As part of our ongoing “Zero Practice” series, actors are given a brand-new script of a play they are completely unfamiliar with and are expected to perform the play live on-the-spot in front of an audience.

“The Announcers” by Michael Verderber /

Hatters performance
MARTY – Gabriel Ruiz
NIKKA – Katherine Orozco-Verderber
GENE – Daniel Rodriguez

And here is the SECOND performance (in less than 24 hours) with Dawn Robertson as our “blind” actress chosen. Gabe reprised his role and Julio took over. Both actors were familiar with the show from the previous night’s performance.

Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures performance
MARTY – Gabriel Ruiz
NIKKA – Dawn Robertson
GENE – Julio Martinez

Stop complaining that there is nothing in town to do when we have ANOTHER fantastic evening of open mic madness at Hatters Beverage Company via our Textual Overture branch! Expect poetry, live music, short plays, and YOU, on the stage! This is a FREE performance, but the venue would appreciate drink purchases.

And here are a few pics from the show! See even more photos on the Productions page!

Here are a handful of pics from the July 25 show at the Rialto Theatre! More pics are on the Premature Punchline production page!

Our resident improv comedy troupe, Premature Punchline, will be making their grand return to the Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures and Education Center for World Elephant Day on August 8th! Like previous museum-event productions, we will be staging multiple mini-shows starting at noon until 2:30 with short breaks in between to give museum-goers the opportunity to see the other events happening at the museum.

Here are a handful of pics from the July 10th performance of Textual Overture at Hatters in Kingsville, as well as photos from the final performances of “Attempting Bunraku” on July 11th at the Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures in Corpus! See MORE photos on the Productions pages of TO and AB, respectively.

*************** “Attempting Bunraku” pics below! ***************
(Note the short-lived fight between Host Michael and Roku the puppet. Michael… did not win.)

July 10th in Kingsville – another TEXTUAL OVERTURE at our favorite coffee shop, Hatters Beverage Company! Bring your work because YOU are the featured guest!

Before the show goes on hiatus, we will be staging “Attempting Bunraku” several more times on July 11th as part of the Tanabata Star Festival in Corpus at the Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures.

Another Premature Punchline show at the Rialto Theatre on July 25th! Come for a bevy of bizarre improv games in our own bizarre style!

Before avant-garde theatre icon Richard Foreman passed away, he posted several of his notebooks on his website for any theatre enthusiast to direct, stage, use, etc. As a huge fan of Foreman’s work, Michael Verderber jumped at the chance to use the scraps of dialogue to create new theatre pieces in experimental and brand new ways.

Thus comes… “Throne”, one of the many Notebook sections that Verderber is taking a short stab at using object manipulation. This piece will set up a much larger and more complicated work, called “Richard Foreman’s Potatoland Paradise” (derived from multiple Notebooks and staged in Foreman’s infamous Potatoland setting). Both “Throne” and “…Potatoland Paradise” will be released online. More info coming soon!

Here is “Throne”:

ZERO-189

Here are pics of every performer from the Textual Overture on June 12th at Hatters Beverage Company! And below is a video of “The Lady Doth Protest” play performance; the two actors Julio and Daniel were given a brand new script that they had never read, seen, nor rehearsed and were just expected to perform it! Hence, why it is called “Zero Practice”!

And here is an audience-shot filming of Roslyn’s and Bryson’s song “My White Dog”!

We have two shows scheduled in June and July! First up, we have a ton of short, weird content happening on our Tik Tok and YouTube account, so do check those out. Most recently, a performance poem called “Unconditional” and the Down Chamber Drone Day 2026 performance! The latter two can be viewed if you scroll down below this post!

Secondly, and for LIVE shows, we have a TEXTUAL OVERTURE at Hatters Beverage Company (recently voted the #1 coffee shop in Kingsville!) on the 12th at 7 pm. And on JULY 25th (this is the new date!), we will have a Premature Punchline show at the Rialto Theatre in Aransas Pass; see flyers above.

Down Chamber’s annual involvement in the world-wide Drone Day festivities has been released early on YouTube! Drone Day 2026 is officially May 30 and is now upon us! The video is now available for viewing (starting May 25_). The song is called “The Harsh Space Near the Prometheus”, in reference to the sci-fi film “Prometheus”; music was created on a Monotron DUO and a Behringer Phara-O.
Cover art by Katherine Orozco-Verderber

Other contributing artists and their locations for this world-wide event can be seen here. You can find ZU/Down Chamber under the “Kingsville, TX” section on the EVENTS page.
https://droneday.org/events.html