It’s National Bring Someone Flowers Day, and may we suggest bringing said flowers to your special someone before heading out to see one of our picks for best bets. This week, we’ve got an Oscar-winning film, disco at Jones Hall, and the regional premiere of a play-turned-Netflix-series. Keep reading for these and more.
Garrett Smith, the Utah-born resident choreographer for Vitacca Ballet, has danced for Houston Ballet, created and staged work around the world and even for Netflix, and on Thursday, May 15, at 7:30 p.m., you can see an evening-length program dedicated to his particular brand of contemporary ballet at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts during Smith Works. The program promises a world premiere as well as the return of audience favorites, including Somewhat Closer, After Silence, and Hypnotic Forces, a work named one of Pointe Magazine’s “12 Standout Performances of 2023.” The program will be performed a second time on Friday, May 16, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets to either performance can be purchased here for $20 to $50.
The Bard’s comedic classic about love and mistaken identities in Illyria is coming to the MATCH on Thursday, May 15, at 7:30 p.m. when Zoom Shakespeare Productions opens William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Though the company launched their online-only shows during the pandemic, they’ve since moved to in-person productions, with its 70’s-flavored Twelfth Night marking its fifth in-person show. Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Fridays, and Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sunday through May 24. Tickets are available here for $15 to $30, with a pay-what-you-can performance scheduled for Thursday, May 22.
You can catch the film that took home both the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Oscar for Best Picture (among five Oscars total) in 35mm when the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston screens Anora on Friday, May 16, at 7 p.m. Sean Baker’s film – about a sex worker who, briefly, gets to experience a Cinderella story – has been described as “both thrilling and heartbreaking, both boisterous and shatteringly sad,” and “nothing short of pure movie magic” that can “make you giggle and inexplicably tear up on repeat (sometimes within the same sequence).” The film will be screened again at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 17, and 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 18. Tickets to any of the screenings can be purchased here for $7 to $9.
Whoever thinks disco is dead will want to make their way to Jones Hall on Friday, May 16, at 7:30 p.m. when the Houston Symphony revives the era of bellbottoms, 8-tracks, and Pet Rocks during Stayin’ Alive: The Bee Gees & Beyond. Conductor Steven Reineke will lead the orchestra and Rajaton, a Finnish a cappella group, in a set of disco hits including, of course, the Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb classic “Stayin’ Alive.” The concert will be performed again on Saturday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. Tickets to the in-hall performances can be purchased here for $61 to $162. Saturday night’s show will also be livestreamed, with access to the stream available for purchase here for $20.
Unexplained bugs begin appearing and infesting the lives of a lonely waitress and a paranoid drifter in an Oklahoma City motel room in Tracy Letts’s 1996 play Bug, which Dirt Dogs Theatre Co. will open on Friday, May 16, at 8 p.m. at the MATCH. Co-director of the production Curtis Barber, who also acts in the play, told Broadway World Houston that Bug is “a dark love story. It’s about ache. But it’s also about the infectiousness of paranoia, which is so interesting and interestingly prescient.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Monday, May 19; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2 p.m. Sundays through May 31. Tickets can be purchased here for $30, with pay-what-you-can tickets available for Sunday and Monday performances.
Apsaras Arts Dance Company, an Indian dance company from Singapore founded in 1977, will explore the significance of rice and how it ties together communities across Asia in Arisi – Grains of Rice, a multidisciplinary dance production produced by Indian Performing Arts Samskriti at Miller Outdoor Theatre on Friday, May 16, at 8:30 p.m. The performance, a collection of vignettes focused on significant life moments with one thing in common – rice – will feature Bharatanatyam and Balinese dance set to music made with Indian and Chinese instruments. The show is free, like all performances at Miller, and you can reserve a ticket in the covered seating area here beginning at 10 a.m. today, Thursday, May 15, or you can find a spot on the Hill – no ticket required.
Step behind the counter of the Kim family’s Toronto convenience store in Ins Choi’s Kim’s Convenience, which will make its regional premiere at Main Street Theater on Saturday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. Choi has described his play, which became a popular Netflix series in 2016, as his “love letter to my parents and to all first-generation immigrants who have made the country they’ve settled in their home,” adding that he hopes “it serves as a reminder that there’s a whole life behind someone working behind the counter at a convenience store – a life full of dignity, joy and dreams.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through June 15. Tickets can be purchased here for $45 to $64.
Before Hamilton, the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical was In the Heights, which Theatre Under the Stars will open at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 20, at Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Lamont Walker II, who plays Benny in the production, recently told the Houston Press that, aside from Miranda’s “incredible” music, he attributes the show’s popularity to how “it resonates with everybody across culture, across language. Everybody can see themselves in it, their own communities, their own families, their own struggles. Everybody knows what it’s like to have lost someone. Or hungry for something or building something for yourself.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays through June 1. Tickets can be purchased here for $45 to $165.
