The Leader • Saturday, September 1, 2018 • Page 1B
Spotlight on Suburbia NW Houston’s long running playhouse seeks new home By Betsy Denson betsy@theleadernews.com
was selected by the board to serve as president. A committee pre-reads potential scripts for the next year and selects those that they feel would be most applicable for their stage. Then, they work at matching the right script to the most appropriate director. The public is welcome to audition for plays. There’s even a script contest for next year’s Summer Mellerdramer. The current cliffhanger for Theatre Suburbia is where they will make their home after August of 2020. There is a new owner of their building, and although Theatre Suburbia signed a long term lease, they have a few year’s notice of their end date. Moriarty used to live in Oak Forest and said he’d love to stay in the area. “We used to draw mostly from Oak Forest, but now people have spread out and we get people from all over,� he said. Their current space is 5,000 square feet and if the next location is smaller than that, they’d have to look at additional storage options. One bright spot is the challenge grant that Theatre Suburbia has been offered from an anonymous sponsor. To receive the funds, the theatre must raise a matching $5,000 by October 13. If you can help them – or if you want Contributed photo to engage your inner thespian and try out A production shot of Ripcord by David Lindsay-Abaire which starts at Theatre Suburbia on September 14. for a production, please visit their website at http://www.theatresuburbia.org.
If you are a long time Oak Forest resident, then you probably remember Theatre Suburbia’s location on 43rd Street. Theatre Suburbia’s board president – and sometime director and actor –  Elvin Moriarty has been involved with the theatre for more than 30 years but said that the group had been active long before that. “The original group did ‘You Can’t Take It with You’ at the Episcopal church next to [Frank Black] middle school,� explains Moriarty. “It was part of a mission project. Someone knew the Holmes family who owned the strip center [on 43rd]. There was a toy store there and a $1.95 steak house. Theatre Suburbia started renting month to month and borrowed wooden chairs from the steak house for audience seating. This was 1961 and right after they moved in they had to prepare for Hurricane Carla. ‘Philadelphia Story’ was their first play.� For 47 years, the theatre continued renting month to month, until the Holmes family sold the land to Resource One Credit Union. For a short time after they moved from 43rd, Moriarty said the company did productions at Scarborough High School and Northwest Crossing Baptist Church until the stress of trying to find rehearsal time and prop storage got to be too much for the volunteers, many of them with day jobs. “We decided to stop production until we found something and two weeks later we found a new space,� said Moriarty. The current location is at 4106 Way Out West Drive about five miles from the former location. Interestingly enough, another hurricane – this time Ike in 2008 – came along just after they moved in. They configured warehouse and theatre space in 12 weekends, just in time to produce ‘A Nice Family Gathering’ on Halloween. All this hustle and moxie has resulted in Theatre Suburbia being Northwest Houston’s longest running all volunteer playhouse. They are now in their 57th season and have produced 396 shows. Theatre Suburbia produces seven plays each year – including their popular mellerdrammers – remaining dark for only two weekends between productions. No one gets paid. “Every penny goes back into the theatre,� said Moriarty. “There’s the lease and utilities.� Actors and directors, as well as anyContributed photo one else who wants to support the the- Theatre Suburbia was located on 43rd Street across from Oak Forest Elementary for more atre, join the membership which then than 40 years. elects the 6 to 12 person board. Moriarty
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By Zarah Parker zarah@theleadernews.com Houston is filled with creative diversity, allowing for new artistic outlets to pop up all over the city. The Heights is home to Grackle and Grackle Literary Enterprises, an outlet that provides creative writing classes for all experience levels. Miah Arnold and husband Raj Mankad founded Grackle and Grackle about four years ago. Both Arnold and Mankad have a PhD from the University of Houston’s writing program. After leaving a job in Georgia and coming back to Houston, Arnold knew she wanted to teach, but creative writing jobs in academia are few and far in between. So, Grackle and Grackle was founded as a way for Arnold to continue teaching. “I just started it with one little class in a tiny little garage apartment and the next semester I think I had two classes, then I had three. Over the next two or three years we just grew. So now we have a whole bunch of different
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classes,� Arnold said. When looking for a house Arnold had in mind an attached creative writing studio to host writing classes. Things fell perfectly in place when they found a house that once belonged to Dorothy Hood, who was one of the first modernist painters. The studio that came with the house happened to be Hood’s
painting studio. And though Arnold admits the house is a bit small for her family, she couldn’t pass up a space that already had creative history. The writing classes that Grackle and Grackle offer aren’t just a repeat of what other organizations in Houston have, but they try to offer a variety of new and interesting classes.
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“Clare Anderson’s going to teach this class called starting and finishing, because there are so many people who start a short story and they workshop it, then they revise it then they don’t know what to do. So, you start there, you finish it and then after you finish it, in the class you have to See Studio P. 2B
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