Welcome to the month of August! Yes, it’s another month, but one thing you can always count on is Houston’s arts organizations having your back. This week, we got new and new-to-Houston stage productions, Cirque du Soleil going country, and the return of the Houston Shakespeare Festival – among other things. Keep reading for these and our other picks for this week’s best bets.
You’ve seen Georgina Treviño’s work adorn the ears of Beyoncé and the face of Bad Bunny, among many other celebrities. You can now find the “Ms. Honey” door-knocker earrings and the bling-ed out mask in “La Fuente del Deseo,” a solo exhibition of Treviño’s work currently on view at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. On Thursday, August 1, at 6:15 p.m. the museum will welcome Treviño and – in a nod to the norteño culture that’s so influenced Treviño’s work – Las Fenix, an all-female norteño band made up of five sisters from right here in Houston, for a special one-night outdoor event. The evening, which includes opportunities to meet Treviño and buy customized exhibition merchandise, will begin with a reception before the 7 p.m. musical performance. Admission to the event is free.
We are in the midst of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Spotlight on Japanese Cinema, which is a series of films presented in conjunction with the museum’s exhibit “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan,” and on Thursday, August 1, at 7 p.m. you can catch the latest movie from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Evil Does Not Exist. The “mesmerizing” film, set in a rural Japanese village threatened by outsiders who want to turn it into a glamping destination spot, is part “ecological parable, pitting townsfolk against corporate developers” and part “realist film teetering on the edge of the uncanny.” Evil Does Not Exist will screen an additional two times at 7 p.m. Friday, August 2, and Saturday, August 3. Tickets to any of the three screenings can be purchased here for $7 to $9.
If a union between the acrobatics and aerial work Cirque du Soleil is known for and the music of country superstars like Hank Williams and The Chicks is just what you’ve been waiting for, head over to Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land Friday, August 2, at 7 p.m. for Cirque du Soleil: Songblazers – A Journey into Country Music. The theatrical production follows two characters trying to make it big with a soundtrack that includes hits from artists like Shania Twain, Billy Ray Cyrus, and even Toby Keith, whose “Red Solo Cup” gets a very Cirque-like cup-flipping routine. Additional performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays; 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturdays; and 1 and 5 p.m. Sundays through August 11. Tickets are available here for $64 to $152.
Houston Shakespeare Festival brings the Bard’s two most popular (i.e. staged) plays to the Miller Outdoor Theatre this week in honor of the festival’s golden anniversary: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo & Juliet. The shows will be played in repertoire, with the magical mischief of A Midsummer Night’s Dream set to play at 8:15 p.m. on Thursday, August 1; Saturday, August 3; Monday, August 5; Wednesday, August 7; and Friday, August 9; and the star-crossed lovers, Romeo & Juliet, taking the stage at 8:15 p.m. on Friday, August 2; Tuesday, August 6; Thursday, August 8; and Saturday, August 10. You can learn more about each play during the pre-show Bard Talks scheduled at 7:45 p.m. before each performance. As with all shows at Miller, admission is free. You can reserve tickets here or sit on the Hill (where no ticket is required).
If you can’t make it out to Miller Outdoor Theatre or would just like to enjoy William Shakespeare from the comforts of home, Romeo & Juliet will be livestreamed on Friday, August 2, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Friday, August 9, on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel or Facebook page.
You can appreciate the beauty of analog film and photography – such as super 8mm, 16mm and VHS – on Friday, August 6, at 7 p.m. when Houston Cinema Arts Society and FLATS host an hourlong tribute dedicated to analog at The DeLUXE Theater called Admit One: Analog Film Showcase. The films that will be screened are from artists from across the state of Texas and touch on various subjects, including a siren’s call to a fisherman in Coney Island, a gas station during a graveyard shift, and even a music video made before the song. Doors will open at 6 p.m. for the showcase at 7 p.m. If you can’t make it, a second showing will start at 9 p.m. Between screenings, you can also enjoy a photography exhibition. Tickets can be purchased here for $10.
Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne met in 1850 and spent more than a year living only a mile apart in the Berkshires, which just happened to be the time Melville was working on Moby Dick. Though their friendship may be well known, the true depth of their relationship is not. On Friday, August 2, at 7:30 p.m. Thunderclap Productions will open the world premiere of Adi Teodoru’s Melville & Hawthorne, a fact-based play that attempts to fill in the gaps of their relationship, at the MATCH. Performances of the play, part of the company’s John Steven Kellett Memorial Series of LGBTQ+ works, are scheduled through August 10 at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and August 3, 5 and 8; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, August 4; and 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 10. Tickets can be purchased here for $15 to $25.
On Friday, August 2, at 8 p.m. The Garden Theatre and The Sankofa Collective will open a co-production of The Color Purple, the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name about a Black woman named Celie living in Georgia in the 1900s, at the MATCH. Alric Davis, the founding artistic director of The Sankofa Collective and co-director of the production, recently told the Houston Press that the story “is an American epic, a Southern gothic epic, but what I think resonates with people is the journey of Celie,” adding that with “all of the things she goes through, she’s almost like Atlas. She’s like Job in the Bible.” Performances are also scheduled for 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, August 3, and 2 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, August 4. Tickets are available here for $25 to $35.
August Wilson is well-known for his American Century Cycle, a series of 10 plays set across every decade of the 20th century about the Black American experience. You can celebrate the iconic American playwright on Sunday, August 4, from 4 to 8:30 p.m. during August Wilson in the Park at Emancipation Park in the Third Ward. The festivities during this community event, from The Black Power Arts Celebration & ShaWanna Renee Rivon, will include music from local artists and a DJ, food trucks, vendors, a back-to-school drive and, of course, a stage production of one of the plays from Wilson’s cycle at 6 p.m.: Seven Guitars, which is set during the 1940s. Admission is free and you can join the waitlist here.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
