Mitchell J. Shields

Give the Houston Ballet credit for this: At the two recent performances of The Nutcracker that I saw, the children in the audience seemed to be having a marvelous time. When the mice fought the toy soldiers in the middle of the first act, they tittered in appreciation. When the...

Sitting in a small office in the University of Houston's Melcher Gymnasium, Robert Henry Johnson looks like a slightly naughty child. He's positioned himself on the floor next to a metal desk, and as a conversation gets under way he begins pulling at the sweatpants he's wearing, stretching them down...

You have to give Ben Stevenson points for courage. In premiering his new short ballet Eclipse, he could have stacked the program in its favor, scheduling some weaker pieces to go along with it so that his would shine in comparison. Instead, in the mixed repertory performance now being offered...

Wrap a Lot If you've been perusing such culinary journals as Restaurant Business, then you already know that the people who spend their lives trying to read the pulse of the public have declared that the food trend of the late '90s can be summed up in one word: wraps...

The first time I encountered a true Texas roadhouse was in the mid-'70s, during a grueling car trip from Atlanta to Los An-geles. Late into the afternoon of my bleary second day, I decided I had to have something to eat. My last sit-down meal had been at the Cafe...