From a classic 1995 alt rock album setting the stage for a musical to an enigmatic film with a traveling circus and stuffed whale, we can certainly promise a wide range of activities this coming week. Keep reading for the complete list of our best bets.

Experience 10 different 10-minute plays at Theatre Suburbia on Thursday, August 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the 31st Annual Scriptwriters/Houston 10x10 Ten Minute Play Festival. Leslie Barrera, the vice president of Scriptwriters/Houston and the festival’s artistic director, recently told the Houston Press that the plays cover a range of topics – from a historical fiction piece about Marilyn Monroe to a colonoscopy clinic-set meet-cute – but they all have “a strong character story,” adding that a play “can be an amazing set on stage, it can have amazing light design, but if those characters are not completely three dimensional and real to the audience then you’re just having someone stand on stage and read lines.” The festival continues at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, August 25, and Saturday, August 26. Tickets can be purchased here for $20 to $35.

Do you always find yourself longing for a musical theater category when you play Trivial Pursuit or watch Jeopardy? Does it just drive you crazy knowing how you’d clean up if you just had the chance? Well, on Thursday, August 24, at 8 p.m. at POST Houston you can put together a team and put your confidence in yourself to the test when the Houston Musical Theater Company hosts combines a roof-top performance of Broadway showtunes with a musical trivia night. Robby Black, Erin Clark, Daniel Lopez, Drew Prince, Sarah Watson and Natasha Wroblewski will perform, while audiences enjoy the music and compete for prizes (yes, there will be prizes for whoever is crowned musical theater expert). Tickets are available here for $28, and all seating will be reserved table seating assigned based on party size.

For thousands of years, humans have tattooed themselves. Tattoos appeared on mummies dating back to the ancient Egyptians, so if you have ink or are seriously considering it, you’ll be in long and storied company. On Friday, August 25, from 2 to 11 p.m. you can drink your fill of body art of all kinds at the World-Famous Tattoo and Body Art Expo Super Show 2023 at NRG Center. The expo will bring more than 250 tattoo artists to Houston, so if you’re ready to get one you definitely can. If you already have one, you can join a competition. Or, you can take in the sights and the freak show performances that are scheduled. The expo continues on Saturday, August 26, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday, August 27, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here for $25 to $55.
Werckmeister Harmonies is a black-and-white, two-hour Hungarian film about a circus traveling with a stuffed whale and shady troublemaker arriving in an unnamed European town at an unknown time in history. It’s also a “mesmerizing” parable from Béla Tarr about something – capitalism, anarchy, the state, societal decay – that will keep you glued to your seat if you make it through the first 20 or 30 minutes without walking out. You get your chance to see if you can make it through the film on Friday, August 25, at 7 p.m. when the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston screens the “enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance.” Additional screenings are scheduled for 5 p.m. on Saturday, August 26, and Sunday, August 27. Tickets can be purchased here (for any of the screenings) for $7 to $9.

Open Dance Project gives the tale of the boy who never grows up a new spin with aerial silks and a trapeze during their dance performance titled Peter & Wendy, which you can see on Friday, August 25, at 8 p.m. over at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The perfect-for-all-ages show, based on the work of J.M. Barrie, will feature music performed by Two Star Symphony. Tickets for reserved covered seating will be available here beginning at 10 a.m. today (Thursday, August 24), or you can bring a a blanket or lawn chair and plan for ticketless Hillside seating. If you can’t make it, the performance will be livestreamed, so you can also watch from home on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel or Facebook page.

On Saturday, August 26, at 8:30 p.m. the Apollo Chamber Players will make connections between composers and their mentors and influences during Trace of Time at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The free concert borrows its name from a specially commissioned piece by Grammy-winning composer and bandoneonist Hector Del Curto, who played in tango master Astor Piazzolla’s band as a teenager. Works by Piazzolla, Adolphus Hailstork and Julia Smith will also be played, and tango dancers Hugo Patyn and Celina Rotundo will also be featured. Tickets for reserved covered seating will be available here beginning at 10 a.m. Friday, August 25, or you can bring a a blanket or lawn chair and plan for ticketless Hillside seating. If you can’t make it, so you stream the performance from home on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel or Facebook page.
In 1995, Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill, an album that went on to define “the genre we know today as alternative rock.” And on Tuesday, August 29, at 7:30 p.m. Jagged Little Pill: The Musical comes to Theatre Under the Stars. Featuring more than 20 songs by Morissette arranged by Tom Kitt and a book by Diablo Cody, the show has been described as “the first jukebox musical to truly make sense of its genre,” as it is “joyful and redemptive,” with strength that “comes from the dead seriousness of its one presiding voice, filtered through characters who are more alike than their shame lets them know.” Performances continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays through September 10. Tickets can be purchased to any of the dates here for $40 to $145.