President and
Director Sammy Green was a theater teacher at Spring High School and began her work at Playhouse in 2011.[/caption]

Playhouse 1960 is producing a total of nine shows this season, including hits such as “Sister Act,” “Grease” and “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged.”

President and Director Sammy Green, who has worked at Playhouse 1960 since 2011, said the 501(c)(3) nonprofit theater gives young people and volunteers a chance to step into the theater world through opportunities to act, build sets and work backstage during the show or in the box office.

“We are community-theater defined,” Green said. “This is a place for people who have a passion for theater and arts to feel like there is a place where they are part of an art and theater family.”

Playhouse 1960 hosts Short Play Festival 1960 on Feb. 10-25. The festival is in its second year and is a grouping of 10-12 unpublished and original 10-minute works submitted by new playwrights. The plays are judged by an anonymous committee, which decides which ones will be performed.

“A blind committee reads the work and ranks it,” Green said. “They’re not directors; they’re not involved playwrights. In fact, some of them don’t even live in Houston.”

The writers are aspiring playwrights, and all are from the Houston area. The plays run the gamut from traditional to avant-garde. Essentially, the goal is to provide a platform for the playwrights to get their voices heard, she said.

“Theater is so much more than the actors on the stage: they’re what the audience sees but subliminally responds to in the story,” she said. “The set, the setting, the scene, the time period—it all supports the story.”

The all-volunteer theater, founded in 1973, boasts a proscenium stage, the type of theater experience that incorporates the “fourth wall,” a conceptual effect that separates the performers from the audience, Green said. The theater can accommodate 149 before it starts to bring in extra chairs for more guests. It also has just improved its sound system.

The main stage shows begin at 8 p.m. The theater charges $18 for adults and $15 for students and seniors age 55 and older. The theater funnels the money into upcoming productions, Green said.

“People have always turned to the arts for answers to things, for outlets for emotional experiences,” Green said. “Theater helps audiences come to grips with emotions and helps you laugh and cry or feel the music or feel the language and get in a different place. It’s so important.”

“Blithe Spirit” played in October.[/caption]

Theater lovers can find a complete list of shows and performance dates and buy tickets at ww.ph1960.com.

Playhouse 1960

6814 Gant Road, Houston 281-587-8243 www.ph1960.com