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    Feed me all night long

    UH scares up a marvelously monstrous musical classic starring a scene-stealing killer plant

    Holly Beretto
    May 24, 2022 | 1:20 pm
    Audrey II (center) is Little Shop of Horrors' show-stealing, murderous plant.
    Audrey II (center) is Little Shop of Horrors' show-stealing, murderous plant.
    Photo courtesy of University of Houston

    In a first-ever, full-scale collaboration between the University of Houston's students and faculty from its Moores School of Music and the School of Theatre & Dance, the university presents the beloved musical Little Shop of Horrors. The show features UH students on stage, in the orchestra pit, and backstage.

     

    The delightfully macabre and positively peppy tale of a giant, murderous plant runs May 27-May 29 at UH's Moores Opera House. Tickets are available now.

     

    "Our priority is training students," Andrew Davis, dean of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, which includes the Moores School of Music and the School of Theatre & Dance, tells CultureMap. "We have beautiful facilities, including the Moores Opera House, where the show will be staged. Everyone involved with the production — the actors, the singers, the designers, the musicians in the pit — are all UH students. This is an incredible effort for everyone involved. And it's a great opportunity for our students."

     

     Little Shop, based on the 1960 cult film The Little Shop of Horrors, is the story of a hapless florist named Seymour, madly in love with shop girl Audrey and thoroughly mistreated by his boss.

     

    One day, he engineers a plant that he names Audrey II. The sweet gesture turns gruesome: the plant feeds on flesh and blood...and the more it gets, the more it wants.

     

    With a book and music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman — the dynamic duo behind a string of Disney mega-musical hits including The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast — the musical opened Off-Off Broadway in 1982. In the 40 years since, it's had runs Off-Broadway, on Broadway, on national tours, and all around the world.

     

    Here in Houston, the theater kids from St. Thomas High School mounted a production last month, including students from Incarnate Word Academy and Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in the cast. In 1986, it was adapted for the big screen with a cast featuring Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, and Bill Murray.

     

    Among its catchy tunes are the instantly recognizable "Somewhere That's Green," "Suddenly Seymour," "Skid Row" and the doo-wop-infused title track "Little Shop of Horrors." In other words: the show's a crowd pleaser.

     

    "We're excited to do it," says Davis. "We looked at many shows and decided that in size and scope, this was absolutely right for us. We didn't want something obscure and we did want something that offered the right roles for our students, and had a broad appeal."

     

    But there's more in this for the Coogs than just putting on a show audiences will love. Little Shop marks the university's first stage musical in more than 30 years, according to Davis.

     

    While the university has staged productions in the past, in recent decades, the school's focus as been on both classical music and classical drama training; think opera and Shakespeare. Somehow, Davis notes, Broadway musical training fell by the wayside. 

     

     Little Shop opens up not only a renewed sense of collaboration between Moores School of Music and the School of Theatre & Dance.

     

    "Students come to us from here in Houston, from around the state, from around the country. We want to ensure they have a strong foundation across all of the performing arts," David adds. "And when you look at the arts in Houston, there are opportunities for actors and musicians and designers. We want our students to graduate from our program and be able to stay in Houston, knowing they can make a living doing what they love. All of us in Houston have a role to play in setting up and maintaining our arts ecosystem."

     

    Davis' commitment to his school and its students is evident in his enthusiasm for the project. And while those involved in this production of Little Shop are delighted for the opportunities it presents to its students, they're also looking forward to what it means for audiences, and they're banking on the idea that theatergoers will see UH as a producer of incredible work.

     

    "I think our audience is going to be surprised to see this type of show in the Moores Opera House," says director Nicole Kenley-Miller, of the Moores Opera House. "The space is typically used for concerts and operas, but we are going to test the boundaries of what the space can do in terms of scenery, lighting and sound design."

     

    Essential to any design for Little Shop is Audrey II, that flesh-eating plant imploring Seymour to "feed me all night long." The plant, and several other puppets, feature prominently in the production. For UH's outing, Afsaneh Aayani, who earned her MFA in scenic design from UH, takes the lead, with the Alley Theatre's Tony Award-nominated Kevin Rigdon serving as advisor. Aayani has already an acclaimed young designer, with a 2020 USITT Scenic Design Award under her belt.

     

    "The plant will provide a big surprise at the end!” Kenley-Miller exclaims.

     

    Audiences can also look forward to seeing up-and-coming talent on the UH stage. The Cougars already have a long track record of producing great actors, native Houstonians Brent Spiner of Star Trek fame and Jim Parsons of Broadway and The Big Bang Theory among them. It's also an opportunity to see how collaboration happens across the university.

     

    Fair to say, then, that audiences will be eating this up.

     

    ---

     

    Little Shop of Horrors runs Friday, May 27 at 7:30 pm; Saturday, May 28 at 2 and 7:30 pm; and Sunday, May 29 at 2 pm. Tickets for the general public are $30 and $25 for UH alumni, students, faculty, and staff (and seniors). Buy tickets online.

    Audrey II (center) is Little Shop of Horrors' show-stealing, murderous plant.

    Little Shop of Horrors UH musical
      
    Photo courtesy of University of Houston
    Audrey II (center) is Little Shop of Horrors' show-stealing, murderous plant.
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    Best July Art

    Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

    Tarra Gaines
    Jul 9, 2025 | 4:30 pm
    ​Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
    Photo courtesy of Artechouse
    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"

    Art blooms in our world class museums but also on our city streets this July. From exhibitions featuring traditional paintings and sculptures to high tech immersive and interactive shows, we’re weaving art into the best of summertime fun and dreaming up beautiful new artistic creations all over Houston.

    “Town Meeting 1978-2028” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Pioneering Houston-based interdisciplinary artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin continue their decades-long project to create new and sometimes monumental artworks in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories. For this latest exhibition, the duo explore a more recent and influential piece of Houston history, “Town Meeting I,” the pivotal convening of 4,000 LGBTQIA+ Houstonians at the Astro Arena in 1978. For this show at Art League, they’ve used their “wind drawing” technique of stenciling unfixed charcoal powder on paper and blowing it away, leaving a ghost-image. Using archival images of “Town Meeting I” as the bases of their stenciling, the finished “wind drawings” highlight the ephemerality, beauty, and loss of queer histories. In addition to these new works, Vaughan and Margolin hope to inspire, facilitate, and develop programming in 2028 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Town Meeting 1.”

    “Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé (Fragments of a Dream I Also Dreamed)" at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    “Every house is a body, and every individual body is a house full of memories and hopes,” says award-winning Venezuela born, Chicago-based artist, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, of her artistic focus. Molina’s fragmented, layered, and figural compositions explore that idea of home and memories. Delving into memories and stories, these figurative compositions, depicting people and relationships, fluctuate between stories of the present, past, and future. Taken together, the works in “Fragmentos de un sueño” aim to visually capture the feelings of vulnerability, nostalgia, and hope embedded in the experience of many immigrants. Art League notes that Molina’s pieces emphasize optimism over hardship, specifically addressing the longing for a home that no longer exists while striving to create a new one.

    “Every Fiber of Their Bodies” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Working with natural fibers such as linen, paper collage, and hand-spun paper yarn made from calligraphy paper and book pages, textile artist Lin Qiqing weaves stories ofhuman relationships, gender, immigration, and language. As the title hints, the labor-intensive weaving process brings thematic depth to the images of bodies depicted in the pieces. The woven pieces also make connections to the natural world, as when Lin crumples then smooths handmade mulberry paper to resemble human skin, or when she uses handwoven fiber to mimic the body’s movement. Lin process includes research and experimenting with natural materials to explore themes of the internal human struggle for existence and our interactions with the world around us.

    “Annual Juried Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through July 31)
    For the 17th year, the artist owned Archway Gallery celebrates Houston artists with its juried exhibition of area artists who are not members of the space. This year’s exhibition is juried by Project Row Houses founder and MacArthur "genius" fellow, Rick Lowe. The acclaimed artist and social activist has selected work from over 35 area artists representing a diversity of medium and styles. Sales from the exhibition will go to Houston’s Brave Little Company, the theater company for Houston’s kids and their gown ups.

    “Foyer Installation: René Magritte” at Menil Collection (now through August 3)
    After a critically acclaimed trip to Australia, some of our favorite Belgian-born Houstonians are back home. Yes, the Magritte paintings have returned to the Menil Collection after taking a star turn in a monumental Magritte retrospective at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now the Menil is celebrating their return with a special installation in the main building foyer. The Menil Collection owns the largest collection of work by René Magritte outside the artist’s native Belgium, and this display focuses on a core group of paintings from the 1950s and ’60s that truly represent Magritte’s status as a master creator of impossible painted worlds and an icon of the Surrealist movement. The paintings were purchased within a couple years of their making by the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil. They represent and important part of 20th century art history, as the de Menils became Magritte’s biggest champions in the United States, helping to shape the artist’s reception and reputation in the postwar American art world. Stop by to welcome them home and slip into their enigmatic wonder.

    “Blooming Wonders” at Artechouse (now through September)
    The latest immersive exhibition from the Houston venue that brings art, science, and technology home together, Artechouse, lets the flowers blossom. The exhibition contains several dynamic installations, including “Timeless Butterflies,” a 270 degrees projection space that puts visitors in the middle of a butterfly cloud. Audiences journey with a flock of butterflies into an immense garden of flowers. Another immersive piece, “Infinite Blooms” takes audiences on a journey through an endless digital forest of cherry blossoms. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” by Interactive Items / Vadim Mirgorodskii invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program. Note that “Blooming Wonders” runs simultaneously with the rock ‘n’ roll exhibition, “Amplified” with “Wonders” open during the daytime.

    “Weci | Koninut” at Avenida Houston (now through September 1)
    Houston is a place for big dreams, and this wondrous outdoor exhibition near George R. Brown Convention Center gives us the space to do so. Created by First Nations artists Julie-Christina Picher and Dave Jenniss, this interactive installation weaves together visual arts, Indigenous storytelling and sensory technologies in the form of six immense sculptural dreamcatchers. Each of these dreamcatchers are unique and represent one of the six seasons from the Atikamekw culture, an Indigenous people in Canada. Activated by people passing by, the dreamcatchers come to life with lights, sounds, and story, making the whole installation truly interactive. “Weci | Koninut” creators say that they want the installation to offer a total immersion experience for visitors, to create a moment where nature and dreams converge. Each piece offers a place for the public to slow down, sit, reflect, and yes, dream.

    New Murals in the East End and Midtown (ongoing)
    We could spend days viewing all the new murals painted across town, just in the last few years. But in honor of summer outdoor art viewing, we thought we’d spotlight two noteworthy new additions to our city-wide gallery of murals. As part of his major exhibition last spring at the CAMH, Vincent Valdez worked with San Antonio muralist Rubio and local students to create “Memoria, Memory.” Dedicated to his mother Theresa Santana Valdez (1947–2020), the vivid mural on historic Navigation Boulevard features her favorite bird and flower. Over in Midtown, check out “Stellar Illumination,” the latest installation in the city’s Big Walls Big Dreams mural series. Created by Robin Munro, also known as Dread, the seven stories high “Illumination” depicts a celestial scene of an astronaut gazing at Earth from space.

    “The Weight of Place” at Anya Tish Gallery (July 11-August 23)
    This group exhibition will explore themes of memory and the emotional, psychological, and physical landscapes memories can evoke. The will showcase three contemporary Texas-based female artists: Megan Harrison, Marisol Valencia, and Lillian Warren. While these artists work in different mediums–including large-scale paintings, mixed media works, and elegant porcelain sculptures–they are inspired by personal reflection and nature to create artworks that reflect on the ways we hold onto the past through sensory experience.

    “In Residence: 18th Edition” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (July 12-June 27, 2026)
    This annual exhibition celebrating the Center’s Artist Residency Program reaches it’s big 18th anniversary. Over the many years, the residency program has supported so many emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media. The program gives them a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. Now arts and craft lovers will get a chance to see the culmination of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, copper, and found objects by 2024-2025 resident artists Prerata Bradley, Stephanie Bursese, Atisha Fordyce, Nela Garzón, Gbenga Komolafe, Gabo Martinez, Preetika Rajgariah, Macon Reed, Jamie Sterling Pitt, Adam Whitney, and Dongyi Wu.

    “My Texas” at Our Texas Cultural Center (July 27-August 22)
    Award winning, Russian-born photographer, Anatoliy Kosterev, chronicles his personal exploration of Texas with photographs he took around the Lone Star State. The photos offer extraordinary views of Texas, from our dynamic cities to dramatic and sometimes lonesome landscapes. Kosterev’s photographic style blends science and technology with an artistic eye. He puts those two perspectives into practice when documenting all facets of life in Texas. Using HDR, drone imaging, macro photography, and traditional camera methods, he captures a diversity of subjects from quiet human moments to vast landscapes to delicate close-ups of insects and flowers.

    \u200bArtechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
      

    Photo courtesy of Artechouse

    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds."

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