One time change later, and it’s another week, another list of best bets. This week, we’ve got an immersive theater experience, a musical trip back to the Harlem Renaissance, and a celebration of Islamic arts. Keep reading for these and more events that got our pick for the best things to do this coming week.
Imagine a Major League Baseball player making a political protest on the biggest stage – Game 7 of the World Series – and you’ve got Gabriel Greene and Alex Levy’s Safe at Home, a 90-minute immersive production that the University of Houston’s School of Theatre & Dance will open tonight, Thursday, November 7, at 7 p.m. at Schroeder Park. Director Jack Reuler, who has directed every production of Safe at Home to date, recently told the Houston Press that though the play uses baseball as a metaphor, the immersive 90-minute production is “really a play about us, immigration policy, about Major League Baseball’s relationship to its players from other countries, our fascination with celebrity.” Performances will continue at 7 p.m. through Sunday, November 10. Tickets are available here for $15 to $20.
Delve into Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi’s eighth book of madrigals, published in 1638, during Ars Lyrica’s latest program, Madrigals of Love and War, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, November 8, at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Six singers – bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca, countertenor Michael Skarke, sopranos Amia Langer and Erica Schuller, and tenors Steven Brennfleck and Thomas O’Neill – will join eight musicians playing period instruments to perform a selection of Monteverdi’s part-songs, including one of his most famous works Lamento della Ninfa, as well as instrumental pieces from fellow Italians from the early Baroque period like Giovanni Paolo Cima and Bartolomeo Montalbano. Tickets to the in-person concert can be purchased here for $15 to $80, or you can stream the performance from home with a $20 digital ticket.
Step back in time to the Harlem Renaissance for a jazzy evening inspired by nightspots like the Cotton Club and Savoy Ballroom when the Houston Symphony presents It Don’t Mean a Thing: Swingin’ Uptown Classics with Byron Stripling at Jones Hall on Friday, November 8, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. Conductor, trumpeter, and singer Stripling will lead the Symphony, along with guests Carmen Bradford and Leo Manzari, in a program of jazz standards from artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway. The concert will also be performed on Saturday, November 9, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 10, at 2 p.m. In-hall tickets to any of the performances can be purchased here for $40 to $115. If you can’t make it, you can access a livestream of Saturday night’s show here for $20.
Spend time with five actresses, some of the first to be allowed to act publicly, in Restoration-era London on Friday, November 8, at 8 p.m. when Lionwoman Productions TX opens the Texas premiere of British playwright April De Angelis’s 1993 play Playhouse Creatures at the MATCH. De Angelis has said audiences “will be able to travel back in time watching this play and be in the company of these exciting actresses” and see what it may have been like “to have all that attention and be artists in the public eye” at a time “women were a bit seen and not heard.” Performances will continue through November 23 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and November 11, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, and 4:30 p.m. November 16. Tickets are available here for $17 to $40.
For the first time, the 11th Annual Islamic Arts Festival, a two-day celebration touted as the largest festival of Islamic arts in the country, will be held at the University of Houston starting this Saturday, November 9, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. In addition to more than 5,000 works of art on display, a variety of activities for children, and live demonstrations of calligraphy, henna, and ebru, this year, festivalgoers can attend a spoken word program, a film festival celebrating Muslim voices in cinema, a performance by the Spain-based Al-Firdaus Ensemble, and a Muslim comedy show. The festival continues on Sunday, November 10, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission to the festival is free, but a $15 ticket (or $45 VIP seating ticket) is needed to attend Saturday’s comedy show and performance by Al-Firdaus Ensemble.
Americans were formally introduced to now landmark anime series Cowboy Bebop, about a group of bounty hunters traveling through space in the year 2071, in September 2001 when Cartoon Network premiered Adult Swim, their new late-night programming block. The series, which ran for only one 26-episode season in Japan, has been described as a “1:1 mix of sci-fi western and film noir, steeped in American jazz and blues and framed by retro James Bond-meets-Blue Note credits” that “was guaranteed to spawn a reverent cult.” On Saturday, November 9, at 7:30 p.m., Asia Society Texas will celebrate its latest exhibit, “Space City: Art in the Age of Artemis,” with a series of space-themed anime films – the first being Cowboy Bebop: The Movie from 2001. Tickets for the 18-and-up screening can be purchased here for $12 to $15.
Celebrate the Latin American collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and be present for the unveiling of new sculptures by six local Latinx artists on Sunday, November 10, from 1 to 5 p.m. during the Myths and Leyendas Fall Festival in the museum’s Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza and the Cullen Sculpture Garden. The family-friendly festival will feature art activities, music and dance performances, plenty of food vendors, film screenings from the Houston Latino Film Festival, and a game of lotería. Admission to both the festival and general admission to the museum will be free all day, and you must reserve a ticket here. If you can’t make it, the sculptures – created by artists Loriana Espinel, Diana Gonzalez, Francisco Pereira, Jean Sandoval, Alma Soto, and Ashley Raquel Trejo – will remain on view through November 17.
Worlds collide over at the Wortham Theater Center on Tuesday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m. when Performing Arts Houston presents Vitamin String Quartet: The Music of Taylor Swift, Bridgerton, and Beyond. The ensemble has been releasing musical mashups since 1999 under CMH Label Group and was recently featured during episodes of Bridgerton. Leo Flynn, the co-creative director and brand manager at CMH Label Group, has said the hit show “on a massive scale has done in the TV space” what the quartet aims to do: “Bringing worlds together to show the commonalities, to show how much energy there is when we connect to things and each other.” There are a handful of seats left to see the concert – which promises music from artists like Billie Eilish and BTS, too – and you can purchase them here for $29 to $79.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
