If you can’t tell by the weather, you can certainly tell by this week’s picks for the best bets that the holiday season is here. Yes, we’ve got some Christmas classics, but also an incisive documentary, a world premiere musical, and much more – keep reading to see them all.
Delve into the lives of seven Black Millennials – self-identified as Atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, African Traditional Religion, and Spiritualist – as they navigate their faith in relation to gender, race, sexuality, and culture during a screening of Kim Moir’s documentary gOD-Talk on Thursday, November 14, at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Following the screening, you can stay for a panel discussion featuring professor and founder of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning at Rice University Anthony Pinn; activist and facilitator Diamond Stylz, who is also a part of the millennial Black trans community; and Bishop of the Nichiren Shu Buddhist Order of North America Myokei Caine Barrett. Admission is free with your museum ticket, which is also free on Thursdays.
On Friday, November 15, at 8 p.m., The Catastrophic Theatre will open the world premiere of Brian Jucha’s one-act musical Love Bomb, which utilizes the music of singer-songwriter Melanie and marks Jucha’s fifth collaboration with Catastrophic. Jucha recently told the Houston Press, “I believe what we are doing is incredibly entertaining, it’s incredibly funny,” adding that the show’s “main premise is that these individuals are all looking for love, have found love, or have lost love. We are adding to that, that in this particular dance hall, the performers also work as cabaret performers.” Performances will continue at the MATCH at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through December 7. Tickets are pay-what-you-can with a suggested price of $35 and can be purchased here.
Every November, Billboard starts ranking the top 50 seasonal albums, and guess which album kicked off this season at No. 1 for its 16th (nonconsecutive) week at the top? If you guessed the Danny Elfman-composed soundtrack to Pumpkin King of Halloween Town Jack Skellington’s attempt to take over Christmas Town, then you’re right. On Saturday, November 16, at 2 p.m., you can catch the 1993 stop-motion holiday classic projected on a big screen with the Houston Symphony, under Conductor Anthony Parnther, playing Elfman’s score live during Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas in Concert at Jones Hall. The concert will also be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 16, and 2 p.m. Sunday, November 17. Tickets for the in-hall performances are available here for $51.75 to $195.
There is no one way to celebrate Christmas, but if you need examples – 12 examples, to be specific – head over to The Ensemble Theatre starting on Saturday, November 16, at 2 p.m. when they open their holiday production, The Twelve Ways of Christmas. With book, music, and lyrics by Chika Kaba Ma’Atunde, the seasonal musical uses jazz, gospel, and R&B tunes to show some folks celebrating with family and with friends, the holiday through the eyes of a child and from the perspective of a soldier away at war, and someone struck by grief. Performance will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays through December 22. Tickets for performances can be purchased here for $45 to $65.
On Saturday, November 16, at 2 p.m., playwrights Angela Y. Rice and Crystal Rae will present shortened versions of their plays, Tonight We Were Gods and Tied, at the Anderson Center for the Arts during Spitting Nails and Telling Tales: the griot tour. Rice’s play is set after the 1917 Houston Riot, while Rae’s play is told from the perspective of a father whose daughter is killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, but Rae recently told the Houston Press that “we don’t sit in the darkness too long. Both plays call for hope and light and demand a silver lighting to make itself known.” The shows will be performed a second time at 7 p.m. Saturday, November 16. Tickets to either performance can be purchased here for $40.
NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson traveled to the International Space Station back in March, and on Saturday, November 16, at 7:30 p.m., Caldwell Dyson will join the Houston Chamber Choir right here in town at St. Philip Presbyterian Church for the Choir’s latest program This Sky. She will be present for an interview and a surprise collaboration as Artistic Director Designate Dr. Betsy Cook Weber leads the Choir in music that looks heavenward by composers like Heinrich Schütz, Carlos Cordero, and Johannes Brahms. The concert will also include a performance of Kile Smith’s “Consolation of Apollo,” a piece that utilizes text from Boethius as well as from the crew of Apollo 8. Tickets to the concert are available here for $10 to $45.
Asia Society Texas will present playwright Tazeen Zahida’s And the Clay Pot Speaketh, a musical based on the tragic folk love story of Sohni and Mahiwaal, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 16, as part of their Muslim Series. Zahida recently discussed the significance of the clay pot with the Houston Press, saying that the “clay pot was the main object in the story that signified this young girl’s love…The family of this girl were the ones who made the clay pots. She was very attached to this one clay pot, which she used to cross the river to meet her lover. And the clay pot never got to tell its story.” A second performance is scheduled for Sunday, November 17, at 2:30 p.m. Tickets for both performances are available here for $20.
The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future return to the Alley Theatre this holiday season to terrorize the curmudgeonly Ebenezer Scrooge into changing his miserly ways in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which will open on Sunday, November 17, at 6:30 p.m. Alley company member Dylan Godwin, who is playing Scrooge’s clerk Bob Cratchit for the third time, recently told the Houston Press that “Bob is kind of my favorite role in the show to play” and that, considering the Houston weather, it’s “amazing to come into a space and pretend you’re in London and it’s not 1,000 degrees.” Performances are scheduled at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and 6:30 p.m. Sundays through December 29. Tickets are available here for $28 to $84.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
