It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and while we have some sweeter, more romantic options, we also have some counterprogramming for you Valentine’s Day grinches out there on this week’s list of best bets. Keep reading for Oscar-nominated documentary shorts, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and much more.
With the Academy Awards less than three weeks away, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is offering Houstonians the chance to view this year’s nominees for Best Documentary Short Film on Thursday, February 13, at 6 p.m. during 2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Films: Documentary. The five nominated films include Bill Morrison’s Incident, about the murder of Harith Augustus by the Chicago police in 2018; Smriti Mundhra’s I Am Ready, Warden, about the last days of Texas death row inmate John Henry Ramirez; and Kim A. Snyder’s Death by Numbers, which follows a survivor of the Parkland high school shooting. The short documentaries will be screened again at 6 p.m. on February 20 and 27, and 2 p.m. on February 22. Tickets to any of the screenings can be purchased here for $7 to $9.
There’s trouble in the back of the house in Theresa Rebeck’s play, Seared, which you can catch at the Alley Theatre on Thursday, February 13, at 7:30 p.m. Christopher Salazar, who plays Brooklyn chef Harry in the two-act play, recently told the Houston Press that his character is “hard-nosed; he’s stubborn; he’s passionate about food and the ingredients.” Because the play is set in a kitchen, Salazar says, “You’re going to get the smell of bacon and salmon and garlic and butter. Smells and sounds and sights.” Performances of the play, the seventh by Rebeck that the Alley has mounted, will continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through March 2. Tickets are available here for $61 to $80.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2000 romantic sports flick Love & Basketball, starring Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps and now celebrating its 25th anniversary, will lead off the third annual showcase of works from Black women filmmakers, Through the Lens of Black Women, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Friday, February 14, at 7 p.m. The weekend-long series will continue with screenings of Mati Diop’s 2024 documentary Dahomey, about the return of more than two dozen artifacts from French museums to Benin, and Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust, a drama set in the Gullah community on South Carolina at the turn of the century. Tickets to any of the screenings can be purchased here for $7 to $9.
Two brothers, Lincoln and Booth, seemingly destined by their names to be at odds, will take the stage on Friday, February 14, at 7:30 p.m. when 4th Wall Theatre Company opens Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play Topdog/Underdog at Spring Street Studios. Director Aaron Brown recently spoke to the Houston Press and described the play as “one of the great American plays,” saying that audiences will “see two brothers who are trying to cope with trauma that they never really got to heal from and now as adults do what traumatized adults do when they feel like they’re backed into a corner.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through March 15. Tickets to the show can be purchased here for $35 to $65.
Experience the world premiere of composer Roscoe Mitchell’s union of baroque instrumentation and modern jazz, The Metropolis Trilogy, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 14, when DACAMERA welcomes flutist Emi Ferguson, the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, and baroque band Ruckus to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. The three-movement work, co-commissioned by DACAMERA, will join a program that includes works from two composers of the late Baroque era, Georg Philipp Telemann and George Frideric Handel; Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, the first woman to compose an opera in France; and George Lewis, whose two-part, guided improvisation piece Artificial Life will be featured. Tickets are available here for $46 to $76.
The country music pantheon is blessed with classic duets, from artists like George Jones and Tammy Wynette to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and, of course, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. On Friday, February 14, at 7:30 p.m., you can celebrate Valentine’s Day at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts with Honky-Tonk Hearts, an acoustic performance highlighting these memorable collaborations starring Ben Hope and Katie Barton Hope. The married couple will not only sing the songs you know, they will also share their own anecdotes, contextualizing the music within their own lives and the country music landscape in an intimate, cabaret-style environment. The show will be performed a second time on Saturday, February 15, at 7 p.m. Tickets for either performance can be purchased here for $58 to $115.
If you’re in the mood for a little operatic Valentine’s Day counterprogramming, head over to see the Houston Symphony at Jones Hall as they present Duke Bluebeard’s Castle on Saturday, February 15, at 7:30 p.m. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova and baritone Gábor Bretz will sing the lead roles in Béla Bartók’s first opera, based on a Charles Perrault fairytale, which has been described as “a flawless, captivating drama and one of the seminal works of the 20th century.” The program will also include pieces from Sergei Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges, Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, and Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland. The show will also be performed a second time on Sunday, February 16, at 2 p.m. Tickets to either performance can be purchased here for $40 to $111.
2024 was a good year for Gaby Moreno. The singer-songwriter/producer took home the Grammy for best Latin pop album for her 2023 release X Mí (Vol. 1), a song from which – “Luna de Xelajú” – she notably performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon alongside actor Oscar Isaac in an homage to their Guatemalan roots a couple of months later. Fun fact: The woman who was also named the Best New Artist at the 2013 Latin Grammys also happens to be the co-writer of the Parks and Recreation theme song. On Saturday, February 15, at 7:30 p.m., you can see Moreno when she stops by the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts for a one-night-only engagement. Tickets to the performance can be purchased here for $40 to $65.
