School may be back in session for many, but summer is still far from over – and the heat will certainly linger on even longer. But don’t worry, we’ve got plenty to suggest this week if you’re looking for something to do, especially if you’re looking for things of the indoors-and-air-conditioned variety. Keep reading for the Houston premiere of a festival circuit hit, a celebration of Houston’s local music scene, and much more.

In Mike Cheslik’s Hundreds of Beavers, the price of a young woman’s hand in marriage for a 19th-century applejack peddler-turned-trapper is beaver pelts and lots of them – and the beavers, like the rabbits and other forest-dwelling creatures in the film, are all played by actors in furry suits. The film is “more-or-less indescribable,” a mix of “live action with homespun animation in black-and-white, in the style of Buster Keaton and Chuck Jones’s Looney Tunes creations.” On Thursday, August 15, at 7 p.m., you can catch the “boldly bizarre, nearly wordless slapstick comedy” when the Friends of River Oaks Theatre brings the “dam fine movie” to the MATCH for its Houston premiere. The film will screen a second time at 9:15 p.m. Tickets to either screening can be purchased here for $17.

Ruth Brown recorded over a hundred songs for Atlantic Records, among them some of the first of the rock and roll era. Though she may not be as widely remembered as others, Brown ruled R&B for a time, and went on to win Tony and Grammy awards on her way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On Friday, August 16, at 7:30 p.m. you can learn more about Brown and hear her classic songs performed by Sheryl McCallum when Stages opens Miss Rhythm: The Legend of Ruth Brown, a cabaret-style show created by McCallum and David Nehls. Additional performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through October 13. Tickets are available here for $52 to $105.

The story of Draupadi, a princess in Hindu mythology and one of the great characters in the epic Mahabharata, will be dramatized in Incredible India: Krishnaa – Fire to Frost, produced by Indian Performing Arts Samskriti, at Miller Outdoor Theatre on Friday, August 16, at 8:30 p.m. The deity Krishna will act as the storyteller of the dance production, which will be performed by members of the Abhinava Dance Company. Tickets will be available for covered seating here today, August 15, starting at 10 a.m. Of course, you don’t need a ticket if you want to sit on the Hill. As always, shows at Miller are free. If you can’t make it, the performance will be livestreamed on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Celebrate our local music scene at Miller Outdoor Theatre on Saturday, August 17, at 8 p.m. during Miller Summer Mixtape ’24, their annual genre-spanning, evening-length concert. Leading the lineup are Kam Franklin, well known as the lead singer of Houston soul outfit The Suffers, and EZ Band, who have rose to prominence by turning pop songs into Spanglish norteñas. R&B performer Skyrah Bliss and singer-songwriter Shelby Ruger are also on the bill, as are DJ Kardiac and DJ Michele McKnight, whose colleagues from 90.9 FM The Vibe, Taylor Getwood and Marcus Sullivan, will co-host the show. You can reserve tickets for the free show here beginning at 10 a.m. on Friday, August 16, or you can plan to sit on the Hill, where no tickets are required.

The so-called “green border,” the forests that lie between Belarus and Poland, is the focus of Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, a film that’s been called “the best and most important film to be released in the U.S. so far this year.” The “formidable, furious masterpiece about the 2021 humanitarian crisis that unfolded in the exclusion zone between Poland and Belarus” is shot in black and white and told from different perspectives, including a multigenerational Syrian family fleeing ISIS, the guards ordered to control the migrants, and the activists attempting to help. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will show the film on Sunday, August 18, at 2 p.m. and again, next Sunday, August 25, at 2 p.m. Tickets to either screening can be purchased here for $7 to $9.

Poet Danez Smith, author of [insert] boy and Don’t Call Us Dead, returned this year with Bluff, their “excoriating” fourth collection of poetry in which they “painfully question their role as an artist in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after the murder of George Floyd, in their hometown Minneapolis-St Paul; along with the failures of liberal progressivism in terms of race, class, queerness and gender.” On Monday, August 19, at 7:30 p.m. Smith will join the 2022-23 Texas Poet Laureate Lupe Mendez for an on-stage conversation and reading from Bluff, followed by a book sale and signing, at the Alley Theatre as part of the 2024/2025 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. Tickets for the evening may be purchased here for $5.             

Sister is back at Stages because, apparently, the diocese thought it necessary to offer a summer school catechism course for those heathens among us who didn’t do their work during the school year. Yep, it’s Sister’s Summer School Catechism: God Never Takes a Vacation, the scripted-improv hybrid written by Maripat Donovan and Marc Silva, which will open at Stages for a limited run on Tuesday, August 20, at 7 p.m. Of course, Denise Fennell-Pasqualone will play Sister in the one-woman show, a role she has played in the Late Nite Catechism series for more than a decade at Stages. Performances will continue at 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday with 2 p.m. performances scheduled on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday through August 25. Tickets can be purchased here for $71 to $111.

Barbra Streisand ensured Fanny Brice, “the first crossover performer” of the 20th century, would be remembered through her portrayal of Brice in Funny Girl, both in the 1964 Broadway musical and its 1968 film version. On Tuesday, August 20, at 7:30 p.m. when Memorial Hermann Broadway at the Hobby Center will bring the Broadway revival of Funny Girl to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. The production's Nicky Arnstein, Stephen Mark Lukas, recently told the Houston Press Brice was "unwilling to take no for an answer," and redefined "what it means to be a comedian" and "a leading lady." Performances continue through August 25 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets can be purchased here for $35 to $190.