Best April Art openings

Art cars, elephants, and 8 more can't-miss April openings in Houston

April is the perfect month to experience art all around Houston, especially outdoors. With all the festivals and free, large-scale installations opening this month, we have a herd of new art to explore.

But if the days get hot, museums and galleries will also welcome Houstonians inside for some cool and colorful exhibitions. Look for exciting new shows opening in the Museum District, plus both the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston celebrate young local artists.

"The Great Elephant Migration" at Hermann Park (now through April 30)
Art stampedes through Houston this month, as this mammoth installation of 100 life-sized Indian elephant sculptures makes a home in the park. Houston is the latest stop in the installation’s migration across the U.S. to spread a message of peaceful coexistence between humans and animals. For this special Hermann Park visit, the elephants are welcoming a new addition to their herd, Matt, a massive tusker based on a real life Kenyan elephant. Beyond the wonder of wandering through such an awe-inspiring installation, “Migration” contains a multitude of layers, both literally and figuratively. These artworks were created by The Real Elephant Collective, a community of 200 Indigenous artisans living within India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, and sculpted from the invasive Lantana camara plant. This vegetation takes over Indian forests, essentially chocking the elephant’s native food supply. Houston is the perfect temporary home for this message of care and conservation, as Lantana is invasive in Texas, as well.

“Empty Bowls Invitational Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through April 30)

$\u200bThe "Great Elephant Migration" herd arrives in Hermann park.$

Photo by Tasha Gorel

The "Great Elephant Migration" herd arrives in Hermann park.

If you missed the annual Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Houston Food Bank last month, there’s still time to check out this benefit exhibition at Archway Gallery. More than 30 artfully crafted, one-of-a-kind bowls will be displayed along with work submitted by both 2D and 3D Archway Gallery artists, including Chris Alexander, Carol Berger, Harold Joiner, Gözde Kaya, Isabel Perreau, Shirl Riccetti, John Slaby, and Liz Conces Spencer. The Empty Bowls artwork will be available through the month of April with proceeds benefiting the Houston Food Bank.

“Flower Clouds” at City Place (now through April 30)
We’ve been watching all the vivid and innovative outdoor art installations spring up at City Place for some time now, and this latest has us floating on cloud nine. Created by the London-based studio Graphic Rewilding, this collection of park benches will make for the perfect place to while away a spring day. The giant benches depict over 25 species of natural vegetation (as well as insects and birds) native to the Texas Gulf Coast in all their colorful glory. Using these places of rest as a canvas and calling their work “meadowscapes,” Graphic Rewilding want the benches and their illustrated wildlife to rekindle a human connection to nature while also underscoring the joys of home-grown local culture. While these spring flowers will bloom for a short time before disappearing in May, look for them to pop back up this summer from June 1-July 27.

“Pandemic Made” at Houston Center for Photography (April 10-June 1)
The Covid pandemic was not just a specific set of dates, but also a perception-shifting event for the world. This group exhibition featuring the work of Christopher Lowell, Sandra Klein, Brad Ogbonna, Ryan Frigillana, and Safi Alia Shabaik, will showcase photographic art grounded in the specific time period but also made under a great change in artistic practice.

“While all the works in this exhibition were born out of covid and conceptually touch on the pandemic, it is just as much about the artist’s compulsion to create — even in the most extreme of times, especially in the most extreme of times,” states the exhibition curator, Anne Leighton Massoni. “This exhibition exalts the creative’s relentless need to share their unique sensibilities, invest in their artistic practice, and respond to the calling of their muses in spite of — and in response to — the reality surrounding them,”

“Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other” at Center for Contemporary Craft and Houston Museum of African American Culture (April 12-August 16)
It will take two Museum District institutions partnering to deliver this major exhibition of the acclaimed fiber artist's large-scale installations. Clark creates big with her community-centered and participatory projects, and visitors will definitely want to make the short trip between HCCC and HMAAC in order to see these multifaceted endeavors, including“The Beaded Prayers Project” (1998-ongoing), “The Hair Craft Project” (2014), and the “Monumental Cloth series” (2019). Using everyday fiber materials, such as hair, flags, and found fabric, as well as a range of textile techniques – including weaving, braiding, quilting, and beading – Clark’s work explores issues of history, racial injustice, cultural legacies, and reconciliation.

“For Sonya Clark, craft and community are intertwined, and we hope that this iteration of the exhibition reflects the relationship between legacies of craft and the African American experience in the United States,” described organizing curators John Guess Jr., founding CEO of HMAAC, and Sarah Darro, curator and exhibitions director of HCCC, in a statement about this unique collaboration. “Presenting ‘We Are Each Other’ across our institutions, which are devoted to African American culture and contemporary craft practice, respectively, embodies the collaborative spirit that defines Clark’s oeuvre.”

“Eye on Houston: High School Documentary Photography” at Museum of Fine Arts (now through Spring 2026)
Every spring we get a peek at tomorrow’s artists with this annual exhibition of student photography from area high schools. The show always becomes a celebration of Houston’s diverse neighborhoods from the perspective of these budding artists who live here. From friendships, to Houston landscapes, to the rooms of their lives that reflect their innermost thoughts and dreams, the exhibition presents the beauty and dynamics of the the city and our rising generation through the images captured by students representing eight high schools: Bellaire, Carnegie Vanguard, DeBakey, Eastwood Academy, Heights, Washington, Westside, and Jack Yates.

38th Annual Houston Art Car Parade & Festival at various locations throughout Houston (April 10-13)
One of Houston's favorite annual multi-day art events begins early with the Main Street Drag, as the art cars cruise to locations across the city and visit individuals who may not have the opportunity to attend the actual parade, like schools, nursing homes, developmental centers, and hospitals. Later that day, Discovery Green and Avenida Houston offer a preview art of over 100 art cars. Come out for a close look at the cars, meet the artists, and enjoy live music and kids’ crafts. Friday night, don’t miss the wild costumes, live music, interactive and performance art, food, drinks, and a huge selection of illuminated and fire-breathing art cars at the annual Legendary Art Car Ball at the Orange Show World Headquarters.

Saturday brings the big parade, as 250 rolling masterpieces cruise through downtown and along Allen Parkway. One of the greatest athletes of track and field, Houston’s own Carl Lewis, takes the wheel as the parade’s grand marshal. Then, there’s no party like an after party, as the crowds head over to Market Square Park to experience dozens of art cars lining Preston and Congress Streets along with live music, bubble stations, photo ops, and family-friendly fun. On Sunday, the weekend ends with the Art Car Awards Ceremony back at the Orange Show Headquarters. Over $15,000 will be distributed to Art Car artists, school, and nonprofit groups in various categories through a judging process that rates entries based on their creativity, artistic techniques, and inspiration.

Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival at Town Green Park (April 11-13)
Enjoy art along the water as one of the Woodlands’ favorite festivals celebrates its 20th anniversary. Set along the banks of The Woodlands Waterway in Town Green Park, festival guests will have the opportunity to enjoy a vibrant outdoor gallery with authors, music, food, and kids' activities while shopping for art created by local, national, and international artists working in a variety of mediums. For those wanting some performance art amid their visual art, look for live music concerts, dance performances, poetry readings, and storytelling throughout the 3 days of the festival.

“Out of Stock” at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (April 11-October 19)
Once again the CAMH showcases Houston’s young artists with another round of this special exhibition of work from over 25 local teens. The budding artist created new work in response to questions of consumer culture, including: What is the line between product and person? What are you consuming? Is it consuming you? When does consumption cross the line between want and need?

Taken together, these pieces give insight to a generation growing up amid a myriad of consumer choices in a world of finite resources. The CAMH says the show will feature teen artists grappling with the symptoms of consumption society, with works exploring subjects like doom-scrolling, burnout, the pharmaceutical industrial complex, and the human exploitations of war and labor.

“Hung Hsien: Between Worlds” at Asia Society (April 16-September 21)
Though Hung Hsien (also known as Margaret Chang) has had a remarkable career, this will be the first major retrospective of the pioneering ink painter’s work. Born in China, Hsien was studying and working in the U.S in the 1960s when she invented a unique painting language that bridges traditional Chinese brushwork and Western abstraction. This landmark exhibition brings together over 50 works, spanning more than 70 years, from private collections and the artist’s personal archives. The show highlights Hung’s artistic evolution as she synthesized Eastern and Western artistic traditions and visions. The Asia Society notes that from the vivid, swirling compositions of her 1970s abstractions to her mature meditative works inspired by nature, her paintings reflect a lifelong commitment to innovation.

visual-art art car festival museums openings

Best September Theater

12 best plays, musicals, and ballets opening on Houston stages this month

Photo by Jeremy Daniel

Broadway at the Hobby Center presents The Sound of Music

As this summer’s Odyssey demonstrates, audiences seem ready for new versions of the classics. Houston theater and performing arts companies are giving an ovation to this trend as they begin their daring and dramatic fall seasons. Major award winners, literary masterpieces, and contemporary classics will ignite Houston stages this month from Romeo and Juliet to The Sound of Music to Manon. Houstonians looking for something more recent and edgy will want to see 21st century Pulitzer and Tony winners, plus a cool comedy or two.

Photo by Jeremy Daniel

Broadway at the Hobby Center presents The Sound of Music

Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties from Mildred’s Umbrella (September 3-19)
Five women with little in common but their first name, Betty, meet in this contemporary mad comedy from Jen Silverman. And as the Houston theater that focuses on plays about and by women, no company is better to bring the five Betties to life than Mildred’s Umbrella.

From an affluent New York society woman to a would be actress to the owner of a boxing gym, these five Betties find connection and an outlet for their collective rage by forming a theater collective and staging “Pyramus and Thisbe,” the mini-farce within Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Yes, this is a play about the making of a play within a play, as Silverman creates comedy by shattering the roles women adhere to.

Pecos Bill from Houston Ballet (September 11-20)
Houston Ballet leaps into a new season with three works that illustrate the depth and breadth of the company’s skills. Have some down-home fun with Stanton Welch’s rollicking ballet depicting the adventures of the mythic cowboy, Pecos Bill. The company will also show off its classical expertise with George Balanchine’s elegant and dynamic Symphonie Concertante. For a debut treat, HB will perform celebrated choreographer Lar Lubovitch’s Meadow. While this will be the first time the company dances a Lubovitch piece, HB co-artistic director Julie Kent was in the original cast for its world premiere by the American Ballet.

Proof from 4th Wall Theatre (September 11-October 3)
The first of two Tony and Pulitzer double winners on this month's must-see list, Proof was a Broadway hit then film in the early 2000s and since has become a emotional showcase for regional actors around the country. Twenty-five years after its debut, this complex story of family, trust, grief, and genius still resonates. As the play unfolds, the audience meets Catherine, who has given up years of her life to take care of her brilliant mathematician father as he wrestles with mental illness. After his death, Catherine is adrift in the world. Can she find the courage to prove her mental stability to her doubtful sister and her own math genius to one of her father’s former students?

Cold War Choir Practice at Main Street Theater (September 12-October 11)
Perhaps this month's most undefinable show, this comedy, with choral music interludes, earned critical acclaim when it debuted off Broadway earlier this year. The play follows the adventures of 10-year-old Meeks, who is not exactly an average girl growing up in the late 80s. Her father is a former Black Panther who now owns a roller rink and her uncle a prominent security advisor in the Reagan administration, with a mysteriously ill, white wife who also might be a cult member.

With Christmas around the corner, Meeks keeps busy with choir practice and building a bomb shelter in her basement. But with her uncle’s unexpected visit, long-simmering tensions within the family begin to boil and national secrets are in jeopardy, as the world prepares for the disarmament summit between Reagan and Gorbachev.

The Music Man presented by Theatre Under the Stars (September 15-27)
Musical lovers just can’t say no to that conman with a heart of gold, Harold Hill, a.k.a the Music Man. Since it first debuted in the 1950s, the feel-good musical seems to get a Broadway revival or tour with regularity. Now, Theatre Under the Stars opens its 2026-27 season by presenting the latest national touring production of the comedy about charming Harold who gets conned himself by small town sincerity and the love of a good librarian. With big dance numbers and songs like "(Ya Got) Trouble,” "Seventy-Six Trombones,” and "Till There Was You,” the show remains one of the great American musicals.

Amadeus at Rec Room (September 17-October 10)
After a several months hiatus as it moves from a calendar year season to a fall/spring one, Rec Room is back and celebrating its 10th anniversary with a show that hasn't been performed locally in quite a while. The now classic 20th century play is about the (mostly one-sided) rivalry between composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; it explores themes of creation, jealousy, and the nature of genius.

As one of Houston’s most intimate spaces, Rec Room has managed to produce epic productions on its small stage thanks to the creative team’s ability to ignite its audiences’ imaginations. Anticipate the same kind of theatrical magic for Amadeus, which the company describes as a “theatrical séance where memory, ritual, and myth converge.”

Rhinoceros from Catastrophic Theatre (September 18-October 10)
The blasts from the past continue as Houston’s home for avant garde theater, Catastrophic, revives its hit production of Eugene Ionesco’s epic absurdest play, Rhinoceros. Several of the cast members and creative artists from its last staging in 2017 will return to this story about a small town whose citizens begin to transform one-by-one into destructive rhinoceros until almost no humans are left. Written in the late 1950s, Rhinoceros has some of the markings of a horror film of the time period. Using absurdist imagery, it warns how easily fascism and authoritarianism can rise when people feel the call of the herd. Yet the play still has moments of outrageous dark comedy.

Purpose at Ensemble Theatre (September 18-October 11)
The oldest and largest professional African American theatre in the Southwest celebrates its 50th season with one of the most award-winning plays of the last few years. Earning both the Best Play Tony and Pulitzer Prize, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’s drama depicts a political prominent family as it gathers together for something of a celebration, homecoming, and bitter going away dinner. The Jasper patriarch was a leader in the Civil Rights movement, but the two adult sons struggle to live up to their father’s legacy, while their mother attempts to keep the family together and family secrets hidden. Meanwhile, an uninvited guest gives the proceedings an outsider's perspective.

Come From Away at Stages (September 18-October 18)
The true story of a small town in Newfoundland that rallied together to host thousands of stranded international travelers when planes were grounded world wide on September 11, 2001 made for one of the most poignant and hopeful musicals in decades. It’s been a few years since Come From Away toured nationally, so Houstonians should be looking forward to seeing Stages begin its season with this homegrown production filled with some of the company's best actors.

While the show has been a hit all over the world that speaks to human connection and kindness even during the greatest of tragedies, it also has some deep Texas roots. Among the many stories the musical sings, one of otheur favorites is the glimpse into the extraordinary life of Texan Beverley Bass, the first female captain at American Airlines.

Manon from Houston Ballet (September 24-October 4)
For its second production of the month, Houston Ballet pirouettes from one act dances to Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s lush, romantic tragedy, Manon. With music by French composer Jules Massenethe, the ballet journeys from glamorous parties in Paris to the bayous of Louisiana to recount the doomed love story between the irresistibly beautiful femme fatale, Manon, and impoverished student, Des Grieux.

Romeo and Juliet at Alley Theatre (September 25-October 11)
There might not be a dry eye in the Theater District as the Alley also opens its fall season with a romantic tragedy that literally originated the term "star-crossed lovers." The entire Alley resident acting company will take roles in Shakespeare’s wrenching tale of young lovers crushed between their warring families.

The production also marks the debut of a new initiative between the Alley and the University of Houston that expands the existing MFA in Acting program at the University of Houston by placing third-year acting students in residence at the Alley, working directly with the full-time acting company. For Romeo and Juliet, several of those students will have roles in the ensemble and as understudies.

The Sound of Music presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (September 29-October 4)
Houston's month of classics ends with arguably the most beloved musical of all time, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. This new touring production that celebrates the musical’s 65th anniversary features new direction from three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray).

Devout Music fans shouldn’t worry, because, while a new generation of actors take on the roles of Maria, Captain von Trapp, and that gaggle of singing von Trapp kids, the story of love, family, and bravery in the face of evil remains the same. Prepare to hum along (quietly) to classics such as “Climb Every Mountain,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and, of course, “The Sound of Music.”