This week starts with Laugh and Get Rich Day and ends with Valentine’s Day. We can help with two of those, but you’re going to have to work on getting rich on your own. Keep reading for our latest list of best bets, which include some sure to make you laugh and one Valentine’s Day suggestion if you’re still trying to find something to do.
Houston Contemporary Dance Company visits the historic Heights Ironworks to present their first immersive dance piece, The House, at 5 p.m. on Friday, February 9. Two famous women, Barbra Jordan and Harper Lee, are imagined as guests in the house in the work, created by guest choreographer Nao Kusuzaki. Kusuzaki recently told Houston CityBook that she was “inspired by the property, and how it’s being used today,” and she noted that the women at the center of the piece “were both strong women who realized their dreams and influenced society in terms of human and civil rights.” Additional performances are scheduled for Friday, February 9, at 9 p.m. and Saturday, February 10, at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. Tickets to the available performances can be purchased here for $35.
Experience one of the first surviving string quartets by a woman, Fanny Mendelssohn’s Quartet in E-flat Major, when DACAMERA welcomes the Elias Quartet back to town on Friday, February 9, at 7:30 p.m. for a performance at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. In addition to Mendelssohn’s quartet, the ensemble will play works by Johannes Brahms (with special guest Sarah Rothenberg, DACAMERA’s artistic director) and Igor Stravinsky. Tickets can be purchased here for $41 to $71. The celebration of Fanny Mendelssohn will continue later this month as DACAMERA and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston present the Houston premiere of Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn by filmmaker (and Fanny’s great-great-great granddaughter) Sheila Hayman on February 23, followed by a recital by pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason on February 24, which will include Fanny’s “Easter” Sonata, a lost work that was only acknowledged as hers in 2012.
Delve into community theater, literally a basement during auditions for an adult take on the story of The Three Little Pigs, in the Catastrophic Theatre’s production of Mickle Maher’s It Is Magic, opening on Friday, February 9, at 8 p.m. Tamarie Cooper, the co-artistic director of Catastrophic, recently told the Houston Press that as it is a Mickle Maher play, “there’s definitely going to be something a little strange and unexpected.” But, “if you’ve even been in a situation where you want something so desperately and someone else has the power of no,” then It Is Magic will be “pretty relatable.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Monday, February 26; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through March 2 at the MATCH. Tickets are pay-what-you-can (with a suggested price of $35) and can be purchased here.
Throughout its history, Texas has certainly seen some storms of the century, and Houston has, too (or, specifically, Houston’s saw a 50,000-year storm back during Hurricane Harvey). You can catch a fictional storm of the century descend on Devin, a woman already struggling mightily with day-to-day life, in the world premiere of local playwright Michael Weems’s latest play, End of the World, opening at 8 p.m. on Friday, February 9, at Cone Man Running Productions. Performances will continue at 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, February 12 and 22, and also at 4 p.m. on Sunday, February 18 through February 24 at Cone Man Running’s Studio, located in Suite 233 at 1824 Spring Street. Tickets are available here for $15 to $20.
The dragon is a “symbol of strength and power,” one “associated with good fortune, wisdom, success, protection and masculinity.” You can celebrate the Year of the Dragon on Saturday, February 10, 2024 from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. when Downtown Houston+ presents its Lunar New Year Festival & Night Market at Market Square Park. The festival will feature performances by Lee’s Golden Dragon, We8 Dance and Unity Lion Dance, and the night market boasts more than 30 local street food and art vendors. The event is free and open to the public, but you can purchase a lantern in advance here to decorate with your New Year’s resolutions. Also, if you register in advance here, you can receive a commemorative 2024 red envelope that may even result in a prize if you’re lucky enough to open it and find a gold coin.
An estranged mother and her 15-year-old daughter meet up for the first time in eight years to go on a cross-country road trip – an illegal one as mom doesn’t have custody – in the regional premiere of Quiara Alegría Hudes’s 26 Miles at Main Street Theater on Saturday, February 10, at 7:30 p.m. Rosarito Rodríguez-González, who plays the role of mom Beatriz, shared with the Houston Press that the play is “frenetic, hilarious and powerful,” and that she connects “on an emotional level as a mother, as the mother of a young child, as a divorced parent thinking about the what-ifs, thinking about what that relationship will be like in the future. The challenges of a teenager. The relationship between divorced parents. All of that.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through March 3. Tickets can be purchased here for $35 to $59.
Celebrate Black History Month and the 20th anniversary season of one of the city’s premier dance companies, Urban Souls Dance Company, on Saturday, February 10, at 7:30 p.m. when they present Souls of Black Houston at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. The founder and artistic director of Urban Souls Dance Company, Harrison Guy, recently spoke with the Houston Press and said that the decision to perform “Colored Carnegie,” a piece about the history of the first library in Houston open to African Americans, reflects a joyous and empowering approach to Black history, adding that “we’re coming from a perspective of how can we honor the truth about what happened and why there is a Black History Month, but also inspire each other and let these stories inspire us to do more.” Tickets to the program can be purchased here for $20 to $87.50.
It’s Valentine’s Day, but even a V-Day grinch can’t resist a terrific film, like Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset, which the Friends of River Oaks Theatre will present at the MATCH on Wednesday, February 14, at 6 p.m. Roger Ebert called the film, a sequel to Linklater’s 1995 film Before Sunrise, “a remarkable celebration of the fascination of good dialogue,” maybe because “the characters are older and wiser,” or “because they have more to lose (or win),” or because stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy handled the dialogue themselves. Doors open at 6 p.m. with InPrint poets busking (i.e. producing poems on demand) until 7 p.m. when singer-songwriter Sara Van Buskirk performs live. The film will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here for $17.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
