Mildred's Umbrella Theater Announces 2021-2022 Season

Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company will return to live performances with their 20th SEASON! Once called 'the little company that could" by the Houston Press, Mildred's was formed in 2001 by Jennifer Decker (actress, director and Houston Community College instructor) and John Harvey (Former University of Houston Professor and poet) in order to produce one of Harvey's plays. On a shoestring budget and a skeleton staff, this company now has 19 seasons under its belt, receiving numerous 'best of' nominations and awards from The Houston Press over the years, as well as nods from Houstonia, The Houston Chronicle and other local publications, and national attention from The National Endowment for the Arts and The American Theatre WIng, which is the organization in charge of the Tony Awards.

"We have weathered every storm so far," says Founder/Artistic Director, Jennifer Decker, "we started in a time when Houston's theatre scene was still very small and you could just open a show in an old warehouse or the upstairs of a bar. As it grew, many of those small theatres that were doing that kind of thing couldn't keep up with the newer ones popping up who already had better funding when they started. We had to adapt and roll with the times. We're still on a shoestring compared to even the next smallest professional company, but we are still thriving artistically, and we have so much more fabulous work to bring to the Houston scene."

Mildred's Umbrella's mission is to empower women in theatre. The company produces plays that are either written by women, or feature a mostly female cast.

The 2021-2022 live season kicks off with the Houston premier of EL HURACÁN, by Cuban-American playwright, Charise Castro Smith. Directed by Patricia Duran, the play will feature an all Latinx cast and crew, and will be the first live performance for Mildred's Umbrella since the pandemic shut our doors in March 2020.

"El Huracán" tells a story of migration, family, and genetic inheritance through four generations of Cuban American women. The setting is the calm before a hurricane, and the message is one of rebuilding, hope and redemption after trauma. The production will be at the DeLuxe Theatre, in the Fifth Ward, and will run November 11-21, 2021.

The Season finishes with an original piece, HE CRIED FOR HIS MOTHER: A SNAPSHOT OF BLACK MOTHERHOOD IN AMERICA (Working Title). This multi-media show will be created by a group of female artists, based on interviews from black American mothers, midwives and doulas, illustrating the joy and heartbreak of being a black mother in an America that still does not treat all people equally. The creators include Artistic director, Jennifer Decker, Associate Artistic Director Patricia Duran, company artists Rebecca Ayres, Dabrina Sandifer and Elizabeth Keel, and multimedia artist Willow Curry. The project is being partially supported by The National Endowment for the Arts. The live production will take place in May 2022 at the DeLuxe Theatre.

We're so happy to be back, and we look forward to bringing these exciting works to our patrons after so long away from the theatre. Our tickets will continue to be 'Pay as you Can' this season, and they can be purchased on our website.

For more information visit: www.mildredsumbrella.com

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