Patrick Judge.
The season will conclude with the world premiere of The Tamarie Cooper Show: Field Trip! (June 29-Aug. 12, 2018), an immersive bus ride that will take audiences through Houston to revisit Cooper’s own twisted psyche, dreams, and lamentations.
The Catastrophic Theatre, founded in 2007, is an ensemble-based company that develops and commissions new work.
