Every blues song began with a broken heart. In Sheldon Epps’s musical review Blues in the Night, three scorned, broken-hearted women sing blues song after blues song. The show opened in New York in 1980 and since then has been a crowd-pleasing staple of regional theater.

The story is set in a flea-bitten Chicago hotel room in 1938. The three characters who live there are all women in love with the same no-good man. It’s hell for them, but heaven for the audience. There’s no spoken dialogue; instead, songs like “Dirty No-Gooder Blues” and “Rough and Ready Man,” made famous by Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter, respectively, tell the women’s down-and-out tales of love and woe. Previews start today. Opening night is June 23. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Through July 24. Ensemble Theatre, 3535 Main. For information, call 713‑520-0055 or visit www.ensemblehouston.com. $10 to $45.

Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m.; Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. Starts: June 18. Continues through July 24, 2011

This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2011.