Halloween is right around the corner, so you’d better believe we’ve got some spooky suggestions for you this week. But for the Halloween Scrooges out there, we’ve got plenty of counterprogramming for you to peruse, including a rarely seen opera and a whole festival of fringe performances. Keep reading for more.
Still looking for something family-friendly to do for Halloween? On Friday, October 28, from 6 to 10 p.m. Scream on the Green returns to Discovery Green for an evening of free fun. First and foremost, be sure to come prepared for the costume contest. From 6:45 to 8:15 p.m. you can register for the costume contest, which is separated into six categories by age, gender, one for families and even one for dogs. The actual contest begins at 7 p.m. and the winners will be announced at 9:30 p.m. and given some cool prizes. In between, you can enjoy a screening of Monster House at 7:30 p.m. The film – “funny, scary and graphically inventive” – was called “one of the best animated movies of the past couple of years and the most enjoyable family entertainment of recent months” when it was released in 2006. DJ Mohawk Steve will also be on hand to provide music, characters will roam the crowd for pictures, and Kona Ice truck will be present with the cool treats at the citywide Halloween celebration.
On Friday, October 28, at 7:30 p.m. Houston Grand Opera will open a new production of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers. It will be the first full-scale production from major American opera company, so you’d be forgiven if you’re not familiar with the 1906 epic. Even director Louisa Muller recently admitted that she was not only unfamiliar with The Wreckers, but she “didn’t know Ethel Smyth’s work at all.” Smyth – a “composer, conductor, author and suffragette” – was “one of the early-20th century’s most original and controversial voices in classical music and social politics,” but her music “all but died with her” in 1944. Conductor Patrick Summers says of The Wreckers, about a Cornish community that pillages ships it lures in and the two lovers who challenge the status quo, “‘Grand’ is in [HGO’s] name, and few operas are as fully grand as The Wreckers.” Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke who sings the lead role of Thirza in the HGO production told the Houston Press that this HGO presentation of the forgotten work is “sort of like unearthing a treasure.” Performances continue on Sunday, October 30, at 2 p.m. and Saturday, November 5, Wednesday, November 9, and Friday, November 11, at 7:30 p.m. at the Wortham Theater Center. Tickets can be purchased here for $20 to $210.
Experience classic Halloween horror with Rob Landes when he continues the Halloween tradition of improvising a musical score for the 1925 Lon Chaney film The Phantom of the Opera. The film, which Roger Ebert once said had “a creepy, undeniable power,” features one of the most famous silent film moments: the unmasking of Chaney’s Phantom. Landes previously explained to OutSmart that “the vast majority of the music is improvised on the spot. I do have some cue sheets to remind me of what is about to happen dramatically, and I’ve created some specific musical themes that I use often.” Landes will perform at The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston on Friday, October 28, at 8 p.m. (tickets available here for $18 to $20) and again – this time free – on Sunday, October 30, at 7 p.m. in the Sanctuary at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church.
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, may be about those that have passed on, but the two-day celebration is an “explosion of color and life-affirming joy,” the point of which is “to demonstrate love and respect for deceased family members.” On Saturday, October 29, and Sunday, October 30, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. MECA’s 22nd Annual Día de Muertos Festival: Honoring Our Past, Celebrating Our Future will fill the campus of the Historic Dow School. Of the festival – where you can find ofrendas (or alters) on display, music, dance, food, and various vendors to peruse – MECA’s arts program director and festival chairperson Armando Silva told Houstonia that they “take pride in celebrating Día de Muertos traditions in the most authentic and traditional ways possible to honor our loved ones who have passed before us.” Admission to the festival is free, but bring your wallet because you’re sure to want to shop and sample the cuisine that will be onsite.
Explore the themes celebrated during Día de los Muertos in a selection of films from around the world during Cine de Muertos, presented by the Houston Latino Film Festival, on Saturday, October 29, and Sunday, October 30, from 1 to 9 p.m. at 14 Pews. Peggy Peralta’s experimental Living Altars leads a block of six shorts that start at 3 p.m. The evening will conclude with a showing of Fabio Frey’s “smartly directed, deftly edited” feature debut My Dead Dad at 7 p.m. Sunday’s program lists four short films beginning at 2 p.m., including Miguel Angel Caballero’s Acuitzeramo and Alessandro Gentile’s Lodo, followed by The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future at 6 p.m. The “hauntingly moving and hopeful” feature, directed by Francisca Alegría, “uses magical realism to blend the story of a family deeply scarred by a suicide decades ago, and a fable of Mother Nature crying out for help.” You can purchase day passes here. It is $10 for each day.
If you like your trick-or-treating to be a bit more high art and a touch more sophisticated, you may want to check out ROCO’s Musical Trick or Treat program at The Heritage Society on Saturday, October 29, at 5:30 p.m. Come early, at 5 p.m., for a reception in The Heritage Society Visitor Center with noted Houston historian Mister McKinney, who will open the event with a primer on The Heritage Society and its ten historic buildings, each restored to give visitors a taste of life in each building’s respective era. After, guests will be put into groups and go home to home for some musical “trick-or-treating.” In each home, guests will find a ROCO musician – violist Lorento Golofeev, harpist Laurie Meister, clarinetist Maiko Sasaki, and cellist Courtenay Vandiver Pereira – ready to play a short solo. Tickets can be purchased here; $45 for those 18 and older, and $20 for those 17 and under. (And yes, costumes are encouraged.)
It’s been three long years since Houston Chamber Choir has stopped by Miller Outdoor Theatre, so you definitely won’t want to miss it as they make their return on Saturday, October 29, 7:30 p.m. with This Land is Your Land. The free concert will be led by Houston Chamber Choir Founder and Artistic Director Robert Simpson, who will guide the choir in a program of songs that tell the story of America. These will include an arrangement of “Wade in the Water” by Moses Hogan, Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” which lends its title to the program. You can reserve a free seat here starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, October 28. Or, as always, you can head out to the ticketless seating on the Hill. The show will also stream on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel, or Facebook page.
The Houston Fringe Festival returns to The MATCH from Tuesday, November 1, to Sunday, November 6. Highlights of this year’s festival include Ryan Adam Wells, who opens the festival on Tuesday, November 1, at 7:30 p.m. with The 500 List, about two best friends who take a cross-country road trip set to their 500 favorite songs of all time; contemporary and traditional indigenous Moroccan dance from Kristina Koutsoudas on Thursday, November 3, at 7:30 p.m.; and “The Fairytale Project,” presented by Nia’s Daughters Movement Collective on Friday, November 4, at 9 p.m. You also won’t want to miss a special screening of Marcus Pontello’s Friday I’m in Love: The Numbers Documentary on Wednesday, November 2, at 9 p.m. or the Anything Goes – Closing Night Showcase on Sunday, November 6, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for each performance can be purchased here for $15 to $20.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
