Houston Ballet's Swan Lake soars into Jones Hall to close season

The Houston Ballet bids adieu to its 2017-2018 season of resilience with the ultimate swan song, artistic director Stanton Welch’s realization of one of the most beloved ballets of all time, the classic Swan Lake.

Welch created this Swan Lake especially for the Houston Ballet in 2006, using Tchaikovsky’s full score for a rich, complex three-act production. Yet, Swan Lake’s story of an everlasting love and beauty that defies will likely resonates even greater today when viewed with a mind towards the ballet’s own, real life story of perseverance this year. When Hurricane Harvey’s damage to the Wortham Center, left them without their usual stages for a year, they made a promise to the city that the dance would go on. The company embarked on a hometown tour, pirouetting into to a different venue for each of their major productions.

Quite fittingly, they end the season flying into their Theater District neighbor Jones Hall, which was originally one of HB’s early venue homes.

“Jones Hall—for many years—was the place where Houston Ballet performed all of its repertoire. So, after all this chaos we’ve had with the storm and shifting from venue to venue, we return to the original place where Houston Ballet started to do these big full-length ballets. It does feel like a homecoming to us as an organization,” described Welch of the significance of staging Swan Lake in Jones Hall, in a statement.

After attending the opening performance of this mad, tangled danced love story of a prince, the cursed swan-maiden of his dreams, her dark doppelgänger, and the evil knight magician who puts the tragic fairytale into motion, I can attest that it takes an expansive space like Jones to hold all the lush, majesty of Welch’s Swan Lake.

The company will stage its triumphant return to the Wortham Center with its 2018-2019 season, but unfortunately, we’ll have something of a wait, as the season won’t begin until November with the Nutcracker. So ballet fans will need to commit to some bird watching by July 1 for a last chance to see a major production from the Houston Ballet before it migrates back into the Wortham this fall.

Swan Lake soars in Jones Hall through July 1. Tickets start at $25.

Houston Ballet Principals Yuriko Kajiya as Odile and Chun Wai Chan as Siegfried in Stanton Welch’s Swan Lake.

Photo by Amitava Sarkar

Houston Ballet Principals Yuriko Kajiya as Odile and Chun Wai Chan as Siegfried in Stanton Welch’s Swan Lake.

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And the Winner Is

Houston's Alley Theatre only Texas winner of prestigious new play award

Photo courtesy of Alley Theatre

Bring a friend to the theater for free.

The Tony Award-winning Alley Theatre has once again earned national recognition, becoming the only Texas theater selected for a 2025 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, a prestigious honor known for helping launch some of the most influential plays and musicals of the past two decades.

The award will support the Alley’s May 2026 world premiere of Dear Alien by Liz Duffy Adams, giving the production additional rehearsal time that has proven essential for shaping new work.

The Edgerton Awards have a powerful legacy behind them. Past recipients include phenomenon-level titles such as Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, The Prom, Next to Normal, and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike — shows that went on to win Tony Awards, earn Pulitzer Prizes, and define contemporary American theater.

“I’m so grateful to the Edgerton Foundation for their support of Liz Duffy Adams’ play Dear Alien," says Alley artistic director Rob Melrose in a release. "Getting an additional week of rehearsal on a new play makes a tremendous difference. In Dear Alien, the titular role (played by resident acting company member Dylan Godwin) is onstage the entire show, and it is going to be quite a challenge. Supporting new plays is incredibly important for the health of the American theater. Four years ago, Alley Theatre premiered Liz’s play Born with Teeth, and it is currently having a run on the West End after gracing the stages of major theaters in the U.S. such as the Guthrie, Asolo Rep, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival."

Alley Theatre has a significant history with developing new work. In 1996, the Alley won the Regional Theatre Tony Award after debuting the world premiere of the musical Jekyll & Hyde, which went on to tour 40 cities and play for two years on Broadway (it lives on thanks to a DVD and VHS recording starring David Hasselhoff in the title roles).

In 1998, the Alley staged the American premiere of a rediscovered Tennessee Williams play, Not About Nightingales, which later enjoyed a successful Broadway run.

The Edgerton Foundation New Plays Program, directed by Brad and Louise Edgerton, was piloted in 2006 with Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles by offering two musicals in development an extended rehearsal period for the entire creative team, including the playwrights. The Edgertons launched the program nationally in 2007 and have supported 569 plays to date at over 50 different theaters across the country. Over the last 19 years, the Edgerton Foundation has awarded $19,670,534 to 569 productions.

Among the 2025 winners are pop-country star Jennifer Nettles' new musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo at Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City; Claudia Shear's The Recipe, about the early life of Julia Child, at La Jolla Playhouse in California; and prolific playwright David Lindsay-Abaire's latest title, The Balusters, at Manhattan Theatre Club. See the complete list here.

awards alley theatre dear alien liz duffy adams edgerton foundation edgerton foundation new play award theater