The House Theater
Founded in 2021, The House Theater has quietly cultivated a world of bold storytelling, collective healing, and creative transformation. From intimate productions to retreats and community gatherings, every offering is a doorway to deeper connection, with self, with others, and with the world we’re building together.
Austin’s House Theater is a welcoming incubator, a community platform cultivating our city’s bold storytellers, musicians and performers. We are anchored in the traditions of, and inspired by Harlem’s 1920’s New York City salons. Invigorated by our past, we provide a nurturing environment inspiring tomorrow's ancestors through intimate productions, retreats and community gatherings.
The House Theater was founded in 2021 by Shannon Stott, a skilled Improviser, Guide and Speaker who has performed on local and national stages in addition to offering seminars to theater troupes and corporate entities in Germany, France and Switzerland. It is Shannon’s own story, which drives the theme, purpose and direction of The House Theater. Born in Montgomery, Alabama on the same street as the church parsonage which housed the King family during the birth of the civil rights movement, Shannon was nurtured by the stories of her own family’s role in the community effort of that movement which continues still today.
The House Theater is not only a theater, it is a home. And much as her maternal great-grandmother offered her home in Montgomery as a place of rest and refreshment to 1960’s freedom riders, Shannon is providing a space for community collaboration and inspirational growth. Many of those denizens of Harlem’s 1920’s salons went on to provide musical and literary inspiration to generations, beyond. Participants in our House Theater programs lay the foundations for extensive personal and community growth here in Austin and beyond.