Rutherford Cravens

Main Street Theater will open its 47th Season with the regional premiere of Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress. The production opens Saturday night, September 17 at 7:30pm and runs through October 17.

The show never gets to where it promises to go in the setup, but thanks to a great cast and a gung-ho production team it does entertain.  DARWIN IN MALIBU works great as a light comedy, and it lets the actors showcase their immense skills at creating wonderful characters.

Malibu, California. The afterlife. Charles Darwin ('the Devil's Chaplain') is hanging out at a beach house overlooking the Pacific with a girl young enough to be his daughter. His peace is rudely disrupted when his old friend Thomas Huxley ('the Devil's Disciple') washes up on the beach, closely followed by the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce. These three find themselves entangled in an enthralling and thought-provoking comedy about God and science.

Main Street Theater (MST) opens its 46th Season with the regional premiere of Darwin in Malibu by Crispin Whittell.

Main Street Theater's popular BYOBard series is back! In the summer and fall of 2020, Main Street hosted a series of free, online events where local, professional actors shared their favorite Shakespeare monologues, perhaps pieces they had done before or pieces they had always wanted to explore.

Summer is often a popular time for theaters and festivals across the country to produce free Shakespeare for their cities. Obviously things are different this year, so Main Street Theater is bringing Shakespeare to people in their homes with two virtual offerings.

Due to popular demand, Main Street Theater has extended its production of The Weir through April 13.  Two added performances are April 12 & 13 at 7:30pm. 

Who wouldn't want to spend an hour and a half in a traditional pub with old country codgers spinning out ghost stories? It's a winning proposition, and Main Street delivers all the goods from the actors and the technical department.

Main Street Theater (MST) brings back the Irish modern classic, The Weir by Conor McPherson. Set in a small Irish pub, five locals share their spellbinding ghost stories and try to make sense of them over the course of the evening.

In a way it is like watching a heady special episode of CHEERS set in London in the early 1620s. It seems like a place where everybody would know your name, and in the case of Will they did.

Main Street Theater (MST) will open its 43rd Season with the Regional Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will.  This compelling play tells the tale of how Shakespeare's First Folio came into existence thanks to the loyalty and love of his dear friends, particularly John Heminges and Henry Condell.  "As the Folger Shakespeare Library put it, the First Folio is 'the book that gave us Shakespeare,'" shares Book of Will director and MST Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden.  "That being so, it can then be said that Heminges and Condell gave us the book that gave us Shakespeare."  "[THE BOOK OF WILL] serves as homage to those who sacrificed to make the first folio happen and to Shakespeare's magnificent words." - Westword (Denver, CO). 

Main Street Theater (MST) will open its 43rd Season with the Regional Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will.  This compelling play tells the tale of how Shakespeare's First Folio came into existence thanks to the loyalty and love of his dear friends, particularly John Heminges and Henry Condell.  "As the Folger Shakespeare Library put it, the First Folio is 'the book that gave us Shakespeare,'" shares Book of Will director and MST Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden.  "That being so, it can then be said that Heminges and Condell gave us the book that gave us Shakespeare."  "[THE BOOK OF WILL] serves as homage to those who sacrificed to make the first folio happen and to Shakespeare's magnificent words." - Westword (Denver, CO). 

Main Street Theater (MST) will open its 43rd Season with the Regional Premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will.  This beautiful play tells the tale of how Shakespeare's First Folio came into existence thanks to the loyalty and love of his dear friends.  Gunderson "has peopled the stage with lively, historically based characters... She paints a vivid portrait of the times in language sometimes formal, sometimes poetic and often...contemporary... [THE BOOK OF WILL] serves as homage to those who sacrificed to make the first folio happen and to Shakespeare's magnificent words." - Westword (Denver, CO). 

DAISY is an interrogation of the current political arena, which is fun to watch, even when a dubious argument is presented.

Main Street Theater continues its 42nd Season with the Regional Premiere of Daisy by Sean Devine.  "Daisy is a story that, through history's irritating tendency to repeat itself, resonates so deeply with our current moment that it should be required viewing for all registered voters." --Seattle Weekly

Main Street Theater continues its 42nd Season with the Regional Premiere of Daisy by Sean Devine.

Main Street Theater opens its 42nd Season with Enemies by Maxim Gorky, adapted by David Hare.  Enemies tells the story of Russian society in 1905 when the country sat ready for revolution.  Directed by MST Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden, this collaboration with the University of Houston School of Theatre and Dance features a cast of 24, 8 of whom are UH students.

Kate Parr is smart, confident, and passionate: a rising star in a world of intense competition. But her obligatory marriage to Henry is rife with the threat of violence and lure of deceit; her secret liaisons with Thom, her husband's former brother-in-law, could send her to an early grave; and her devotion to the education and equal rights of Henry's daughters is putting an even bigger strain on her marriage.

Kate Parr is smart, confident, and passionate: a rising star in a world of intense competition. But her obligatory marriage to Henry is rife with the threat of violence and lure of deceit; her secret liaisons with Thom, her husband's former brother-in-law, could send her to an early grave; and her devotion to the education and equal rights of Henry's daughters is putting an even bigger strain on her marriage. A contemporary retelling of the compelling relationship between Katherine Parr and Henry VIII, The Last Wife is a funny, powerful examination of patriarchy, sexual politics, and women's rights.

Kate Parr is smart, confident, and passionate: a rising star in a world of intense competition. But her obligatory marriage to Henry is rife with the threat of violence and lure of deceit; her secret liaisons with Thom, her husband's former brother-in-law, could send her to an early grave; and her devotion to the education and equal rights of Henry's daughters is putting an even bigger strain on her marriage.