Devin Whitten - Coaching

I’ve never seen a show Jacob is in and thought “I’m never watching that again.” until last night.

For years I’ve misremembered Sandy Hook as happening my freshman year of college when Jacob was in kindergarten. In reality, I was home on winter break my sophomore year, sobbing on the couch in our old home on December 14, 2012 terrified I couldn’t go grab him out of school for the day and just hold him tightly.

Trauma does that to the brain. It’s twists innocuous facts into fiction, it jumbles and confuses your memory. That’s what their show is about this year. It’s about how grief and mourning are ugly and complicated, how trauma messes with your brain, and how the media takes advantage of those vulnerabilities for a “good story”.

The anxiety in me hates that they’re doing this show. It makes me fearful that they’re putting a target on their back. The future counselor in me hates that they’re doing this show because I know that our bodies and brains don’t differentiate between lived or pretend trauma and I hate that high schoolers are doing this. Pretend living this experience and aftermath that they’ve lived their entire educational careers in fear of and in preparation for.

The activist in me knows this story needs to keep being told again and again and again until something finally stops.

If you have the opportunity, see this show. It will devastate you in a very real way. You may not be able to talk about it after. You’ll never want to see it again. But you’ll also understand why the story should be told. You’ll hate it. But you’ll get it.

Public performance is April 18th at Dickinson High School and will be a fundraiser. If you have the emotional bandwidth, go.

I don’t think there is a better feeling … just got this text from one of my seniors this year! Got me out here crying on a Monday 💜🥰

We just received the following email from a patron who wishes to remain anonymous, but gave us permission to share it with you!

"I'm not generally a fan of sci-fi works, so I admit I only came to see the Honey Comb trilogy's second installment Blast Radius to support a friend of mine in the cast. I wasn't prepared for how enthralled I'd be by this epic story of family, alien invasion, and making impossible choices for the good of humanity. I was so enraptured by what I saw that I decided to come back for the third installment, Sovereign, later that evening. A great decision, although now I wish I'd seen the Advance Man first. But since the show won't be closing until this weekend, I'll get the chance to catch up, and I cannot wait!

So let's talk performances. Despite being a relatively new theatre company in Houston, the Octarine Accord has managed to assemble some of the best thespians the local theater scene has to offer! Grace O (I don't want to misspell her name here) as Ronnie Cook in Blast Radius and Sovereign had my full attention every time she stepped out on stage. In addition to being impossibly beautiful, Grace possesses a stage presence unlike most other actresses I've seen on stage in Houston. Her characterization of the strong-willed survivalist Ronnie is compelling and poignant. I could see her playing the role on the big screen with all the badassery of Ripley in the Alien franchise. She's a force to be reckoned with! Filling the role of her brother Abbie is Quinn Anthony Berry, and he is no less a stage presence than Grace. Abbie played the full range of emotions on stage, from loving to authoritative to mournful to tyrant, and he did it all with conviction and believability. I almost couldn't believe this was the same actor who played Puck in Garden Theater's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I also enjoyed Autumn Hart's portrayal of the sardonic Clem, first seen in Blast Radius with a full pregnant belly and eyes that say "I'm not for your bu****it". And then there's Blake Weir as Conor, a soft and sensitive being who, although not human, shows perhaps more humanity than even the homosapiens in the play. His tender scenes with Quinn Anthony Berry made my heart flutter, something I was not expecting from a sci-fi play. I don't have access to all of the names of the actors, but the characters of Shirley, Fee, Dev, Peck, Jimmy, Willa, and others in Blast Radius had myself and the other audience members laughing and crying. The set is amazing, and not what I expected. All of the action in the play takes place in a living room, but that small space is utilized to the fullest by all of the actors. Bravo to the directors and production team. Houston, you all NEED to see this play. Don't miss it."

This Barbies in the Apocalypse!

The Honeycomb Trilogy The Honeycomb Trilogy tells the story of an alien invasion of earth over the course of 20 years, all from the same living room. This epic 3-part story follows two siblings, Ronnie Cooke and her younger brother Abbie Cooke, and chronicles a primal conflict – at once intimate and global – that wil...