Because Tamarie Cooper plans to spend the rest of her life in Houston, her chances of winning an Oscar, a Tony or an Emmy is mighty slim. So I’ve decided to award her a “Cliffie.”

It’s an honor I’m bestowing on Houstonians who have the potential to be a national treasure but choose to delight local audiences instead. For nearly every summer since 1996, Cooper has created an original musical about her life inside the Loop. Over the years, fans have followed her chaotic search for a stable relationship while observing her other passions, including classic TV shows, ‘80s music and anything edible, along with her phobias (she doesn’t drive).

“I always joke that I’m not in therapy because I put my own problems out on stage and I then I charge people,” the 38-year old actress/comedienne said. “I don’t pay for it. You guys do. And I work it out that way.”

Her story veered into romance novel territory when she met the love of her life, furniture designer Zach Elkins, at Rudyard’s, the classic Montrose dive bar in 2003. They married in 2006, settled in a precious Heights bungalow and are now expecting their first child.

“After years and years of drama, I’m pretty over it myself,” she said.

But Cooper, who has the red hair and comedic timing of Lucille Ball, remains just as wacky onstage as her television counterpart. Now seven-and-a-half months pregnant, she insists she has slowed down. But her manic energy and wry observations remain evident in her latest effort, “The Tamarie Cooper Show: Journey to the Center of My Brain (in 3D!).” In the hilarious show, a Catastrophic Theatre Production that ends Saturday night at Stages, she receives a self-help hypnosis tape that teaches her how to explore the inner depths of her mind.

In true Cooper fashion, it’s a warped journey. She dances wildly during a hip hop number with multiple Gilligans from the classic TV series, “Gilligan’s Island” in a dream sequence about her first crush, gets caught in a stream of consciousness with Ann Coulter, Air Supply and Cat Stevens, mixes it up with her raging hormones – a trio of temperamental Greek goddesses -- and wages war with her self-control, portrayed by John Candy-look-alike Kyle Sturdivant. Guess who wins?

“For years, audience members have come up to me after the show and said, ‘I can’t believe you came up with this.’ And I’d say, ‘It’s just what’s been going on inside my head.’ So this year, I thought, ‘What’s inside my head?’ Let’s journey inside my brain and see what pop culture is pulsating in my head right now.”

To get the scientific part right, she googled ‘Science for eight graders.” “But the show quickly veers into a psychological journey as well. So I get into the ego, the superego, the concept of love, how it’s formed and when it’s formed,” she said.

Several cast members have been with Cooper since the beginning of the Tamalalia series, so there’s an easy familiarity onstage. (I believe the talented troupe could develop into Houston’s version of Chicago’s famed Second City if they so chose.) But the show is a lot of work. After coming up with an idea, Cooper storyboards the project. Her collaborator, Patrick Reynolds, music director John Duboise and a team of composers flesh out the rest. Former music director Tony Barilla contributes from Kosovo, where he now lives, via the Internet.

“It’s been fun to continue to be able to work with people even if they live across the ocean,” Cooper said.

A 1987 graduate of the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Cooper helped to found Infernal Bridegroom Productions, a theater company known for offering cutting-edge work, in 1993. While at IBP, she started the summer series, “Tamalalia.” She took a break in 2005, then did a cabaret show called “20 Love Songs” in the summer of 2007 before bringing back a full-scale Tamarie Cooper show last year.

“I’m like Cher. I keep saying I’m done, and then I keep coming back,” she joked.

With a baby on the way, Cooper says this time she is finished with the summer theater routine. But she’s not going away entirely. She will remain as associate director at Catastrophic Theater, the company she helped to created after IBP folded in 2007, and will try to take part in one show each year during her daughter’s infancy.

“We figured it will be three months of additional child care in the evenings,” she said. “So that’s the plan. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe I’ll have one of those perfect babies that sleeps all the time.”

And, though none of her friends believe it, she vows to learn to drive despite the fact that her adult life is littered with many failed efforts in Houston parking lots.

“I don’t want to be that mom whose kid is rolling her eyes in embarrassment when she’s 8 because I can’t drive her to gymnastics lessons,” Cooper said.

That may be her ultimate motivation.