best fall theater

Houston's best fall theater showcases Broadway sensations, cutting-edge works, and world premiers

4th Wall Theatre Company presents The Thin Place

4th Wall Theatre makes October spookier with The Thin Place.

Photo by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash

August tends to be a month of winding down for Houston theater and performing arts before big fall openings. While a few companies have begun their 2022-23 seasons with a summer show — like the Alley’s murderously zany Clue and Stages’ nostalgic concert-musical Dream: The Music of the Everly Brothers — the curtain usually doesn’t rise on the next season until September.

With that in mind, we look ahead with a special roundup of those companies who have made formal announcements of their 2022-2023 seasons. Mark those calendars for the opening show and dates for each company, and check out our overview of a fall filled with drama, music, comedy and quite a few world premieres.

Houston Ballet opens with Peter Pan (September 9)
The first to make the dramatic fall leap will appropriately be the Houston Ballet with a fun dance take on the boy who refused to grow up by acclaimed choreographer, and former choreographic apprentice, Trey McIntyre.

The show features flying sequences, swashbuckling sword fights, giant puppets, and costumes inspired by punk fashion. As previously reported, the ballet takes about a five-minute breather before they jeté back onstage for their fall mixed rep production Good Vibrations (September 22-October 2) with Red Earth from Stanton Welch, The Letter V from Mark Morris, and the world premiere Arthur Pita dance Good Vibrations.

On the Verge Theatre presents Tied (September 15)
Houston’s newest company officially opened their inaugural season with Runaways (now through August 21), the ’70s, Tony award-winning musical based on real stories of teen runaways.

They’ll quickly move into the fall with a world premiere from Houston playwright Crystal Rae. Tied tells the spiritual journey of a father of one of the girls who died in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. On the Verge founders Bruce Lumpkin and Ron Jones plan to stage each show on a different stage or non-traditional location through its first season, with Tied presented at Ensemble Theatre.

Alley Theatre opens with Lend Me a Soprano (September 16)
The first of six world premieres from the Alley this season, Ken Ludwig reworks his contemporary classic comedy Lend Me a Tenor for the 21st century, with the divas getting their chance to go to war for the spotlight.

Next up, the Alley then begins its Neuhaus Stage season with Edward Albee’s Seascape (October 14). During his time teaching at UH, the Pulitzer-winning Albee was sometimes seen in the audience for many of the Alley productions of his work. Alley artistic director Rob Melrose says he’s been wanting to give this look at two marriages — one human, one sea monsters — a production for a long time.

The company then celebrates the holidays with two world premieres a new Christmas Carol adaptation from Melrose and the Dickens inspired, only-in-Texas tale, What-a-Christmas!

Mildred’s Umbrella opens with Scrambled (September 16)
In this one-woman show from Rotem Natchmany, the award-winning Israeli actress/playwright brings audiences along this one woman’s journey to conceive. Natchmany has performed this intimate depiction on international stages and theater festivals.

Next year, Mildred’s will finally world premiere local playwright Elizabeth A.M. Keel’s family-friendly show Tooth & Tail, which was originally set to debut in 2020 before the pandemic.

Main Street Theater opens with Trouble in Mind (September 17)
This partially forgotten, now-acclaimed play by the groundbreaking novelist and playwright Alice Childress recently had its Broadway debut, more than 65 years after it was originally scheduled to transfer.

When theater producers in the 1950s asked Childress to tone down Trouble in Mind’s exploration of racism in the theater world, she held her artistic ground. Now, MST will be the first Houston company to stage this comedy-drama that theaters across the country are embracing the play for the 21st century.

Later in the fall, MST brings back The Wickhams – Christmas at Pemberley, the second of the Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s holiday Pride & Prejudice sequels.

Theatre Under the Stars opens with Ain’t Misbehavin’ (September 20)
TUTS has one of the busiest falls in Houston with three shows before the year’s end. Things open with the ultimate party, as the Tony-winning best musical from the late ’70s takes audiences back to the Harlem Renaissance and jazz nightclubs filled with the music of Fats Waller.

Due to scheduling conflicts, the previously announced Vacation musical won’t make a road trip to Houston. instead TUTS will produce the regional premiere of The Secret of My Success. The new musical, based on the hit 1980s Michael J. Fox film, has only had one other full production, in Chicago. TUTS artistic director Dan Knechtges will direct this new production.

Lastly, look up for a visit from everyone’s favorite nanny, Mary Poppins for the holidays.

A.D. Players opens with Miss Maude (September 21)
Not only is their season opener a world premiere, it’s one set to make the jump to Broadway sometime after its Houston run.

Based on the real story of photographer and remarkable subject, playwright Martin Casella’s Miss Maude chronicles the relationship between Life Magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith and South Carolina nurse and midwife, Maude Callen.

Sheldon Epps, who served as TUTS artistic advisor for the 2016-2017 season and now is senior artistic advisor at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C., will direct the show.

In November, get ready for family-time laughs with the new outrageous comedy A Texas Carol from A.D. Players executive artistic director Jayme McGhan and artistic producer Kevin Dean for their holiday show.

Stages opens with Plumshuga: The Rise of Lauren Anderson (October 7)
Stages dances into fall with a world premiere that can’t get any more Houston in both its local roots and international reach.

Written and co-directed by former Houston poet laureate Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton, with choreography from both Houston Ballet artistic director and Urban Souls Dance founder Harrison Guy, this bio-theatrical work with original music tells the story of Houston’s favorite Sugar Plum Fairy, the legendary Lauren Anderson, who is one of the first Black principal ballerinas of a major ballet company.

Keeping with the world premieres for the rest of 2022, look for two new holiday shows, Houston for the Holidays with DeQuina Moore and Panto Snow White and the Seven Dorks.

4th Wall Theatre opens with The Thin Place (October 13)
This season, the company continues to embrace cutting-edge contemporary works by the hottest established and up-and-coming playwrights, like Adam App and Jackie Sibblies Drury, with four plays that will be Houston premieres.

First up is Lucas Hnath’s Thin Place. In perhaps a perfect artfully spooky mood for October, 4th Wall describes the show as a suspenseful ghost story that probes the deeply human need for connection. As one woman grappling with loss, seeks answers and friendship from a medium, who communicates with the dead residing in a different "thin place."

Dirt Dogs Theatre opens with Coyote on a Fence (October 21)
In keeping with their reputation for intense, intimate productions, the company opens their lucky seven season with this intriguing play by Bruce Graham, inspired by a real life Texas death row story.

In the show, the editor of a prison newspaper, who is incarcerated himself, gets set to talk to a man set for execution in order to write his obituary.

Outside of their regular season, Dirt Dogs Unleashed, their initiative centered on development of new works, partners with Sweet Darlin' Productions for the new play Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo (August 12-20), about a distinctively different reunion of sorority sisters.

Houston Grand Opera opens with La traviata (October 21)
“Fortune favors the bold” has been HGO’s motto for their ’22-’23 lineup, which makes La traviata a bold opening move. This production features Grammy-award-winning soprano Angel Blue making her company debut as Violetta, a courtesan whose pursuit of love belies a creeping, fatal illness.

HGO will pair Verdi’s masterpiece with an opera that’s not seen a major production in over a century, Dame Ethel Smyth’s epic 1906 opera The Wreckers (October 28).

Broadway at Hobby Center opens with Six (November 8)
The Broadway in Houston season is still feeling some (hopefully final) COVID reverberations as it closes the ’21-’22 season late with the rescheduled, Tony-winning Hadestown (October 4-9), before beginning anew with this West End to Broadway to Houston musical sensation.

Perhaps taking a page from Hamilton, English history gets a new beat in Six, as the wives of Henry VIII — in the guise of pop divas — finally get to tell their side of the very interesting marital story.

Classical Theatre Company opens with The Marriage of Figaro (November 10)
The company that only performs works more than 100 years old, yet still manages to find intriguing new spins on the classics, will produce the French farce as a play, not as Mozart’s opera.

Classical artistic director John Johnston will translate the original 18th-century play by Pierre de Beaumarchais and also direct this new production. Figaro begins their season consisting entirely of comedies including The School for Scandal and Maugham’s The Circle both in 2023.

The wives of Henry VIII sing their story when Broadway at Hobby presents Six.

Photo by Joan Marcus

The wives of Henry VIII sing their story when Broadway at Hobby presents Six.

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Best May Art

MFAH's blockbuster modern art exhibit and 7 more openings in Houston this month

as Pablo Picasso, Woman in a Multicolored Hat, part of the MFAH's upcoming Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen exhibit, opening May 20

Image courtesy MFAH

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen (Pablo Picasso, Woman in a Multicolored Hat, 1939, oil on canvas, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. © 2026 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

May brings some of the biggest art shows and museum exhibitions of the year to town. Some fly in with patriotic fanfare, while others give us a rare opportunity to gaze at European masterworks. Whether someone is looking for irreverent performance art at the CAMH, wants to get in touch with whimsical spirits at Moody Art Center, buy art for a good cause at Silver Street, or get ready for the World Cup at Sawyer Yards, Houston artists, galleries, and museums have a show for all tastes.

“Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation” at Houston Museum of Natural Science (now through May 25)
We’ll call this one the art of democracy. This exhibition 250 years in the making might not fit the usual definition of "art," but this touring presentation of Founding-era documents at HMNS has to make this month's must-see list. The National Archives and Records Administration, in partnership with the National Archives Foundation, set aloft this flying tour of some of the nation’s most historical documents, complete with their own plane. Houston is one of only eight U.S. cities where the Freedom Plane will land. The original National Archives records featured in the exhibition are traveling together for the first time. Just some of the historic documents included in the exhibition are an original engraving of the Declaration of Independence; George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr’s Oaths of Allegiance, 1778; and the Secret Printing of the Constitution in Draft Form, 1787.

“As our nation approaches its 250th anniversary, there is no more fitting tribute than bringing these original documents, leaving the National Archives together for the very first time, directly to the American people,” says Joel Bartsch, president and CEO of HMNS. “From George Washington’s oath as a Continental Army officer to the Treaty of Paris that secured our independence, these are not replicas or reproductions. They are the genuine records, and Houston will have the rare privilege of experiencing them in person this May.”

“20th Annual Empty Bowls” at Silver Street Studios (May 15 and 16)
For two decades this beloved grassroots fundraising event has given art lovers the chance to pick up one of a kind, handcrafted ceramic bowl-shaped artworks for just $25 dollars each and helped to serve up millions of meals to the hungry. Over the years, Empty Bowls Houston has raised over $1.2 million for the Houston Food Bank. The lunch fundraiser is a collaboration between Houston-area ceramists, woodturners, and artists working in all media and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. A special ticketed preview party on May 15 will feature light bites, beer and wine, live music, a pottery throw down event with local potters, and a chance to purchase a bowl early before the main event on May 16. Archway Gallery will also host its own annual Empty Bowls exhibition throughout May.

“No Longer, Not Yet” at Art League (May 15-July 19)
This exhibition of mixed media and fiber sculptures from Houston-based artist Marisol Valencia is the culmination of Valencia volunteering at a Houston-area shelter serving migrant women and children. To create the works in the show, Valencia uses material imbued with meaning, including fibers sourced from rural Mexican communities where migration often shapes daily life; bedsheets and pillows gathered from the shelter; and porcelain pieces inscribed with collected definitions of “home.” At the center of the exhibition will be a large cascading crochet sculpture made in collaboration with women and volunteers at the shelter.

“Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen” at Museum of Fine Arts (May 20-September 13)
Houston claims another first as the MFAH hosts the U.S. debut of this monumental touring exhibition of masterworks by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and other major artists of postwar Europe. The exhibition will also tell the story of influential gallerist Heinz Berggruen and his relationship with the artists and collecting world. From the 1940s into the 1990s, Heinz Berggruen assembled a singular collection of hundreds of modern masterworks, many directly from the artists, and then in 2000, Berggruen placed the collection with the German state. The collection is now housed in the Museum Berggruen in Berlin-Charlottenburg as part of the Berlin State Museums/Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage.

“It is especially rewarding to introduce our audiences to the life and legacy of Heinz Berggruen — a pioneering art dealer, publisher, and collector whom I was privileged to know and work with for more than two decades,” remarks MFAH director Gary Tinterow on bringing the exhibition to Houston.

“Ballet of the Masses” at Sawyer Yards (May 21-July 25)
As Houston gets ready for the World Cup, local artists score their own kind of goals with this exhibition of artful soccer balls. Over 40 Houston artists have put a unique spin on a regulation sized fútbol — turning them into sculptural pieces. Organizers will suspend the works from the ceiling of Sabine Street Studios' North Gallery to create a kind of celestial soccer constellation. Together, these works will celebrate the dynamism and joy within sports and art.

“Never Forgotten” at Sabine Street Studios (May 21-July 25)
This powerful exhibition comes from a unique collaboration between Texas Center for the Missing, Houston Police Department Forensic Artists, and Sabine Street Studios, all dedicated to bringing the missing home. Three local forensic artists: Thurston Johnson, Bryan Bradley, and Kristen Aloysius have created age-progression portraits of missing persons in the hopes of reuniting families. Beyond showcasing real art, “Never Forgotten” was organized to shine a light on each individual case and continue raising awareness of the missing in our community. Sabine Street Studios will also host special programming in conjunction with the show, including a workshop on forensic drawing and drawing portraits based on memories.

“Mary Ellen Carroll: How To Talk Dirty and Influence People” at Contemporary Arts Museum (May 22-November 1)
Acclaimed New York-based conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll has spent over four decades crossing disciplines of performance art, photography, architecture, writing, video making, and public art to explore issues of environmentalism, architectural and technological infrastructure, immigration, urban legislation, and identity, as well as tackling fundamental questions of the nature of art. And some of this exploration has taken place in Houston with Carroll’s continual transformation and documentation of a post-war home in the city’s Sharpstown neighborhood.

This first major museum survey of Carroll’s work takes inspiration from legendary comic Lenny Bruce’s 1965 autobiography of the same name, and emphasizes the irreverent and honest nature of Carroll’s work. The exhibition will bring renewed focus onto some of Carroll’s larger series, for example, “prototype 180,” the Sharpstown project, and “My Death Is Pending… Because,” consisting of separate pieces like video documentation of the artist driving and destroying a 1985 Buick in a demolition derby in 2017 and video of Carroll in a polar bear suit climbing a defunct smokestack in Memphis.

“Carroll is that unique kind of artist who continually reminds you of the power of art and artists to inspire radical change, in ourselves and the world,” notes senior curator Rebecca Matalon.

"Shapeshifters, Sprites, and Spirits” at Rice Moody Center for the Arts (May 29 - August 15)
Delve into a world of whimsical wonder in this new exhibition and the first Texas solo show of acclaimed Japanese artist Masako Miki’s sculptural work and installations. Influenced by diverse artistic movements from European Surrealism to Japanese manga, Miki creates sculptures from felt layered over wood armatures. Once completed, they resemble animated and large scale forms of everyday objects infused with personality and character.

Miki’s work is also inspired by folkloric traditions, especially Shinto animism and its belief that all beings and things contain a spirit. For the site specific Moody exhibition, Miki has also created works with a focus on yōkai, supernatural entities taking the form of beings, objects, and apparitions, and particularly those that appear in the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons (Hyakki Yagyō), a legend dating to medieval Japan.

“My characters are ordinary but have extraordinary powers,” describes Miki of her sculptures. “They are secular but are attuned to sacred traditions. As a collective, they advocate for both individual and collective agency, and the importance of stories as unifying systems in today’s complex world.”

$as Pablo Picasso, Woman in a Multicolored Hat, part of the MFAH's upcoming Picasso\u2013Klee\u2013Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen exhibit, opening May 20$

Image courtesy MFAH

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