Alley Theatre’s Sees its Investment in New Plays Pay Off

This week, as Alley Artistic Director Rob Melrose settles in his seat to watch a play at London’s West End, it won’t be just any production he’s seeing. It’ll be Born With Teeth first developed at Alley Theatre. And he’ll be seated with its playwright Liz Duffy Adams.

In fact, these are good — the Alley Theatre calls them historic — times for Houston’s premier regional theater. Four productions that began in Houston are now on major stages in New York and London. They are:

• Torera at WP Theater (Off-Broadway) by Monet Hurst-Mendoza.
• Gruesome Playground Injuries revival at Second Stage (Off-Broadway) by Rajiv Joseph.
• The Emporium at Classic Stage Company (Off-Broadway) by Thornton Wilder adapted by Kirk Lynn.
• Born with Teeth at Wyndham’s Theatre (West End) by Liz Duffy Adams.

As he told the Houston Press in June, Melrose credits the Alley’s success with new works not only to commissioning them and being open to them through the Alley All New Reading Series, but to the support work they do during and afterward.

“By the time we do a world premiere we’ve got a pretty deep relationship with the playwright, and we’ve been able to put it on other people’s radar way in advance,” Melrose said.

“We have partners in other artistic directors and agents and commercial producers and we’re constantly letting them know.”

“In the case with Born With Teeth we were in many ways agents for the show. We believed in it so much, we put it in Alley All New, we encouraged artistic directors to come see it,” he said. They also sent out videos.

“It’s a lot of advocacy. There’s kind of two big responsibilities when you do a new play. You’re really responsible for giving it the best production you possibly can and a production the playwright feels proud of. It should really fit with what playwright feels is best representation of their work.”

Even after the production is over, Melrose said they have meetings, make phone calls. “We kind of take responsibility for getting it its next step.” In the case of Emporium, Melrose will be directing its off-Broadway debut.

Besides being, as Melrose put it “the right thing to do,” this, in turn, of course helps the Alley. In the past seven years, Melrose said, the Alley has really ratcheted up its support of new plays.

“It’s a way of showing the world that the Alley is a leader in the American theater.  When we do something, other folks follow. It also makes playwrights more excited about having  their play done with us.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever had this much success outside of Houston, Melrose said. “This is the first time we’ve just done a play because we believed in it and it got picked up by the West End.”

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