Alley Theatre
615 Texas Ave
(Texas at Louisiana)
Houston, TX 77002
(713) 228-8421
| | A penny doesn't buy much today. But in 1947, 214 pennies bought high school drama teacher Nina Vance what became one of the first regional theaters in America. The 214 penny postcards she sent inviting friends and neighbors to an October meeting read, "It's beginning! Do you want a theatre for Houston? Bring a friend!" A month later, Vance and Alley cofounders Robert and Vivien Altfeld began using a dance studio at the end of an alley (thus the name) after hours as an amateur theater. The inaugural six-play season opened with "A Sound of Hunting," a short-lived 1945 Broadway war drama by Hollywood screenwriter Harry Brown.
In 1949, the Alley moved from 3617 Main into a former fan factory at 709 Berry St and began using some professional actors. Seating 230 arena-style around the stage, the new playhouse debuted with Lillian Hellman's then-controversial "Children's Hour." The move in 1954 to become fully professional caused angry defections by many supporters but gave the Alley more stature and a resident company of full-time actors.
The Alley's current home, a concrete fortress between Jones Hall and the Wortham Center, opened in 1968 with Brecht's "Galileo" on the Large Stage, which seats 824 around a "thrust" playing area. The 296-seat Arena Stage, modeled after the Berry Street space, bowed with Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's "Billy Liar." In general, the Large Stage hosts mainstream or mass-appeal material while the Arena Stage, later named in honor of Alley backer Hugo Neuhaus, presents more adventurous fare, with designers devising amazingly creative ways to embellish the small, black-boxy space. A proposed 500-seat space atop the parking garage next to the Alley has never gone beyond the empty-shell phase.
In 1996, the Alley Theatre received the Special Tony Award given annually to regional companies since 1977. The award, a silver disc depicting the masks of comedy and tragedy atop a Lucite base, is displayed under glass on a pedestal in the Large Stage lobby.
In 1965, the Alley presented its first world premiere. Paul Zindel's "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" went on to play Broadway and win a Pulitzer Prize. Zindel must not have enjoyed the resident-playwright experience, though, because he later wrote "Ladies at the Alamo," a stinging satire of the Alley and its management.
The Alley is a regional theater, but it has sometimes traveled far afield. Its production of Joanna M. Glass' "To Grandmother's House We Go," starring the legendary Eva Le Gallienne, went to New York for a short Broadway run. Alan Ayckbourn's "Season's Greetings" played off-Broadway in 1985. "A, My Name Is Alice" went to San Francisco following its hit 1986 Houston stand. And after two sell-out Houston runs and a long national tour, during which artistic director Gregory Boyd was replaced as director, Frank Wildhorn's "Jekyll & Hyde" opened on Broadway in 1997.
In 1971, high-strung actor Michael Moriarty ("Law and Order") stunned playgoers by suddenly stopping in the middle of a performance of "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail," told the audience he was too tired to continue and walked off the stage. The audience went home, and Moriarty left town.
In January 1982, longtime managing director Iris Siff was strangled in her office
with a telephone cord by a former Alley security guard she had fired. He
was eventually executed for her murder. —William Albright
|
