Stage

Chicken & Biscuits at Ensemble Settles Its Family Problems With Laughter

Chicken & Biscuits at Ensemble Settles Its Family Problems With Laughter

Waiting for Godot at Catastrophic: Life...On the Road to No-where

Waiting for Godot at Catastrophic: Life...On the Road to No-where

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Best Bets: Seismic, Mid-Autumn Festival, and La Vida Es Cortos

By Natalie de la Garza
Sep 28, 2023

We’re coming up on a new month, so in just a couple of days we’ll have to officially stop complaining that it’s too early for those Halloween decorations. Though we expect a little spookiness later this month, right now our best bets are anything but. From short plays and films...
American Mariachi at Alley Theatre: Who Decides Who Gets to Play the Music

By Margaret Downing
Sep 25, 2023

In American Mariachi, a group of young women decide they want to be mariachis, something that just wasn't done in the 1970s. In the play packed with music about to open at Alley Theatre, five members of the large cast had to learn to play instruments they'd never played before...
Unhappiness Abounds In The Pavilion at 4th Wall

By Jessica Goldman
Sep 23, 2023

Beware the marketing of a play. Or perhaps beware that your emotional reaction to a play may be miles apart from the experience advertised. The Pavilion (By Craig Wright, now onstage at 4th Wall Theatre Company) takes us to small town Minnesota for a 20th-anniversary high-school reunion. More specifically, the...
An Older and Wiser Cast Performs Waiting For Godot at Catastrophic Theatre

By Margaret Downing
Sep 22, 2023

When Waiting For Godot opens at Catastrophic Theatre next week, it will be the fourth time actor Charlie Scott has stood by a country road with another down-on-his-luck man to has perform in Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, three of them with Catastrophic. He'll be joined by Greg Dean who's been his...
Best Bets: Tutu, KyLin’s Garden and When Houston Had the Blues

By Natalie de la Garza
Sep 21, 2023

It’s World Gratitude Day, so we encourage you to do a simple, random act of kindness today. Our act of kindness is that we’ve taken the work out of planning what to do this week by gifting you today’s list of best bets. Keep reading for a play making its...
Chicken & Biscuits: Family Dysfunction and A Secret Revealed at a Funeral Make For Comedy at Ensemble Theatre

By Margaret Downing
Sep 19, 2023

When the Jenkins come together for their patriarch's funeral, complete with a pair of battling sisters who don't get along, the family's dysfunction is revved up a notch as all assemble at the church altar and a — organ music please — family secret is revealed. What sounds like classic...
Right or Left, What the Constitution Means to Me at Main Street Speaks to You

By D. L. Groover
Sep 17, 2023

No matter on what side of the political aisle you choose to sit, Heidi Schreck's buoyant, autobiographical What the Constitution Means to Me will speak to you. Those leaning left will like its anarchic themes, its powerful feminist message, its willingness to unearth past wrongs and set them right. Those...
Best Bets: Duke Ellington, JLF and Viet Cultural Fest

By Natalie de la Garza
Sep 14, 2023

Today is “Are You Okay Day” in Australia, and our suggestion is for Houstonians to take it a step further and not only check on your loved ones but also invite them out to spend some time together. If you do, keep reading for our list of the best things...
The Pavilion at 4th Wall Takes a Look at Whether You Can Really Go Back in Time

By Margaret Downing
Sep 13, 2023

How many books, movies and plays have made a 20-year reunion central to their plot? It's the epitome of what-might-have-been as one character looks across the room and sees the object of their high school desire. In the case of 4th Wall Theatre Co.'s staging of Pavilion by Craig Wright,...
In Forever Plaid at A.D. Players the Boy Bands of the '50s are Celebrated

By D. L. Groover
Sep 10, 2023

Why is it that Stuart Ross' slight musical Forever Plaid (Off-Broadway, 1989) is such a pleasure? The show radiates easy charm throughout the George Theatre at A.D. Players without even trying. There's nary a book. An unsuccessful '60s boy band is mysteriously resurrected after being killed by a bus bearing...
Laughs Take The Urgency But Maybe Not The Agency Out Medea

By Jessica Goldman
Sep 9, 2023

It should have worked better. Classical Theatre’s season opener, Medea, has all the talent, tools and twists to make Euripides’ classical play something remarkable. There’s the crisp 95-minute runtime, a feminist lens, dilution of the overwrought, modern flourishes, comic relief and one of Houston’s best actresses in the titular role...
POTUS at Stages Shows The Women Behind the Great One Can Be Just As Raunchy as Men

By D. L. Groover
Sep 8, 2023

Trust me, two martinis are not enough to get through POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, the political farce now playing at Stages. You've got to be blotto, better yet strung out. Oh, the colors. Selina Fillinger's comedy – I use that...
Best Bets: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Medea and Cloud Tectonics

By Natalie de la Garza
Sep 7, 2023

It's National Feel the Love Day and, just in case you want to spread some affection around to our city's lovely arts organizations, we have put together a list of the best bets this coming week. Keep reading for a play that made its Broadway debut last year, a much...
What The Constitution Means to Me — and American Women in General — at Main Street Theater

By Margaret Downing
Sep 6, 2023

Probably the first surprise in the one act play What the Constitution Means to Me is that a high school student could earn a fairly significant amount of money by traveling from one American Legion post to another and making a presentation extolling the virtues of that document. After that,...
On the Verge Theatre Brings Us Far East: WASPS Without a Nest

By D. L. Groover
Sep 2, 2023

If there's a late twentieth-century playwright who knew about the birds and bees it would have to be A.R. Gurney (The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, Love Letters, Sylvia, The Wayside Motor Inn – all produced in Houston theaters over various past seasons). Well, maybe not birds...maybe not even bees,...
Far East at On the Verge Explores the Damaging Prejudices of Post WWII Americans Overseas

By Margaret Downing
Aug 31, 2023

In Far East, 1950s couples are beset by cultural demons common to the time. With echoes of Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon , it's the story of an American sailor going to a foreign country and entering into a romantic liaison with a (gasp) foreigner. Before you stifle a yawn...
Best Bets: Far East, The Flow and Mozart By Moonlight

By Natalie de la Garza
Aug 31, 2023

Hurray for a three-day weekend! As we enter the month of September, greeted by the welcome sight of the Labor Day holiday, the city’s arts organizations are becoming more and more active. That means we’ve got a lot for you in this week’s best bets. Keep reading for compelling documentaries,...
Jagged Little Pill: The Musical Shows A More Serious Side

By Jessica Goldman
Aug 30, 2023

Did you forget about me, Mr. Duplicity? I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner It was a slap in the face How quickly I was replaced And are you thinking of me when you fuck her? There’s no mistaking the intentions of these lyrics, from Alanis Morissette’s...
Announcing the 2023 Houston Theater Awards [UPDATED]

By D. L. Groover, Jessica Goldman, Natalie de la Garza, Ada Alozie and Margaret Downing
Aug 28, 2023

Houston theater contains multitudes. Full of marvels and contradictions, our theater can be inspiring or stultifying, magical or mundane, controversial or plain vanilla, fanciful or dull. The 2022-23 season contained all of these. Some big-ticket shows landed with a thud you could hear outside in the street, while little shows...
Jagged Little Pill: The Musical, Unravels a Family's Secrets to Music by Alanis Morissette

By Margaret Downing
Aug 25, 2023

Families with secrets have been a mainstay of theater scripts for years upon years. In Jagged Little Pill: The Musical now on its way to the Hobby Center courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars, it's the Healy family that's trying to navigate its way through modern life. And like classic...