The Chevy Suburban of ballet, The Nutcracker is both durable and familiar. It's a comfortable ride, and one that, with the Houston Ballet in... More >>
Of all the things that can go wrong with direction, perhaps the kindest for the audience is direction that, while peculiarly misinterpreting the... More >>
When playwright David Saar's eight-year-old son Benjamin died of AIDS-related complications in 1987, Saar did what most parents who lose a child... More >>
Like the Corot paintings that hung in a proper Victorian drawing room, the stage picture presented in Main Street Theater's production of Oscar... More >>
Those who love Shakespearean drama generally do so because of the writer's mastery of language and his fine understanding of stagecraft -- from... More >>
Tree houses, Santa Claus and lots of sickeningly cute lyrics about aiming high and dreaming big. A brother and a sister playing school, and later... More >>
Tap Dogs -- flinging sweat and flipping skirts as it arrives in Houston this weekend to wind down its U.S. tour -- has been lauded for reinventing... More >>
To write a play in which a dog is a pivotal character and then to have that dog played by an actor is either very brave or very stupid. In the... More >>
The truth is often absurdly funny. In the '60s, European dramatists celebrated that tenet, and their cryptic absurdist plays both entertained... More >>
Though on the surface it's a play about evolution, what Inherit the Wind, the Jerome Lawrence/Robert E. Lee work based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey... More >>
Modern (and occasionally cynical) audiences should celebrate the living-room plays of Jean Kerr, if for no other reason than to honor the craft of... More >>
David Mamet loves offices. After an evening spent with one of his plays, there's no mystery why: Mamet's language of wheeling and dealing plays... More >>
When the time comes for arts organizations to shake down the coffers, the risky stuff almost always goes first. Such was the case in 1994, when... More >>
What compelled Infernal Bridegroom director Jason Nodler to produce a Broadway musical with a five-piece band in a space the size of a two-car... More >>
Stages' new artistic director, Rob Bundy, didn't take the advice of all his theater-savvy friends to play it safe with content his first season.... More >>
New York choreographer John Jasperse doesn't like dance critics, which is a tough bias to have when a) you live in the most critic-rich city in... More >>
Fog and steamy rain made downtown Houston look something like Gotham City late last week, an effect that was strangely appropriate for the Alley's... More >>
These days, Houston Ballet principal dancer Barbara Bears is no doubt feeling pain far worse than that caused by the stress fracture she suffered... More >>
Whether they originated in the man or in his myth, stories about George Balanchine are an enduring source of anecdote in American ballet. Noted... More >>
May was a good month for the Alley Theatre. Not only had their season ended with a pair of hit plays, but the theater had also been tapped for one... More >>
In Japan, families pack box lunches to attend kabuki performances with the same sort of fervor shown by American parents who dress their little... More >>
Traditionally, summer is a down time for theater in Houston, as the big companies trot out easy fare while waiting for the fall and cooler weather... More >>
There's only one really bad thing about the anti-clotting pill Pradaxa. You can't fall or get cut while taking it because once you start bleeding, there's almost no way to stop it. There's no reversal agent, no antidote.
There's no gloves or batting helmets when Larry Joe Miggins and the rest of the Houston Babies regularly travel back in time to play the game by its 1860 rules.
