Dear Houston theater community, I can't keep up. You are one busy bunch. What's with you industrious people? Don't you ever slack off? Every time I turn around you have multiplied.

Forgive me for being behind. What's in your coffee? Can I have some?

I can't make it to everything, but at least I can share some fresh info on Houston's ever-burgeoning theater scene.

Mosaic Theatre Company (MTC) opens Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, directed by Santry Rush (last seen as Mick, the alpha bully, in Horse Head Theatre Company's Among the Thugs) Thursday night with shows at 8 p.m. this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and three more performances next weekend. Artistic director Ivy Castle-Rush has been diligently doing virtues-based children's theater through Mosaic for years now, but this is their first main stage production.

Lonergan's play focuses on the perils of drug abuse. In keeping with Mosiac's educational mission, they will be partnering with Palmer Drug Abuse Program for a talk back.

Castle-Rush aims for substance.

"I'm interested in smart plays that matter, not fluff plays," she says. "We want to do good shows for our souls that evoke personal change. We are not a soft theater."

MTC is based in the West Houston Community Center, slightly off the beaten track. "It's a bit of a science experiment. There are so many ways to succeed and fail, "admits Castle-Rush, with a healthy mixture of doubt and enthusiasm. "It's wonderful and terrifying."

Also opening this Thursday night is the world premiere of Thomas Hagemann's Breakfast At Eight as part of Main Street Theater's (MST) New/Now series, highlighting new or under-recognized playwrights. (MST's Executive artistic director Rebecca Greene Udden holds to her growth plan during an economic downtown.

"As far as expanding during a recession, I’m happy to say that our MainStage subscriptions are at an all-time high," Udden says with pride. "There were some holes in our season in terms of the calendar, so I thought why not start a series for these new playwrights who are doing exceptional work, but have not yet gained national exposure."

Brave Dog Theatre Company has a new name (formerly Brave Dog Players) and a new production, Craig Lucas' Reckless, running Dec. 3-19 at Wildfish Theater in the Galleria area. Brave Dog includes Philip Lehl, Kim Tobin-Lehl, Rick and Georgi Silverman. I was so taken with Brave Dog's first play, Almost, Maine, I sent e-mails to even obscure friends to go see it. Some did and thanked me later.

Brave Dog is all about creating more paying opportunities for actors, producing overlooked plays and creating an aesthetic of acting. "Developing a style, an approach to craft is Brave Dog," says Tobin-Lehl, who runs the Meisner-based Kim Tobin Acting Studio. "A company should have a unified vision and be telling the same story."

The Brave Dog team is pleased with Houston's growing pool of theater companies. "I'm excited by the momentum; more theater means more people open to more kinds of theater," Tobin-Lehl says. "Raising the bar across the board is good for Houston theater."

Ilich Guardiola also wants to create an actor-centered environment for his new venture, Phoenix Inc. Theatre Company. Side-by-side productions of Romeo and Juliet (one traditional, one updated) just wrapped up. Next is Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

"We got a great response from the audience and the actors with Hamlet, so I thought let's give this another shot," says Guardiola, who launched Phoenix because he was dissatisfied with the amount and quality of theater. "There was not enough of the type of theater I wanted to see. We have big dreams and aspirations of being able to pay actors comparable to other theaters within five years."

Classical Theatre Company (CTC) enters its third season but its first as part of the Houston Arts Alliance's MODE Arts Incubator program. CTC just closed Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, which featured Brave Dog's Lehl. They tackle George Bernard Shaw's wordfest Candida in January.

"This remarkable opportunity goes a long way towards alleviating the immense administrative pressures placed on small arts companies, allowing us to grow in areas we'd otherwise be struggling with," John Johnson, CTC's executive artistic director, says.

Horse Head Theatre Company recently celebrated its first anniversary. After a successful run of Among the Thugs, Horse Head is three for three in presenting visceral theater that gets under your skin.

"We're going through some organizational restructuring prior to our next project," Kevin Holden, Horse Head's artistic director, says. "Thugs was as big a production as we could muster with our current size and financial means. We want to be getting bigger and better with each show. I really want to do some sort of original work next. "

Holden is designing sets for Brave Dog's Reckless, Mosiac's This Is Our Youth and designing the lights for Catastrophic Theatre's Bluefinger. Houston theater is one tight family.

Thunderclap Productions is a partnership of three Houston-area playwrights, Aaron Alon, Peter Wittenberg Jr. and Eric James, dedicated to presenting bold and exciting new theater. "We are especially interested in the performance of works by new and emerging playwrights," James says. The Great Storm, its inaugural event, focused on Hurricane Ike stories. A "way to go" is in order to Killdozer Productions for tackling Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman for its first play. The Ensemble Theatre hopped on the Young Professionals bandwagon with Act One. They have the right party plus play idea. The artsy YPs socialized at Julia's Bistro, then crossed the street to see The Waiting Room and will do the same for Cinderella, which opens on Nov. 13.

Wow, I'm tired just telling you all about this, and this is just the new stuff. Know there's much more. Honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Chances are, right this very minute, a group of actors is sitting around a table dreaming up yet another troupe. (Although, I do wish you would all come to a consensus on "theatre" or "theater.") It's downright exhilarating to live in a city with this level of action.

So grab a Red Bull or two and head off to the footlights people. There's a curtain going up, several really, right now.