Best Bets: Cry It Out, Viet Cultural Fest and Dover Quartet

Tomorrow may be Friday the 13th, but you won’t find anything unlucky if you check out any of this week’s best bets. From theater and music to a cultural festival at NRG Center, we’ve got a great variety for you this week, so keep reading for more.

Three new mothers navigate parenthood in playwright Molly Smith Metzler’s Cry It Out, which will open the season over at Mildred’s Umbrella on Thursday, September 12, at 8 p.m. The comedy is based on Metzler’s own experience as a new mom, and Metzler has said that the “point of the play is that what we do as women is lose-lose,” noting that after having a baby “everything changes and you don’t necessarily have choices, which is something I experienced and witnessed in some of my new friendships, and I really felt like that question belonged onstage.” Performances will continue at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays and September 28, at Spring Street Studios through September 28. Tickets are available here and are pay-what-you-can with a $10 minimum.

The folks over at Shabach Enterprise, who produce the Fade to Black Festival each year, will open The Flow: Fade to Black Monologue Series at the MATCH on Thursday, September 12, at 8 p.m. The evening-length program, returning for its third year, will incorporate music, poetry, and dance into a series of monologues by African-American playwrights from all around the country and even Kenya. Selections include “Why Are You Here” by Latrice P. Young (also known as Distinctly Unique), “The Last Words of Big Tony Wilson” by Louis Johnson, and “Ghetto Love” by Debbi Blackwell-Cook. Performances will continue at 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, and September 19, and 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through September 22. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $45 here or at the door for $55.

Houston Grand Opera’s popular Butler Studio Showcase, a spotlight on the talents currently training with the Sarah and Ernest Butler Houston Grand Opera Studio, will return to the Wortham Theater Center on Friday, September 13, at 7 p.m. During the intimate evening, the eleven artists of the 2024-25 class – baritone Navasard Hakobyan, bass-baritones Sam Dhobhany and Ziniu Zhao, mezzo-soprano Ani Kushyan, sopranos Alissa Goretsky and Elizabeth “Hanje,” and tenors Michael McDermott, Shawn Roth, and Demetrious Sampson, Jr., along with pianists/coaches Laura Bleakley and Jenny Choo – will perform staged, costumed scenes from operatic works like Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, Gaetano Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, Charles Gounod’s Faust, and Georges Bizet’s Carmen. Tickets can be purchased here for $20.

If you’re without plans this Friday the 13th, and you find yourself questioning whether or not tattooing is an art form, you’ll want to head over to Let It Bleed: A Tattoo Art Show on Friday, September 13, from 7 to 11 p.m. at Hardy & Nance Studios. The free, all-ages-welcome show, presented by Insomnia Gallery, will put the spotlight on artists who specialize in working on canvases of skin by hosting dozens of local artists, including professional tattoo artists. In addition to the art, you can expect music, movies, and onsite food trucks with Eureka Heights Brew Co, Bad Astronaut Brewing, Equal Parts Brewing, and City Orchard on hand to provide the free drinks. 

Legend has it that you can trace the origins of the Vietnamese people to a dragon prince, Lac Long Quan, and immortal princess, Au Co, who bore the prince 100 sons. The tale of the dragon lord and mountain fairy is the theme of this year’s Viet Cultural Fest, “Dragon and Fairy,” when the largest Vietnamese festival in the state of Texas returns on Saturday, September 14, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at NRG Center. The festival, presented by the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association, will feature cultural exhibitions from Vietnam’s North, Central, and South regions, as well as food vendors, a lantern parade, traditional games, contests (including pho eating and blind boba tasting), and more. Tickets can be purchased here for $10 (with children aged four and under getting in free).

On Houston-born jazz pianist James Francies’s second album, Purest Form, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts graduate’s roots appear on tracks like its single, “713,” and the Fourth Ward-inspired “Freedmen’s Town,” which features the speaking voice of Francies’s father, James Sr., with music by Francies’s trio. On Saturday, September 14, at 8 p.m., the Houston Jazz Collective will bring Francies and his trio, as well as Grammy-winning vocalist Bilal and the work of audiovisual artist Ben Heim, to Miller Outdoor Theatre as part of their “American Masters Series” for the Houston Jazz Festival. You can reserve free tickets under the covered seating starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, September 13, here, or you can sit on the Hill, which is also free and requires no ticket.

Mexicans and Mexican-Americans around the world traditionally gather the night before Mexican Independence Day to commemorate the country’s independence from Spain, symbolized by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla ringing his church’s bell, a patriotic cry to arms, in 1810. That moment is known as the Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores) due to its location, and you can join the celebration on Sunday, September 15, at 7:30 p.m. during El Grito at Miller featuring traditional ensemble Caña Dulce y Caña Brava, presented in partnership with the Consulate of Mexico in Houston. You can reserve a ticket for the covered seating here starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, September 14, or you can plan to sit on the Hill – no ticket required. As always, events at Miller Outdoor Theatre are free.

Chamber Music Houston will welcome the two-time Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet for its sixth performance for the organization at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 17, at Rice University’s Stude Concert Hall. The quartet, which includes three alumni from Rice’s Shepherd School of Music, will tackle a new piece by Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha’ Tate, who is part of the Chickasaw Nation, titled Abokkoli’ Taloowa’ (Woodland Songs). Chamber Music Houston co-commissioned the composition, which is comprised of five movements, each representing a traditional woodland animal – squirrel, bird, deer, fish, and raccoon – that lends its name to Chickasaw family clans. Alongside Tate’s work, the quartet will perform Antonín Dvořák’s American Quartet and Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2. Tickets are available here for $15 to $105.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.