Houston's 1968 Brutalist theater where managing director Iris Siff was murdered in her office on January 13, 1982 — a killing that ended in a death sentence and a settled wrongful-death suit.
615 Texas Avenue, Houston, TX 77002
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Standard theatrical ticket pricing; varies by production. Lobby accessible to the public during operating hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Urban theater block with paved access; elevator and accessible seating available
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1968 · Regional Theatre Tony Award (1996) · Third-oldest resident theater in the United States · 1982 Murder of Managing Director Iris Siff · Brutalist Architecture by Ulrich Franzen
Nina Eloise Whittington Vance founded the Alley Theatre company in Houston in 1947 in a former dance studio accessible through a Main Street alley — the origin of the name. The company went fully professional in 1954 and built a national reputation for premiering new American works. Tennessee Williams' previously unproduced play *Not About Nightingales* received its world premiere here in 1998 before moving to Broadway.
The current 615 Texas Avenue building opened on October 13, 1968. Architect Ulrich Franzen designed the structure in a Brutalist idiom, with a poured concrete exterior that curves organically around the building's two performance spaces — the larger Hubbard Stage and the smaller Neuhaus Stage. The building has no right angles. Franzen intended the form to suggest a theater fully in the round, with the mass of the building itself as a kind of stage curtain.
Vance died in 1980. Her successor as head of the organization was Iris Futor Siff, who had joined the Alley as an actress in 1948, become Vance's assistant in 1964, and served as managing director from 1968. In the early hours of January 13, 1982, Siff was murdered in her second-floor office at 615 Texas Avenue. The perpetrator, Clifford X. Phillips (also known as Abdullah Bashir), was a former Alley security guard who had previously been convicted of manslaughter. Phillips received a death sentence. The Siff family subsequently sued the theater's security company and two of its employees; the case was settled out of court in 1984.
The theater sustained major flood damage from Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017, the latter destroying approximately 100,000 props stored in the basement Neuhaus Stage level. A $46.5 million renovation completed in 2015 restored and expanded the Hubbard Stage. The Alley won the Regional Theatre Tony Award in 1996 and remains one of the largest fully professional resident theaters in the United States.
Sources
The Alley Theatre's paranormal reputation rests primarily on the 1982 murder of Iris Siff, who served as the organization's managing director and had worked at the building for more than a decade before her death. Siff was murdered in her second-floor office in the early hours of January 13, 1982 — alone in the building, killed by a former employee. The circumstances of her death, in a space where she had spent much of her professional life, form the foundation for subsequent reports from the building.
Houston Historical Tours, which runs haunted walking tours in the theater district, lists the Alley as a stop and attributes reports of flickering lights, phantom applause from empty seating sections, and a sense of unease near the office areas to Siff's lingering presence. Actors, stagehands, and theater staff have separately described the sensation of being watched during late rehearsals and post-performance cleanup — especially in the areas of the building farthest from the stage.
The Alley does not promote a paranormal identity, and its programming is entirely focused on producing new and classic theater. The dark history is well-documented in the Texas State Historical Association's biographical entry on Siff and in the 1984 wrongful-death settlement, which established that the circumstances of her death had institutional dimensions beyond one individual's act.
Notable Entities
Houston Historical Tours includes the Alley Theatre as a stop on its haunted Houston walking tour routes, citing the 1982 Siff murder and the reported lingering presence in the building's upper offices.
Attend a production at the Alley — the country's third-oldest resident theater. The Hubbard Stage (774 seats) and Neuhaus Stage (296 seats) both occupy the original 1968 Ulrich Franzen Brutalist building at 615 Texas Avenue.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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