Purlie Victorious:
A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch

By Ossie Davis

Directed by Errol Anthony Wilks

Dynamic traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save Big Bethel, the community’s church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s plantation. With the help of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Purlie plans to wrench from Ol’ Cotchipee the inheritance due his long-lost cousin and use the money to save his town! “We still need togetherness; we still need each otherness – with faith in the futureness of our cause. Let us, therefore, stifle the rifle of conflict, shatter the scatter of discord, smuggle the struggle, tickle the pickle, and grapple the apple of peace!” A truly hilarious and joyful comedy by the incomparable Ossie Davis.

Purlie Victorious premiered on Broadway at the Cort Theatre on September 28, 1961. Directed by Howard Da Silva, the production starred Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. A Broadway revival of Purlie Victorious opened at the Music Box Theatre on September 27, 2023. Directed by Kenny Leon, the show starred Leslie Odom, Jr.

“Blazing and hilarious… every bit as scathingly funny as the 1961 reviews said it was.” – The New York Times, 2023

“Raucous… uncompromising… A joyous affair, broad in comedy and in spirit.” – TimeOut New York

“Marvelously exhilarating… Keeps you chuckling and guffawing. It won’t let you wipe that grin off your face.” – The New York Times, 1961

Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley

By Lauren Gunderson & Margot Melcon

Directed by Jessica Jaye

Back by popular demand! The final installment of the Christmas at Pemberley series follows two close friends: Mr. Darcy’s younger sister, Georgiana, and the youngest Bennet sister, Kitty. It is Christmastime at Pemberley and the pair impatiently await the imminent arrival of Henry Grey, Georgiana’s shy, secret correspondent and love interest. When Henry enters a family holiday in full force and is met by the unwelcoming presence of Mr. Darcy, Georgiana fears her chance at love will be lost forever. But somehow, love always finds a way!

Main Street has previously produced all 3 plays in the trilogy, including Miss Bennet and The Wickhams, all of which became hits and holiday favorites for many families across Houston and beyond.

The Coast Starlight

Regional Premiere

By Keith Bunin

Directed by Robin Robinson

Armed with a secret that could land him in terrible trouble, a young man boards the Coast Starlight, the long-distance train that runs from Los Angeles to Seattle. With the help of his fellow travelers, all of whom are reckoning with their own life circumstances, T.J. has roughly one thousand miles to figure out how he wants to live the rest of his life. THE COAST STARLIGHT is a smart, funny, and compassionate story about our capacity for invention and re-invention when life goes off the rails. Recommended for mature audiences due to some profanity.

“A gentle, rueful play…. the ride it offers is as smooth as it is wistful. Because Bunin knows that any trip involves leaving something or someone behind. [It] sends up sparks … So let it do what any train should, which is to move you.” — The New York Times

“THE COAST STARLIGHT is [a] funny, moving dramatic jewel… Keith Bunin’s luminous play focuses on a group of strangers on a train … and what they say to each other (very little) in contrast to the thoughts, confessions, and fantasies that run through their heads and which they convey direct to the audience (a lot).” — The Daily Beast

Leopoldstadt

Regional Premiere

By Tom Stoppard

Directed by Rebecca Greene Udden

Vienna in 1900 was the most vibrant city in Europe, humming with artistic and intellectual excitement and a genius for enjoying life. A tenth of the population were Jews. A generation earlier they had been granted full civil rights by the Emperor, Franz Josef. Consequently, hundreds of thousands had fled from the East and many found sanctuary in the crowded tenements of the old Jewish quarter, Leopoldstadt.

Spanning fifty years and multiple generations, Leopoldstadt follows a family’s reckoning with a past – and a heritage – it cannot escape and a future it cannot control. An intense drama of the first half of the 20^th century, Stoppard’s customary wit and beauty shine through the enduring spirit of a family tested by the most dire situations. “This is a momentous new play. Tom Stoppard has reached back into his own family history to craft a work that is both epic and intimate; that is profoundly personal, but which concerns us all.” – The Financial Times

Winner of the 2023 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Foreign Play, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Play, Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play.

“A heart-rending epic.” —The New York Times

“Brilliant and gorgeous. A masterpiece.” —Deadline

“Breathtakingly brilliant.” —Chicago Tribune

“Ranks among Mr. Stoppard’s greatest works…an inexpressibly moving, majestic play.” —Wall Street Journal

The Woman in Black

By Stephen Mallatratt
Based on the novel by Susan Hill

“It was nine-thirty on a Christmas Eve…” Arthur Kipps is obsessed with a curse he believes has been cast over him and his family by the specter of a “Woman in Black,” for it is believed that anyone who sees her will die. He hires a skeptical young actor to help him tell his terrifying story to exorcise the fear that grips his soul. Things begin innocently enough, but as they reach further into Arthur’s darkest memories, they find themselves caught up in a world of eerie marshes and moaning winds…

Susan Hill’s acclaimed ghost story is alive and well in this spine-tingler of a play. But it’s more than that. It’s a story of facing your past, reckoning with old and new pain, grieving what has been lost – and finding hope and a way forward.

It is also a love letter to the theater, as our director Philip Hays so aptly noted. It exemplifies just what live theater can do – with a rich story, talented artists, and the robust imaginations of the audience, we can be transported to another world. When you see The Woman in Black, you’ll believe you’re on the eerie moor, on the horse and cart traveling, in the room with a beloved dog. You’ll walk the journey with both characters as they face their past and present.

You will feel with them.

That’s the power of good storytelling. That’s the power of theater.