Alley All New is comprised of a variety of public and in-house programs designed to support playwrights and cater to the needs of each new project. Through this initiative, the Alley produces world premieres, commissions new plays, and supports playwrights year-round.
The audience is a crucial part of the development of any new work and we look forward to your participation in this exciting process. All Alley All New workshops and readings are free and open to the public.
October 3 – October 26, 2025
By Katie Forgette
Directed By Brandon Weinbrenner
May 8 – May 31, 2026
By Liz Duffy Adams
Directed by Shelley Butler
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Katona József Theater in Kecskemét, Hungary
January 31 - February 23, 2025
Alley Theatre has partnered with Ucross, a prestigious artist residency program in rural Wyoming, to give playwrights the gift of uninterrupted time for concentrated work. Artistic Director Rob Melrose brings a group of writers to Ucross for ten days each year to work on projects in development.
The Alley All New Reading Series, presented throughout the season, provides a key developmental step for playwrights while allowing Houston audiences to discover exciting new plays before they receive world premiere productions.
Readings play a major role in the development of new work, enabling artists to hear their writing out loud in front of an audience. Following a limited rehearsal period, actors perform at music stands allowing the audience to hear the dialogue while imagining the production through spoken stage directions.
Born With Teeth
By Liz Duffy Adams
Directed by Rob Melrose
October 28, 2019
An aging authoritarian ruler, a violent police state, a restless polarized people seething with paranoia: it’s a dangerous time for poets. Two of them—the great Kit Marlowe and the up-and-comer Will Shakespeare—meet in the back room of a pub to collaborate on a history play cycle, navigate the perils of art under a totalitarian regime, and flirt like young men with everything to lose. One of them may well be the death of the other.
When We Left
By Nsangou Njikam
Directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene
June 10, 2019
In the latest play from the author of Syncing Ink (Alley Theatre World Premiere 2017), Brenda Simmons is in the fight of her life. Formerly a Black nationalist, now Brenda battles racism in Congress but it’s taking its toll on her career, her reputation, and her family. When a new bill is introduced that could unfairly incarcerate millions and things seem like they couldn’t get any worse, a mysterious organization appears, claiming they have the solution for racial peace: African Americans must return home to Africa. The nation must face the possibility of an America without African Americans. And Brenda Simmons must choose whether to fight for her country or her people.
Lightning (or The Unbuttoning)
By Beth Henley
Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg
April 29, 2019
Join us as we present a reading of Beth Henley’s latest play LIGHTNING (or The Unbuttoning) on the set of her Pulitzer-prize winning classic Crimes of the Heart (running April 12 – May 5). At surreal altitudes in a cabin in the Blue Mountains, a young woman leads a lonely life surrounded by the clouds, until one day a traveling salesman trudges up the mountain to sell her a lightning rod in the midst of a brewing storm. A theatrical and captivating story of resilience and determination in a most unforgiving world.
Sustainable Living
By Jennifer Haley
Directed by Leslie Swackhammer
March 18, 2019
In this new play from the author of The Nether, Emily and Darren enjoy a creative and well-meaning life; he’s a celebrated architect, designer of their breathtaking green home in the hills of Los Angeles, and she’s an urban planner launching an eco-charity on the other side of the world. But when his future projects collapse in the wake of devastating fires, they suddenly find themselves in survival mode and must call upon a host of potential saviors: a long-time adversary, a reality television producer, an ancient creature unearthed in the backyard… Will they find a way to live sustainably, or is the beast already at their door?
Wife of A Salesman
By Eleanor Burgess
Directed by Brandon Weinbrenner
December 3, 2018
1950. A housewife from Brooklyn takes a bus up to Boston to confront the woman who has been sleeping with her husband. A riff on Death of A Salesman about where women fit in the American dream from the author of The Niceties, which just completed a run off-Broadway.
A Landing on The Bayou
By Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin
November 8 - 9, 2018
A multi-media artist’s lecture/performance exploring Houston’s diverse, rich and political drag scene in the years between the Stonewall Riots and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic (1969-1985).
The End of There
Written and performed by Ashley Austin Morris
April 16, 2018
Actor-comedian Ashley Austin Morris (Alley’s The Other Place) invites you to join her at the theatre, where she feels most at home, as she attempts to answer the question “Where are you from?”
Pilgrims
By Claire Kiechel
March 13, 2017
Pilgrims is a sly commentary on the American present set in the future.
On The Exhale
By Martin Zimmerman
September 19, 2016
On The Exhale offers a complex examination of our relationship to guns as we follow one woman down a rabbit hole of grief.
Rent Control
Written and performed by Evan Zes
March 28, 2016
Evan Zes portrays a barrage of colorful, international personalities as he shares the wild yet true story of his New York apartment.
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