best fall theater

12 best Houston plays and performances to catch in-person this fall and 2022

After a year and a half of virtual, streaming, and occasional outdoor theater, we finally might be seeing that stage spotlight at the end of the tunnel, leading us back to live, indoor theater again.

With the summer winding down, here’s a roundup of those companies who have made formal announcements of their 2021-2022 seasons. Mark your calendars for the opening show and dates for each company, and check out our overview of a season of stage hits across Houston.

Broadway at Hobby Center opens with My Fair Lady September 14
As the curtain rises in New York once more, the big musical tours will also hit the road. One of the grandest, the My Fair Lady revival, dances through Houston before most of the local theaters open their seasons.

Broadway at Hobby Center marks the first of many companies who have rejigged the previously announced 2020-21 season, adding in new shows to keep lineups fresh while also giving us a chance to see those show we anticipated 16 months ago.

Look for the Tony sensation Hadestown next year along with Hamilton’s return. The season also brings the latest movies-into-musicals productions with Tootsie, Disney’s Frozen, and Mean Girls on the roll.

Ensemble Theatre opens with Respect: A Musical Journey of Women September 18
The historic and continually influential company just announced a season lineup of intriguing new work, crowd-pleasers, family fare, and musical stories that audiences have come to expect and love from Ensemble.

We certainly have to respect their choice of an opening show to bring them back to in-person productions. The inspirational show weaves 40 songs into stories of modern women’s work, relationships, family and dreams. (We’ll listen for a little Aretha along the way.)

The theatrical journey will continue throughout the season with A Motown Christmas more musicals, comedies, drama. A special local treat is The Lawsons a world premiere commissioned work from Meda Beaty, based on the real life love story of Houston’s Bill and Audrey Lawson, their civil rights leadership, and the founding of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church.

The season takes a bow with Sarah Sings a Love Song, a show that depicts the life and music of jazz great Sarah Vaughan while telling a 30-year spanning love story of a devoted couple.

Alley Theatre opens with Sweat October 1
For their 75th anniversary season the Alley has stacked its lineup with several world premieres, but even those might give us a slight case of deja vu. The Alley’s selected a mix of shows that never made it to the stage from spring 2020 as well as some initially announced for 20-21 before they reorganized to produce their free digital season.

The new year especially brings in world premieres from playwrights the Alley have nourished creative relationships through their Alley All New play development program, including High School Play: A Nostalgia Fest, a comedy about Texas drama competitions, and the new musical Noir by Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and Kyle Jarrow (SpongeBob SquarePants).

But the whole season begins with a unique collaboration with Ensemble Theatre with Alley artistic director Rob Melrose helming the acclaimed, and very timely play Sweat with Ensemble’s Eileen J. Morris associate directing.

Stages opens with Hook’s Tale October 1
Except for a few fan favorites, Stages is all in with world premiere plays and musicals for ’21-22, including four debuts from locally based playwrights.

The company offers a generous mix of comedies, dramas and musicals, with two holiday shows: a brand new Texas Panto, Panto Little Mermaid and a fan favorite from CTU (the Catechism theatrical universe), Sister’s Christmas Catechism.

The Gordy really gets rocking in April when the world premiere jukebox musical You Are Cordially Invited to Sit-In from local playwright ShaWanna Renee Rivon opens the Rochelle and Max Levit Stage. This will finally put all three Gordy stages in use, something that only happened before for one week before the pandemic shut down stages across the city.

Main Street Theater opens with Darwin in Malibu October 2
The Rice Village cultural staple picks up most of their announced ’21-22 season and moves it to ’21-22. Look for a season of cerebral comedies and novel reimagining of historical figures.

They’ve also added a sort of world premiere with the debut of the English translation of the play based on Nobel Prize-winning Latin-American writer Mario Vargas-Llosa’s autobiographical novel, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.

The holiday favorite and Pride and Prejudice contemporary sequel, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley is back. Setting the tone for the season is Darwin in Malibu, Crispin Whittell’s comedy on faith, science and plastic surgery imagines Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, hanging out at a beach house in California.

Theatre Under the Stars opens with Rock of Ages October 5
Many of the dazzling shows that were scheduled for last season have been moved to the coming season, so get ready for ’80s headbangers (Rock of Ages), singing sea creatures (Disney’s Little Mermaid), hospitable Canadians (touring Come From Away), and a fake nun on the run (Sister Act).

Due to delays in its New York opening, the pre-Broadway tour of the 1776 won’t happen, so TUTS will sub in those favorite Jersey Boys next spring.

A.D. Players opens with “Dear Jack, Dear Louise” October 6
After the stresses of that last year and a half, the company looks to bring Houston audiences a season of shows about human triumph amid struggles.

They begin with a Ken Ludwig’s new play based on his parent’s love story during World War II. Things end with probably the most famous musical depicting the same period, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound Of Music.

Look for a world premiere holiday show, The Christmas Shoes, and the company will turn two of the plays from Metzler New Works Festival they streamed as remote works into full onstage productions, Apollo 8 and No One Owns Me. They’ll also offer new concert events in partnership with Artists Lounge Live.

Classical Theatre Company opens with Nevermore: Tales of Edgar Allan Poe October 6
The company that only produces work at least a century old brings us a futuristic season of horror and Sci-Fi.

They begin with a kind of world premiere, an evening of staged Poe tales adapted by Chris Iannacone and company artistic director, John Johnston.

They’ll also produce a show likely new to Houston audiences, the Czech Sci-Fi play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek, and then end the season with the H.G. Wells classic alien invasion story The War of the Worlds.

4th Wall Theatre opens with Doll’s House, Part 2 October 14
They had to wait a year, but one of Houston’s most acting-centric company celebrates their 10-year anniversary with a season of Houston premieres, and a lineup of very contemporary plays, many offering unique takes on urban life and media culture.

Fourth Wall moved the dates around, but kept the same roster of works that had previously announced for last season. They begin with Lucas Hnath’s acclaimed sequel to the Ibsen masterpiece, A Doll’s House and end with the makeup run of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Between Riverside and Crazy, which they had to close in March 2020 after only a few performances.

Dirt Dogs Theatre opens with The Revolutionists October 22
The little company with a strong reputation for big performances will take to the MATCH stage once more with an eclectic mix of contemporary theater hits, starting with Lauren Gunderson’s funny, wild and female-centric take on the French Revolution.

Next year, look for intimate productions of the gritty cop drama “A Steady Rain” and Bruce Norris’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning homage to Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, dubbed Clybourne Park.

Mildred’s Umbrella opens with El Huracán November 11
The female-focused company will present two shows this season.

The first, set on the eve of a hurricane tells the story of four generations of Cuban American women. Mildred's will gather an all Latinx cast and crew to bring it to the stage.

In the spring, Mildred’s will produce the multi-media world premiere He Cried for His Mother, based on interviews from Black American mothers, midwives, and doulas. The project is being partially supported by The National Endowment for the Arts.

Catastrophic Theatre debuts Drama Squad (part 3) September 24
The absurdist mainstays recently released a no-announcement announcement that they’re putting a return to their MATCH home and live, indoor theater on hold.

In a statement Catastrophic explained: “We have resisted the urge to promote performances we could not in good conscience promise to actually perform. We will not solicit season subscriptions in this uncertain time and will instead launch a second membership campaign to join our Catastrophic Army.”

While the company assesses their situation, they decided to unleash another round of Drama Squad, their outdoor variety show of original short work. For previous iterations, the company performed for limited audiences in private yards.

Now, they hope to bring the all-new Squad theatrical adventures to larger audiences in public outdoors spaces.

Broadway at the Hobby Center opens the 2021-2022 season across Houston theaters with My Fair Lady touring production.

Photo by Joan Marcus

Broadway at the Hobby Center opens the 2021-2022 season across Houston theaters with My Fair Lady touring production.

theater openings

Best March Art

9 new art museum and gallery exhibits opening in Houston this month

Ernesto Neto, SunForceOceanLife (installation view), 2020, crocheted textile and plastic balls, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund

As spring returns so does a flowering of biannual, annual, and biennial art festivals and events this month. Art blooms indoors in Houston's favorite museums but also on the city's streets, parks, and even waterways. Lots of immersive art invites viewers to journey into the picture.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston gets contemplative, and the Menil Collection displays some rare recent gifts. If that’s not enough art for one month, FotoFest celebrates a big anniversary, and the yearly “Night Light” art party heads downtown.

“Global Visions – FotoFest at 40” programming across Houston (March)
Marking four decades of photographic arts and education programming in Houston, this 2026 FotoFest looks back on key works and themes from the 20 previous biennials between 1986 and 2024. With participating art galleries and museums around the city offering special photography exhibitions over the next several month, FotoFest will feature more than 450 artists from the United States and 58 countries. Curated by FotoFest co-founder and former artistic director Wendy Watriss and FotoFest executive director Steven Evans, with co-curators Annick Dekiouk and Madi Murphy, “Global Visions” will explore some of the previous festival themes including geography, identity, war, ecology, and social change, while also celebrating FotoFest’s global reach and impact. Look for auctions, tours, conversations, art walks, and workshops as part of the programming.

“Buddha/Nature: Five Dialogues on a Shared World” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (now through May 10)
Ancient and contemporary art converse in this extraordinary new exhibition at the MFAH that explores key teachings of Buddhism centered on how we engage with the natural world. The exhibition is organized crossed five thematically focused galleries, including Samsara, Impermanence, Karma, Compassion, and Awakening. Each gallery features one of five ancient Buddhist sculptures from the Xuzhou Collection, a private collection of Buddhist masterpieces, along with works by international and Texas contemporary artists.

“This exhibition brings ancient Buddhist sculptures into dynamic dialogue with contemporary art,” explains Hao Sheng, consulting curator to the MFAH and organizing curator of the exhibition. “These sacred objects take on new resonance when paired with modern works that explore fundamental questions about existence and harmony. As we witness shifts in our natural environment, we are invited to reflect on the impact of our collective choices in order to achieve a deeper understanding of our place within a changing world.”

“Blooming Wonders: A Celebration of Spring” at Artechouse (now through May 31)
The Houston venue that acts as a greenhouse for art, science, and technology to grow together, Artechouse, brings back this hit exhibition from last year.To explore themes of growth, renewal, and sustainability, “Bloom wonders” showcases several dynamic installations, including “PIXELBLOOM: 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. In another immersive space, “BloomFall: Through the Infinite” guests enter an mirrored infinity room full of shifting floral dimensions. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program.

“Ernesto Neto: SunForceOceanLife” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (now-September 7)
Immersive art gets elevated as the MFAH brings back this commissioned installation that had museum goers walking on air. Looking something like a giant starfish or spiral galaxy from underneath, Ernesto Neto’s singular work floats above almost the entirety of Cullinan Hall in the Caroline Wiess Law Building. One of the largest crochet works to date by Neto, the sculpture consists of yellow, orange, and green materials hand-woven into a myriad of patterns and sewn together in a spiral formation. Visitors can enter this rising labyrinth and wander through different sections filled with soft, plastic balls underfoot that move with each step. Once they reach the center of work, they might pause to view the piece from within the art and reflect on their own journey through “SunForceOceanLife.”

“Ernesto Neto created this site-specific piece as a tribute to the life-giving forces of the sun and the ocean. Inspired by crochet, which he learned from his grandmother, the piece transforms this traditional Brazilian craft into a massive, enveloping structure that engages the body and the mind,” remark Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art on the return of the monumental installation.

True North 2026 along Heights Boulevard (now through December)
Once again, art grows on the Height Boulevard esplanade with this annual outdoor sculpture exhibition sponsored and partnered by the nonprofit Houston Heights Association. The outdoor show features the latest work of some stellar Texas and Houston artists, including Hans Molzberger, Suzette Mouchaty, James D. Phillips, Roger Colombik, Mark Nelson, Robbie Barber, Jim Robertson, Keith Crane/Damon Thomas. Since the artists don’t always install their sculptures on the same days, True North is always an artful excuse to make time for a walk along the boulevard to see what new work has popped up. This beloved tradition is once again thanks to an all-volunteer team, along with the Houston Heights Association in cooperation with the City of Houston Parks and Recreation and Public Works Departments and the Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.

"Rebel Girl" and “The Vanguard” at Houston Center for Photography (March 12-April 12)
Just a few days after International Women’s Day, HCP continues their historic commitment to championing women’s photographic careers as they present two exhibition exploring the complexities of female identity. “Rebel Girl” exhibits the work of Luisa Dörr, Selina Román, and Jo Ann Chaus, artists whose work challenges convention while questioning stereotypes and illuminating the evolving roles and perceptions of women today. For “The Vanguard,” HCP executive director, Anne Leighton Massoni, went through their archives and selected the work of 20 trailblazing women who exhibited at HCP within its first 20 years. Taken together their work illustrate the diversity of women’s artistic visions and creativity.

“The Gift of Drawing: Cy Twombly” at the Menil Collection (March 27-August 9)
Perhaps as a nod to the Menil Collection being the home of the only permanent retrospective exhibition of 20th century pioneering artist, Cy Twombly’s, work, last year the Cy Twombly Foundation made an extraordinary gift of 121 of Twombly’s drawings to the institute. Now art lovers around the world will get to see some of that landmark gift, as the Menil Drawing Institute presents this exhibition featuring 30 of those works. Covering three decades of the artist’s activity, from the 1950s to the 1980s, the show will feature work created by Twombly’s use of a broad range of materials, from graphite to oil paint; techniques such as drawing and collage; and themes that are fundamental to his entire practice, such as classical antiquity, eroticism, and nature. Some highlight of the exhibition will be a series of lush and unrestrained landscapes from 1986 that verge on pure abstraction; two untitled works from 1970 that are related to the artist’s “blackboard paintings” on view in Cy Twombly Gallery; and Narcissus, 1975, a collage of paper, with oil, charcoal, and wax crayon on paper. None of these works have been exhibited in the U.S. before.

“Night Light” at Allen’s Landing at Buffalo Bayou Park (March 28)
The annual free festival of video art along Buffalo Bayou moves west this year from its usual setting along the industrial and residential landscapes of the Buffalo Bayou East trails to Allen’s Landing in downtown Houston. The concrete bridges and underbellies of the major city freeways that emerge from watery bayou depths become the canvases for three site-specific installations from some of Houston most innovative video and multidisciplinary artists. Co-presented by the Aurora Picture Show and Buffalo Bayou Partnership “Night Light” puts the spotlight on new works from artist, designer, and engineer, Corey De’Juan Sherrard Jr.; video, installation, and performance artist and Rice professor, Kenneth Tam; and award winning collaborative duo Hillerbrand+Magsamen. And it wouldn’t be an outdoor Houston event of any kind without food, so expect a lively night artisan market hosted by East End District and BLCK Market at East River featuring local vendors and food trucks plus tunes from DJ Gracie Chavez.

Bayou City Art Festival Downtown at Sam Houston Park (March 28-29)
Downtown Houston continues to sprout art everywhere, as the last weekend in March also heralds the biannual Bayou City Art Fest in Sam Houston Park. Showcasing art from 250 creators from around the country, the festival always brings a wide selection of paintings, prints, jewelry, sculptures, and functional art at all price levels. Fest goers also have the opportunity to meet the art makers and hear the stories behind the art. This year’s featured artists is Lijah Hanley, a digital photographer from Vancouver, WA who first found his place behind a camera lens when he was 13. Along with a day of art, a ticket includes live music all day long on two stages, roaming performers, exciting kids areas with interactive crafts, and culinary arts demonstrations.

$Ernesto Neto, SunForceOceanLife (installation view), 2020, crocheted textile and\nplastic balls, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the\nCaroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund$