Best Bets: Houston Greek Film Festival, Birdy, and A Little Night Music

It’s National ‘Have a Bad Day’ Day, so be sure to wish your loved ones the worst as you head out the door to check out our best bets. This week, we have the return of a popular film festival, a deep dive into the life of a pioneering political figure, and quite possibly “the finest American play ever written,” according to Edward Albee. Keep reading for these and more.   

Writer-director Antonis Tsonis has described his 2024 film Brando With a Glass Eye, about a method actor who attempts armed robbery to make his dream of studying in New York come true, as “layered like a babushka doll with meta-narratives,” acknowledging it’s “bold, risky, maybe even strange.”  The film will open the Houston Greek Film Festival at 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, November 20, at the MATCH, marking the start of a weekend featuring ten films and almost a dozen shorts. The lineup includes 14 Gulf Coast premieres, three U.S. premieres, and one world premiere. Tickets to the individual screenings are available for $15, with a $30 reception-only ticket available, along with a 5-ticket pass for $60, and a VIP all-access pass for $90. The full schedule can be found here, and tickets can be purchased here.

The story of Barbara Jordan, Texas’ first Black state senator and the first Southern Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, began right here, in Houston’s Fifth Ward. On Friday, November 21, at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, you can learn more about the pioneer in Angela Lynn Tucker’s documentary The Inquisitor, named for the moniker Jordan earned for her questioning as a member of the House Judiciary Committee during President Richard Nixon’s 1974 Watergate hearings. Stay after the film for a discussion with special guests, including Tucker. Two additional screenings are scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday, November 22, and 2 p.m. Sunday, November 23. Tickets to any of the screenings can be purchased here for $7 to $9.

Contemporary dance, martial arts and tai chi, and Peking opera (the symbolic, stylized, and traditional Chinese performing art) come together in Lai Hung-Chung’s Birdy, a work set to electronic and Chinese classical music that will be performed by Hung Dance at the Wortham Theater Center on Friday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m. Lai founded the Taiwanese contemporary dance company, which is named for the Chinese word meaning “soar” – a theme that will also be at play in Birdy – in 2017, and Performing Arts Houston is bringing the ensemble to town as part of the Tudor Family Dance Series to make its Houston debut with the piece. Birdy will be performed a second time on Saturday, November 22, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets to either performance are available here for $44.85 to $79.35.

Visit Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, circa 1901 to 1913, to spend time with the Gibbs and Webb families in Thornton Wilder’s classic 1938 play Our Town, which 4th Wall Theatre Company will open at Spring Street Studios at Friday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m. Skyler Sinclair, who plays Emily Webb in the production, told the Houston Press the play is “almost like a magic trick,” saying that Wilder “lays everything out so beautifully,” resulting in a story that is “universal” and “transcends time.” Sinclair added that, “This play has a message that every human being needs to hear…It asks the audience if you could put a price on your most basic memory of life, what would that be.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through December 20. Tickets are available here for $40 to $70.

Taiwanese twin brothers and percussionists Jen-Ting and Jen-Yu Chien, known as Twincussion, will end their U.S. concert tour at Asia Society Texas Center on Friday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m. with Twincussion: ‘Twin Beats’ — Melodies and Rhythms From Taiwan. During the program, presented in partnership with Taiwan Academy, the instrumentalists will play a program that includes new arrangements of Taiwanese folk melodies, such as  “Dark Sky (Tian Hei Hei)” and “Longing for the Spring Breeze (Wang Chun Feng)”; a Taipei-flavored take on Wayne Siegel’s 42nd Street Rondo; George Frideric Handel’s Passacaglia, arranged by Johan Halvorsen; Tomasz Goliński’s Layered Elements, a piece commissioned by the brothers and premiered in 2018; and more. Tickets can be purchased here for $10 to $30.

Director Hal Prince famously described A Little Night Music, Stephen Sondheim’s adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, as “whipped cream with knives.” The Sweden-set musical, a romantic farce revolving around a pair of couples, premiered in 1973 and went on to win multiple Tony Awards, including Best Musical – as well as spawn the hit song “Send In the Clowns,” performed since by artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Grace Jones – and on Friday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m., you can see it when Opera in the Heights opens a production of the show at Lambert Hall. A Little Night Music will also be performed at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, November 22, and 2 p.m. Sunday, November 23. Tickets are available here for $35 to $85.

In Beautiful Princess Disorder, playwright Kathy Ng’s script specifies the play’s main character, Triangle Person, “to be wearing a very geometric, triangle-shaped head and a no-nonsense navy blue swimsuit” as they wait in “the parking lot of heaven” with other inhabitants – specifically, Mother Teresa and Tilikum, the orca with three fatalities to his name featured in the 2013 documentary Blackfish. You can meet these curious characters on Friday, November 21, at 8 p.m., when The Catastrophic Theatre world premieres Ng’s 75-minute, one-act at the MATCH. Additional performances of the play are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Monday, December 1; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through December 13. Tickets are pay-what-you-can with a suggested price of $40 and can be purchased here.

Step into the world of Jane Austen on Saturday, November 22, at 7:30 p.m., when Main Street Theater brings its holiday Pemberley play tradition back to the stage with the opening night of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley. Elizabeth Bennet’s sister, Kitty, and Mr. Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, share the spotlight in the “comedy of manners,” the third installment of Gunderson and Melcon’s Christmas at Pemberley series. Following Main Street’s 2023 production of the play, the Houston Press noted “few plays blend the antique with the new with such finesse, delicate touch, and laugh-out-loud repartee.” Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and November 26, and 3 p.m. Sundays through December 21 (with no performance on Thanksgiving Day). Tickets can be purchased here for $45 to $64.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.