It’s National Reward Yourself Day, and if you’re looking for ways to reward yourself, consider checking out something on our list of best bets. This week, we’ve got a weekend of funny films from France, ballet at an outdoor theatre, and a classic film’s 100th birthday. Keep reading for these and more below.
In Eboni Booth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning one-act play Primary Trust – which you can catch tonight, Thursday, May 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the Alley Theatre – a man nearing 40 and recently laid off begins to reexamine his life with unexpected results. Stanley Andrew Jackson, who plays Kenneth in the production, described the play to the Houston Press as “a beautiful love letter to becoming,” adding that the play tells “a very needed story especially in a time when there’s so much division. This story is really about connection and the importance of seeing people and allowing ourselves to be seen.” 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 p.m. Sundays through May 25. Tickets can be purchased here for $53 to $61.
The iconic French comedy duo of Louis de Funès and Bourvil will open Five Funny French Films at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on Friday, May 9, at 7 p.m. with a screening of their film Don’t Look Now … We’re Being Shot At! The World War II-set film, which finds the pair trying to help British airmen in occupied France, will lead off a lineup of films that includes the U.S. premiere of Max Mauroux’s Almost Legal; Open Season, about a Parisian family who move to the country only to find their home is on hunting grounds; the family-friendly Chicken for Linda!; and The Art of Nothing – for mature audiences only. Tickets for individual screenings can be purchased here for $8 to $10.
If you’re a fan of The Righteous Gemstones – which just went “straight to TV-comedy heaven” – then you’ll probably recognize actor Troy Hogan, who you can see Friday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. when The Ensemble Theatre opens Melda Beaty’s Coconut Cake, a play about a group of retirees after the arrival of an unknown woman with a certain dessert. Hogan told the Houston Press the play is about “Male, Black life. And all the intricacies of it, especially our relationships to our mates, our relationships to our daughters, to our church and church family, relationships to our community. And Black friendship.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays through June 1. Tickets are available here for $40 to $50.
Venezuelan trumpeter Pacho Flores will visit Jones Hall on Friday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. to play two concertos, Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño and Paquito D’Rivera’s Concerto Venezolano, with the Houston Symphony during Trumpet Brilliance & Boléro. Conductor Domingo Hindoyan will also lead the orchestra in several Spanish-inspired works, including Claude Debussy’s Ibéria, Roberto Sierra’s Alegría, and Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, which caused a “near-riot at the first performance” in 1928. The concert will be performed again on Saturday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 11, at 2 p.m. Tickets to the in-hall performances can be purchased here for $40 to $129. Saturday night’s show will also be livestreamed, and access to the stream can be purchased here for $20.
Houston Ballet will take a break from preparing for the world premiere of Artistic Director Stanton Welch’s Raymonda – set to open on Thursday, May 29 – to present Ballet Under The Stars, a two-night engagement at Miller Outdoor Theatre starting on Friday, May 9, at 8 p.m. The mixed repertory program will feature shorter ballets and excerpts from well-known shows pulled from the past 21 years. Like all performances at Miller, the show is free, and you can reserve a ticket here beginning at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 8, or you can nab a seat on the no-ticket-required Hill. Houston Ballet will perform a second time on Saturday, May 10, at 8 p.m., with ticket reservations opening here on Friday, May 9, at 10 a.m.
In his lifetime, Johann Sebastian Bach composed hundreds of cantatas, more than 200 of which survive to this day. On Saturday, May 10, at 3 p.m., Bach Society Houston will present three at Christ the King Lutheran Church along with soprano Renée Rybolt and baritone Drew Santini during Solo Cantatas. The cantatas that the ensemble and soloists will perform during the afternoon concert include Der Friede sei mit dir (BWV 158), noted as one of the composer’s shortest cantatas, and Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (BWV 51), one of Bach’s most popular and “one of only four religious cantatas by Bach for a solo soprano.” Donation-based tickets are available here with a suggested price of $10 (for students) and $35 (for general admission).
Howard Hanson set poetry by Walt Whitman to music for “Song of Democracy,” and you can hear the world premiere of Houston composer Mark Buller’s arrangement of the choral work on Saturday, May 10, at 7 p.m. at Holocaust Museum Houston (HMH) when the Apollo Chamber Players close their season with FREEDOM. The ensemble, in partnership with HMH and Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, will present a program that pairs the piece with the world premiere of Marcus Maroney’s The Color Blue and the Texas premiere of Juan Pablo Contreras’s Voladores de Papantla. Tickets can be purchased here for $10. A second performance is scheduled for Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. at Unity of Houston. Tickets to the Sunday program are available here for $10 to $35.
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera – the 1925 silent film version starring Lon “The Man of a Thousand Faces” Chaney – on Saturday, May 10, at 7 p.m. when Austin’s own The Invincible Czars stop by River Oaks Theatre to play live alongside the film on a big screen. The five musicians, currently touring North America for the film’s centennial, will provide an all-new soundtrack to the film, “the first of the many” based on Le fantôme de l’Opéra by Gaston Leroux, which retains “a creepy, undeniable power” with “Chaney’s awe-inspiring combination of horrific makeup, subtle yet emphatic acting, and personal identification with the tormented Erik” remaining “unmatched” to this day. Tickets to the screening can be purchased here for $26.
