Inside Houston's Flooded Alley Theatre

Grime-streaked floodwater nearly slapped the 10-foot ceilings of the lower of the building’s two chambers, lurching up a winding stairway and foreclosing access to the lobby below. But when the New York-based playwright Rajiv Joseph, who recounted his experience by telephone on Wednesday, peered down into the morass on Aug. 27, the grief was instant and deflating.