Best Theater Company
Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company

H-Town's alt weekly has just released it's annual "best of" awards, and a company I love scored big:

Best of all, the company, under the artistic direction of founding member Jennifer Decker, has kept its artistic integrity intact. The strange and sometimes head-scratchingly difficult work is never commercial and always intellectually challenging. MU has firmly established itself as an important part of what makes Houston's theater scene one of the richest in the country.

Click here for the rest.

Jennifer, and other company members, are good friends of mine. And lemme tell ya, they've earned this. I know that Jennifer in particular has worked her ass off over the years to both keep the company going, and moving toward ever greater artistic heights. Like I said a few days ago, even when they fail, their stuff is still pretty darned good, which means that their successes make the local institutional regional theater monolith, the Alley, look like dinner theater in comparison.

Here's their website; go check 'em out when you can.

Of course, this newfound success in Houston's underground theater scene puts me into something of a dilemma. Indeed, there's some great stuff going on there, which has sparked the interest of a theater criticism doctoral student I know here at LSU, and I understand that the standup comedy scene there, a performance form I'm thinking seriously about attacking when I finish with my MFA, is pretty decent. I'm way tempted to return to the city of my birth, but I just don't know if I can really make any money as an actor there.

Anyone know what the prospects are like for film and television work in H-Town? Probably bad, which is a drag, because if I join Actors Equity, the stage actor's union, and somehow get hired by that monolith company I mentioned above, I won't be able to do any underground theater stuff, which is what really interests me.

Actually, I have no idea what I'm going to do when I'm done here. Any suggestions?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$