The Alley Theatre, founded in 1947 by pioneering educator Nina Vance, is a professional resident theatre company. Recipient of the 1996 Special Tony Award, the Alley performs year-round in its two-theatre complex at home in downtown Houston, and has toured 40 American cities and abroad. Nine towers and open-air terraces give the Alley Theatre a castle-like quality. Inside, a beautiful staircase spirals from the entrance vestibule to the second-floor lobby. The theatre includes two stages: the Hubbard Stage and the Neuhaus Arena Stage, seating 824 and 296 respectively.
Alley Theatre Schedule
Our Town (Oct. 2 to Nov. 1, 2009)
Wilder's portrait of life, love and death is set in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, a fictional New England town at the start of the 20th century. With a penetrating wisdom about living in community, this play is an enduring American treasure and one of the greatest plays of world theatre.
Gruesome Playground Injuries (Oct. 15 to Nov. 15, 2009)
Gruesome Playground Injuries charts two lives, using scars, injuries and calamity as the mile markers. An imaginative tour de force for actors and audiences, the play explores why people hurt themselves to gain another's love, and the cumulative effect of such damage, of such demands.
A Christmas Carol (Nov. 20 to Dec. 27, 2009)
Houston's seasonal favorite … A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story of Christmas returns this year with a re-telling of Charles Dickens' classic story, that follows Ebenezer Scrooge's journey with the three ghostly spirits that visit him on Christmas Eve.
The Santaland Diaries (Nov. 28 to Dec. 27, 2009)
Company Actor Todd Waite will reprise his role as "Crumpet the Elf" in the outlandish, and true, chronicles of David Sedaris' experience as a worker in Macy's SantaLand display. A compact, one-character comedy, the Santaland Diaries is an hilarious cult classic, featuring comic encounters during the height of the holiday crunch.
Wonderland ((Jan. 9 to Feb. 14, 2010)
Composer Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll and Hyde) returns to the Alley with Wonderland, a delightful new musical that updates Alice's adventures through an amazing pop score. Alley audiences will be among the first to see this new production filled with extraordinary songs, fantastic characters, and lots of heart.
Intelligence - Slave (Jan. 22 to Feb. 21, 2010)
The story of Curt Herzstark, a concentration camp prisoner who was kept alive by the Nazis because he was rumored to have invented the world's first hand-held four function calculator - a great prize if it could be re-created.
Harvey (Mar. 5 to Mar. 21, 2010)
Affable Elwood P. Dowd has a kind word for everyone he meets. He lives a quiet life with his social-climbing sister and her daughter and is devoted to his loyal and trustworthy friend and constant companion, Harvey. The fact that Harvey happens to be a six-foot invisible rabbit doesn't seem to bother Elwood but is an ongoing embarrassment to his family who decides to have him committed.
Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (Apr. 16 to May 9, 2010)
This two-time Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning treat is packed with nonstop laughs, over 150 eccentric characters - played by a prodigiously talented cast of four - an on-stage plane crash, handcuffs, missing fingers and some good old-fashioned romance.
Mrs. Mannerly (May 21 to Jun. 20, 2010)
Mrs. Mannerly is a demanding teacher, and no student in her 36 years of etiquette classes has achieved a perfect score. But when he discovers her secret past, Young Jeffrey is determined to be the first. This unique comic tale reveals truths about the face we present and real selves that lie inside.
Boeing-Boeing (Jun. 4 to Jun. 27, 2010)
A successful American architect living in Paris has been deftly juggling three fiancées who are all flight attendants. It's easy, with good timing and a bit of assistance from his reluctant housekeeper who plays romantic air-traffic controller. But, this supersonic lifestyle hits turbulence when his old college friend visits and each of his three fiancées change their flight schedule.
Alley Theatre