It’s National Financial Awareness Day, so definitely check those bank accounts before heading out to enjoy our picks for best bets. Below, you’ll find a cult classic film, local indie acts on the Miller Outdoor Theatre stage, and lawyers gone musical-comedy wild, so read on before making any plans for the week.
By the way, Monday, August 18, is also the start of Houston Theater Week, which means you can pick up buy-one-get-one-free tickets for any of almost 400 live performances throughout the 2025-2026 season. That includes theater, dance, opera and music – many of which you’re sure to see on a list like this over the coming year.
The trailer for the new Jordan Peele-produced football-themed horror film Him is currently buzzing around the internet and at the center is Marlon Wayans, who, according to his manager, turns in an “unhinged” performance as an aging quarterback. Still, the comedian comes from a family of comic royalty and is well known for making us laugh in projects like In Living Color, Scary Movie, and White Chicks, which he will do on Thursday, August 14, at 7:30 p.m. when Wayans stops in Houston for the first of eight shows at the Houston Improv. Multiple shows are already sold out, but there are still tickets remaining for Saturday, August 16, at 11:30 p.m. and Sunday, August 17, at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here, with a general admission table for two starting at $100 (not including fees).
Hairspray, John Waters’s 1988 film “about hair hoppers and segregation in ’60s Baltimore, has spawned a Broadway musical, a big-budget movie musical and a live TV adaptation,” with Waters even calling it his “most devious movie because it snuck in middle America.” Tonight, August 14, at 8 p.m., you can catch the film once again on the big screen over at River Oaks Theatre, but this time it’s part of their monthly Film Strip series. That means the screening will be hosted by burlesque performers Grimm and Ghoulia, headmistresses of The Sisterhood of Lili St. Cyr. The show will be interactive, so be ready to sing and quote along with the movie, and expect some surprise gags and performances. Tickets are available here for $21.
Kermit Oliver has been called “one of Texas’s most enigmatic artists,” a reclusive painter and retired postal worker who spent 30 years sketching “bold thematic scarves for Hermès that were so intricate and well researched that one design could take a year to complete.” To this day, he remains the only American to have designed scarves for Hermès. On Friday, August 15, at 7 p.m., you can learn more about Oliver when the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, shows Christopher Charles Scott’s new documentary, A Portrait of a Postman. The film will be screened again at 7 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, August 17. All three screenings will be followed by a discussion with Scott and special guests, and tickets to any can be purchased here for $7 to $9.
Miller Outdoor Theatre will become a time machine on Friday, August 15, at 8 p.m., when Classic Replay Presents…90’s Mixtape. Performers on tap to bring the 90s music scene to life include Katrina Rose Dideriksen, who has played lead in Hairspray and appeared on The Voice; Trista Dollison, who last appeared in A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical; Jimmy Brewer, who fronts the New York City-based band Sample Size alongside his stage work; and Demarius Copes, who has been on Broadway in shows like Some Like It Hot and Mean Girls. Like all performances at Miller, the show is free, and you can reserve a ticket in the covered area here starting at 10 a.m. today, Thursday, August 14, or you can plan to sit on the Hill, where no ticket is required.
The 5th Annual Miller Summer Mixtape, a concert highlighting local indie acts, returns to the Miller Outdoor Theatre stage on Saturday, August 16, at 8 p.m. Alex Middleton of 94.5 The Buzz will host, with this year’s lineup featuring Astro Inn, who got a lot of attention with “Aphrodisiaddict” back in 2021; Astralace, an indie-pop quartet with a new release coming in September; and Vortxz, a Latino alt rock-flavored three-piece from southeast Houston. Another local, DJ Mohawk Steve, will also be on hand to keep the party going. The performance is free, and you can reserve a ticket here starting at 10 a.m. Friday, August 15, or you can plan to sit on the Hill, where no ticket is required. If you can’t make it out to Miller, the concert will be livestreamed on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel, and Facebook page.
If you like spending time in the worlds created by Stephen King, it’s probably a good year for you. By the time 2025 draws to a close, King’s work will have made it to the big screen four more times and a new anthology, The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand, will be available on bookshelves. Two of the authors who contributed to the anthology, Joe R. Lansdale and Bev Vincent, will be stopping by Murder by the Book on Tuesday, August 19, at 6:30 p.m. for a free in-store talk and book signing, with Lansdale also signing his soon-to-be-released latest novel, Hatchet Girls. Note that if you do want a book signed, it must be purchased from Murder By The Book, but you can find more information here.
Life of Pi, Yann Martel’s best-selling novel turned Ang Lee-directed film and now stage play, about a shipwrecked teenager trying to survive on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger, will come to town on Tuesday, August 19, at 7:30 p.m. courtesy of Memorial Hermann Broadway at the Hobby Center. Jon Hoche, the associate puppetry and movement director for the production, has said that the show “has all the grandiose epic scale of a big budget musical, but at the same time has all the heart and pathos of a kitchen sink drama. So really, you’re getting the entire gamut of a theatrical experience, along with incredible puppetry.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday through August 24. Tickets are available here for $53.25 to $252.81.
Night Court, Houston’s own musical comedy theater troupe made up of lawyers, judges, and city officials, is back on Wednesday, August 20, at 7:30 p.m. with an all-new, original show titled Law’s Anatomy at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. The troupe has been producing their own musical comedies for more than 30 years, with this year’s set in the fictional Houston Hope Hospital, where a series of hijinks show that lawyers and doctors have more in common than we think. Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, August 21, through Saturday, August 23. Tickets for any of the performances can be purchased here for $45 to $49, with proceeds going to a variety of charities that provide free legal services, including Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse (AVDA), The Children’s Assessment Center, and Houston Volunteer Lawyers.
