Houston audiences know they have a wealth of performances to choose from each year, with comedies, dramas, musicals, and everything in between landing on stages large and small. But before the tickets are sold, the programs get handed out, and the curtain goes up, someone (or a few someones) must select those shows. Houstonia spoke with Dirt Dogs Theatre’s Malinda L. Beckham, the company’s artistic director and one of its founding members, about how it all comes together.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Houstonia: What do you look for in the plays you ultimately choose to produce?
Malinda Beckham:  I look for plays that provoke me or expand me, ask me to think differently, or become more insightful or enlightened about something. I look for plays that help me develop a deeper understanding of life—not just my life. And then, almost as important, but not always: Does the play fall within our resources? Can we physically do this play? Do we have the resources to do this play?

How many people are part of the decision-making process in terms of what makes it onto the stage?
Well, right now it’s a party of one: me.  I do it kind of in a silo because it’s a lot of late nights of reading.  What I really enjoy is putting them on Trevor’s nightstand [that’s Trevor Cone, Dirt Dogs executive director and Beckham’s husband]. He is always within reach for me to bounce things off of him. And then I watch his facial expressions and listen for his reactions as he reads, because that tells me a lot about how he feels about the play. Is he bored? Is he entertained? Is he excited about it?

How do you find out about plays, besides just reading?
We go to Chicago. We like to go to Steppenwolf. We go to New York when we can, which is not often. We go to as many plays around Houston as we can. I read plays that other people suggest to me. And I subscribe to the Dramatists play box, so I get five plays that I don’t pick myself every three months. There’s a lot of surprises in there.

How long does it take?
It’s a yearlong process of reading, putting plays in stacks, revisiting plays, processing them again, reading them again, making new stacks, and adding new plays. Once the season goes up, once we announce the season, I begin working on the next one.

Dirt Dogs opens its 10th anniversary season October 23 at MATCH with The Minutes, followed in early 2026 by Venus in Fur and Airline Highway.