Mission Statement:
The Undermain Theatre is a company of artists seeking to inspire, educate and challenge audiences and artists through its production of innovative theater with particular interest in poetic and language-driven work.
About Us:
Undermain Theatre is a company of artists that performs experimental works in Texas, New York, and Europe; collaborates with playwrights; develops original and world premiere productions; supports a theater archive; publishes plays; and sustains a theater in Dallas’ historic Deep Ellum.
Undermain Theatre was founded in 1984 by a group of artists who transformed a warehouse basement under Main Street in Dallas into a unique performance space and began producing new and experimental plays. The company’s reputation grew in Dallas’ artistic community and beyond. Soon Undermain was home to many regional premieres of new work. Among numerous awards for its work including the Dallas Critics Forum, Undermain also was recipient of the 500 Inc’s Ken Bryant Vision Award.
Undermain has produced plays by Mac Wellman, Conor McPherson, Lynn Alvarez, Young Jean Lee, Jeffrey M. Jones, John O’Keefe, Erik Ehn, Len Jenkin, Suzan Lori-Parks, Lenora Champagne, Howard Barker, Dario Fo, David Ray, Sam Shepard, Samuel Beckett, Caryl Churchill, Goran Stefanovski, and Octavio Solis, among others. Collaboration during rehearsal and production with the playwright is an integral and exciting part of the work.
In 1995, during the siege of Sarajevo, Undermain was invited to tour a neighboring Balkan country, Macedonia where it performed to capacity crowds in Roman amphitheaters and on the steps of orthodox cathedrals.
Along with the continual seasons of plays produced in its Dallas home, since 2000, Undermain has broadened its scope to produce six plays in New York culminating in its recent original adaptation of Neil Young’s Greendale.
Undermain produces exciting, original plays and acclaimed international works. Undermain stirs emotions and inspires the imagination.
