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    best holiday shows

    12 best Houston holiday stage shows making a 'bah humbug' year bright

    Tarra Gaines
    Dec 7, 2020 | 9:25 am

    As we move into the famed most wonderful time of this most Bah Humbug of a year, Houston’s performing artists and art organizations have decided the holiday show will go on.

     

    Yes, A Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker, and all the usually holiday suspects might come wrapped in unusual packages this December, but our local artists have rallied to deliver our favorite shows and stories to us.

     

    Some of these shows are free and others ticketed, but most of these organizations and theater companies have been offering free performances, art, and entertainment since having to close their theater doors back in March, so please remember to give back as they continue to give to Houston.

     

    Whether live streaming, recorded, in-person, or outdoors, let's take a look at all of the traditional shows and new surprises arriving just when we all could use a bit of holiday joy and magic.

     

     Holiday at the Hope’s: A Christmas Mixtape from Stages (Ticketed streaming, now through December 13)
    In ancient times before podcasts people, told stories and performed music on this thing called a "radio." Now, Stages takes us back to holidays long ago with a radio play offering — but you won’t have to buy one of those fancy old-timey giant voice boxes to experience the magic. Married team Ben Hope and Katie Barton Hope, who starred in Ring of Fire and Hank Williams: Lost Highway at Stages, create an audio play based on their own journey buying a house for the first time. Expect lots of home-style holiday songs and stories about family celebrations.

     

     A Christmas Carol from Alley Theatre (free streaming, now through December 27)
    This adaption by Doris Baizley sets up a premise perfect for virtual performances, framing the Dickens classic with a story of a traveling theater company going through hard times and needing to do put on a barebones production of the haunting, yet heart-warming tale. Alley company actors get meta as actors putting together a Carol from scratch.

     

    David Rainey reprises his Scrooge, but in this adaption also plays the company-within-a-company’s stage manager. Meanwhile, the next acting generation gets a spotlight as married resident acting company members Elizabeth Bunch and Chris Hutchison’s son, Mack Hutchison, plays both the prop boy and Tiny Tim.

     

     Herzstück or My Heart Hit the Floor & Shattered into 10,000 Pieces from Catastrophic Theatre (free streaming, now through January 31)
    Perhaps especially in 2020, absurdist and avant garde mainstay theater company Catastrophic stays with their own beloved tradition with this film from company regular, Greg Dean, actor, writer, director, and self-admitted “local theater weirdo.”

     

     Herzstück was inspired by a 14-line theatrical fragment by the late East German playwright, Heiner Müller. For those looking to take a break from all the streaming and broadcast holiday movies, you probably can’t find much counter than a project Catastrophic describes a "deconstruction of old, B&W silent film comedies — think Laurel & Hardy meets David Cronenberg.”

     

     Merry Christmas Darling: Heidi Kettenring Sings Karen Carpenter at A.D Players (live performance December 10-23)
    The company turns their parking lot into an outdoor performance space to bring Houston one of the few in-person productions of the season. The acclaimed Kettenring and her band will perform a mix of Karen Carpenter standards plus holiday favorites, including "Merry Christmas Darling," "Close To You," "For All We Know," and "The Christmas Song.”

     

    “With ongoing concerns about growing COVID-19 numbers and the need for safety, we decided rather than cancelling everything, we would move our holiday programming outside,” explains artist director, Kevin Dean. “We have been continually pursuing the highest level of safety in everything we have done this fall, and want to provide people an opportunity to safely experience some much needed holiday cheer.”

     

     The Making of The Snowy Day: An Opera for All from Houston Grand Opera (Streaming beginning December 10)
    This world premiere holiday opera was commissioned by HGO with the original plan to produce to it this month. Now delayed likely for next year, opera-lovers can get a fascinating behind the curtain peek at how a contemporary opera is composed. This documentary explores the creative process of composer Joel Thompson and librettist Andrea Davis Pinkney as they transform the beloved children’s book by Ezra Jack Keats into opera for the whole family. The Making of becomes just one more bit of unique programming HGO brings to Houston and opera lovers across the globe with their HGO Digital project.

     

     Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley and The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley from Main Street Theater (free live streaming December 11-20)
    The Pride and Prejudice sequel and sequel to the sequel both written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon have become the latest holiday tradition at Main Street. While MST crew can’t give us an in-person production this year, they’re bringing the Bennet sisters — Darcy and even that rogue Wickham — together via Zoom for weekend readings of the plays. MST has also been offering the monthly series “Main Street at the Mike” for a special on stage streaming show featuring some Main Street artists and local favorites. For December they’ve planned a special treat: 2020 Holidays: Passover through New Year’s. (December 17-20).

     

     Very Merry POPS from Houston Symphony (live at Jones Hall and streaming, December 11-20)
    Houston vocalist Chelsea Cymone joins former Principal POPS Conductor Michael Krajewski for this concert of traditional and contemporary holiday favorites. Cymone sings “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” while HS gets audiences in Jones and at home in the holiday mood with arrangements of the popular classic Christmas pop songs like “Feliz Navidad,” “O Holy Night,” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Streaming performs are on Saturdays December 12 and 19.

     

     Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol presented by Society for the Performing Arts (streaming live December 12 and 19)
    A different kind of Carol comes from Manual Cinema, the artists responsible for last year’s remarkable and innovative Frankenstein retelling that SPA presented last year. Manual Cinema will use music, paper puppets, miniatures, silhouettes, and vintage filmmaking techniques to create a tale told with color, light, and shadow. This world-premiere show will be performed live each night from their Chicago studio in a socially distant manner and streamed to SPA audiences live
     
     Buttons' Sleeping Beauty: A One-Man Outrageous Unbelievable COVID Lockdown Panto from Stages (Ticketed streaming, December 15-27)
    Not even a pandemic can keep Texas Panto down, as Stages artistic director Kenn McLaughlin wrote (book and lyrics) this special one-man version to both acknowledge and virtually escape these lockdown times. Stages Panto favorite Buttons (Ryan Schabach), the kind of everyman jester in previous original productions, uses puppetry and songs to spin different kind of Sleeping Beauty tale. Buttons receives across-the-pond help from very special guest and Panto regular, Genevieve Allenbury, who virtually brings some fairytale magic from London.

     

     Nutcracker Sweets from Houston Ballet (Ticketed streaming, December 15-January 8, 2021)
    Perhaps inspired by a gift box of holiday chocolates and candies, the Houston Ballet presents Houston with both an abbreviate version of artist director Stanton Welch’s The Nutcracker from 2018, as well as an offering of new solo dances featuring the HB company dancing to holiday favs like “Jingle Bells” by Barbra Streisand and “Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt. The dancers were filmed one at a time in the Margaret Alkek Williams Dance Lab at the Houston Ballet Center for Dance under safety guidelines from Houston Methodist Hospital.

     

     The Nutcracker: Larger Than Life at Houston Museum of Natural Science (on-screen, now through January 3, 2021)
    For those who want a giant-sized version of Stanton Welch’s Nutcracker and are ready to head back into the HMNS’s newly-renovated Wortham Giant Screen Theatre, this will be the new way to keep holiday traditions alive. Clara, the Nutcracker Prince, Rat King, Sugar Plum Fairy, and all the international Sweet Kingdom ambassadors dance onto the huge HMNS theater screen.

     

    Operating under strict COVID-19 protocols and cleaning procedures since the fall, the HMNS theatre gives audiences a 4K digital projection experience, producing nearly 8-stories high images, along with a six-track sound system, and new deluxe seating. These holiday dance visions have never reached greater heights.

    Houston Ballet presents Nutcracker Sweets, a streaming program of new holiday dances and an abbreviated version of artist director Stanton Welch’s The Nutcracker.

    Houston Ballet: Nutcracker Sweets, HB Corps de Ballet dancer Naazir Muhammad
      
    Photo by Photo by Lawrence Elizabeth Knox
    Houston Ballet presents Nutcracker Sweets, a streaming program of new holiday dances and an abbreviated version of artist director Stanton Welch’s The Nutcracker.
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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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