First there were readings at the Alley All New Festival and then full scale productions at Alley Theatre. Now Torera by Monet Hurst-Mendoza and Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium, completed by Kirk Lynn, will each receive Off-Broadway productions in the 2025–26 season.
Meanwhile, another Alley New Festival play that also later premiered at the Alley — Born With Teeth — which has seen productions at several theaters in the country is headed for a London premiere.
To say that Alley Artistic Director Rob Melrose is very happy about all this news would be an understatement. In addition, he will be directing The Emporium, in its Classic Theatre Company production beginning in May 2026. He never expected that all three would hit in the same year.
“We work hard to develop the new plays as best we can. Then we work hard to give them the best production that we can. And then we kind of are like mini agents for the plays to really try to advocate for other theaters to pick them up and have them move forward,” Melrose said.
For instance in Born With Teeth, part of the Alley All New Reading Series in 2019 that had its world premiere at Alley Theatre in 2022, Melrose said they introduced the play by Liz Duffy Adams to every venue and producer that picked it up. Sometimes this means someone comes to see the reading or play, other times they are sent a video or a script.
“We do a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure the plays have a life beyond us.”
The Alley is not alone in being open to new work, Melrose said. “I think there’s a real interest in new work around the country. I think a big advantage we have is we’ve had a dedicated person [currently Bradley Michalakis, head of dramaturgy and before him Liz Frankel] for 10 years. We’ve the Alley All New Festival but we’re also got the relationship with UCross where we’re bringing between three to five writers to Wyoming for two weeks just to work on writing their play and we’re also also commissioning work.”
Another difference, Melrose said, is the follow-through. “There are a lot of theaters that do readings of new plays but then nothing ever happens with those new plays. But I’ve always really pushed everybody eIse and myself, if there are new plays in our festival that we think we can do, we should do them so that we really see it through.”
Michalakis tries to read a play a day, Melrose said. There’s also a reading committee that reports to him and points out plays they believe he should look at. The next step is that Michalakis recommends plays to the Alley’s artistic team which reviews them and ultimately selects four plays for the reading festival.
Asked why these three plays are going on to off-Broadway and the West End, Melrose said:
“I think they each have their own story. Born With Teeth, it’s a great play for two actors so when we were bringing it to a New York producer she obviously thought wow these are two really good parts and I can imagine a number of exciting actors who would want to jump into it. But she said ‘I think London will have more invested in these two playwrights and I think they’ll connect to it more deeply.’ She said, ‘I think it should go to Broadway, but I think it should go to the West End first.’
“Emporium, that’s an easy one. [Classic Stage Company Artistic Director] Jill Rafson is a relatively new artistic director. We go way back to Roundabout. When she became Artistic Director she said, ‘ I don’t want to just be doing revivals.’ The fact we were doing a new Thornton Wilder play really excited her.
“With Women’s Project [WP Theater] it’s not not only a play [Torera] by a woman [Monet Hurst-Mendoza] but it’s about a woman succeeding in a very male-dominated sport in a very male-dominated culture. The themes of the play really fit the mission of [WPTheater] as well.
“That’s part of our job thinking about who else would be interested in this play.” Another factor is whether the play would be a good fit for the Alley’s resident acting company, although they are more than willing to bring actors in from outside. The primary component in their assessment, however, Melrose said, is great writing.
“We do a play like Baskerville and we do a great job of it and it brings in a huge audience and it gets people in Houston loving the Alley and filling our space. It’s really important we do those plays and we do them well.
“But nobody aside of Houston cares that we did the 15th production of Baskerville. But the fact that we are originating plays that are moving to New York and London that really makes the national and international theater scene fell like wow; what’s happening in Houston is pretty interesting. We should pay attention to them.
“It makes better actors more interested in coming to Houston, It makes better playwrights more excited about their play being done with us. It makes our reputation stronger among theater goers. It kind of brings some glory to Houston which I think is important.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
