Best April Art

Houston's annual Art Car Parade tops 8 can't-miss art happenings for April

This month takes Houston art lovers on some remarkable journeys — through time into the future and space through gardens and roadways. From outdoor festivals to color healing to new Abstract masterpieces at the Menil, we’ve got a lot to see this month. So whether you want to stop and smell the flowers at Rienzi or get revived up for the Art Car Parade, Houston has an art show for everyone this month.

“The Alchemy of Memory: Echoes Across Time” at Sawyer Yards (now through May 11)

This exhibition of artworks by Spring Street Studios artists and other Houston artists explores the power of memory and its ability to facilitate healing and dreams as it inspires artistic creation. The show’s curator, Gabriela Magana, is a founding member of LAWAH (Latin American Women Artists of Houston). In a statement, Magana explains that the artists working with this theme “reimagine new worlds born from the fragments of the past, bending reality into playful and surreal manifestations that challenge conventional thought.”

“The Healing Power of Color” at Spring Street Studios (now through May 11)

Photo courtesy of The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art

Charismatic cars are sure to make you smile.

The artists of Spring Street embrace their name with this in-season exhibition focused on themes of positivity and well-being. Thinking about the science of color and how studies have shown color can change behavior, moods, and thoughts, the artists have responded with a survey of works that examine our reaction to color. Some works of the show will also play with ideas on how the absence of color can also have an impact on how we feel, and when employed in art, it can create a different mental space. Strategically placed black and white images create a visual pause and allow for reflection. The stark contrast emphasizes the power of simplicity and encourages viewers to delve deeper.

“Color, Scent, and Memory: Rienzi’s Gardens 1954–1999” at Museum of Fine Arts Rienzi House (now through July 31)

Open to the public for a quarter of a century now in a River Oaks mansion, the MFAH house museum for European decorative arts has also provided Houstonians a place to explore a living collection of plants, flowers, trees, and sensory moments. This new exhibition presents an archival investigation into the history of Rienzi’s gardens. Originally owned by Carroll Sterling Masterson and Harris Masterson III, the couple worked with their friend, landscape architect Ralph Ellis Gunn, to create the landscape design that would showcase flowers, foliage, and sculptural forms on the banks of Buffalo Bayou by utilizing the natural ravines and towering trees to create a sense of grandeur. Take a stroll through the flowers of time as the exhibition examines the Rienzi gardens’ dynamic creation and celebrates its history.

Houston Art Car Parade Art Weekend at various locations throughout Houston (April 11-14)

One of our favorite annual multi-day art events begins early with the Main Street Drag, as the art cars zoom to locations across Houston and visit with individuals that may not have the opportunity to attend the actual parade, like schools, nursing homes, developmental centers, and hospitals. On Friday, we don our best art car glam and prepare to party down at the Legendary Art Car Ball at the Orange Show World Headquarters.

Saturday brings the big event, the 37th Annual Art Car Parade, as 250 rolling art/auto masterpieces cruise down Allen Parkway. Saint Arnold founder Brock Wagner takes the wheel as this year’s grand marshal. The weekend ends with another celebration at the Art Car Awards Ceremony. Over $16,000 will be distributed to Art Car artists and groups in various categories through a judging process that rates entries based on their creativity, artistic techniques, and inspiration.

The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival at Town Green Park (April 12-14)

If your art tastes run a bit more stationary and you’d like to make an art find for yourself, head on up to The Woodlands for an art fest ranked among the top in the country. Set along the banks of The Woodlands Waterway in Town Green Park, festival guests will have the unique opportunity to enjoy a vibrant outdoor gallery with authors, music, food, and kids' activities while shopping for art created by local, national, and maybe even some international artists working in a variety of mediums. For those wanting some performance art amid their visual art, look for live music concerts throughout the 3 days of the festival.

"Mami Wata Afrofuturism: 500 Years Back to the [Afro][F]uture" at Houston Museum of African American Culture (April 13-June 29)

Organized by HMAAC’s chief curator Christopher Blay, this exhibition showcases artists who imagine future worlds but with visions reflecting the past. Giving viewers new insight on the complexity of this art movement, “Mama Wata” will focus on works by artists of the African Diaspora who weave the history of the transatlantic and trans-Mississippi delta journeys of Black people across waters into their art, carrying with them histories, mythologies, and cultures towards new futures. Blay states that the exhibition was inspired and influenced by his scholarly work on the Afrofuturism movement and his recent essay observing “The first acts of Afrofuturism began at the crossing of the Atlantic by enslaved people.”

Featuring the work of 7 artists — Arnold J. Browne, Carla Jay Harris, Lewinale Havette, Miatta Kawinzi, Abi Salami, Lakea Shepard, and Raymond Thompson — the art in the exhibition will take many forms, including paintings, photography, and digital painting on paper, photographs, video, and sculpture.

“Olivia Erlanger: If Today Were Tomorrow” at Contemporary Art Museum (April 20-October 27)

This first solo museum exhibition of breakout artist Erlanger’s work has landed on national must-see lists for 2024. Featuring a large scale installation, a video, and a series of commissioned sculptures, the show will continue Erlanger’s decade-long investigation into what it means to call a planet home.

The exhibition turns the downstairs Nina and Michael Zilkha Gallery. Erlanger into a sculptural landscape comprising of distinct yet interrelated zones. The opening “zone” will recreate the set of one of Erlanger’s films riffing on the psychology of interior spaces as well as acting as a platform for watching her new short film, Appliance. Other zones will feature dioramas of off-world landscapes and impossible architectures; illuminated planet sculptures; and a constellation of arrows piercing the Museum’s brutalist staircase.

“The sculptures, installations, and short film comprising ‘If Today Were Tomorrow' all take inspiration from my research into the semiotics of suburbia: the myths and symbols underpinning the banal promise of social mobility through property ownership,” describes Erlanger of the work taken together. “The project is in part inspired by the psychology of interiors — what we hide and what we display.”

Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions” at Menil Collection (April 26-August 25)

Thanks to a series of acquisitions, promised gifts, and bequests, the Menil has grown its collection of non-representational artwork substantially over the last 15 years, with a special focus on works by women and artists of color. Now the museum puts some of these significant Abstract works together in their own exhibition featuring major pieces by Agnes Denes, Suzan Frecon, Sam Gilliam, Leslie Hewitt, Dorothy Hood, Ellsworth Kelly, Rick Lowe, and Richard Serra, among others.

While some of the pieces might be familiar as highlights of other Menil exhibitions over the last several years, this will be the first opportunity to see these works, which span decades, together. The show will also tell a very unique story of John and Dominique de Menil’s love of abstract art that remains part of the spirit of the museum.

"This exhibition is a celebration of how the museum's holdings have grown and evolved, and it reflects the conviction of our founders that modern art, especially abstraction, can illuminate the ineffable and create a place for the spiritual after World War II,” explains Menil senior curator Michelle White. “The works on view reflect this enduring belief, shared by many contemporary artists, that the language of abstraction can be a deep and direct expression of the world around us."

Best February Theater

A Broadway legend and classic musicals star in Houston's best February shows

Photo by Andrew Eccles

The Hobby Center presents Beyond Broadway: An Evening with Bernadette Peters.

From mythic marriages to small moments of friendship, love is in the air–in its many forms–across Houston stages. This Valentine’s month brings romance and heartbreak among gods and goddess, but Houston theater companies also showcase stories of profound human connections in ordinary spaces, on trains, in diners, and classrooms. If all those dramatic and comic relationships aren’t enough, Theatre Under the Stars invites us to one of history’s greatest jam session and the Hobby Center brings Broadway royalty to town.

Grand Horizons from Mildred’s Umbrella (February 5-21)
Mildred’s is the first of many companies this month picking contemporary and sometimes very recent Broadway plays and musicals as sources for their fresh, local productions. The company begins this heartfelt season with Bess Wohl’s comedy-drama about a mature marriage and the grand chaos of falling out of love. The show opens on an ordinary older couple, Bill and Nancy, having dinner at their home in the Grand Horizons retirement community.

But after 50 years of marriage, they’re ready to call it quits and calmly announce their decision to divorce, sending shockwaves through their family. As their adult sons rush to make sense of the news, long-buried tensions and unspoken truths rise to the surface. With wit and warmth, Wohl explores love, commitment, and the messiness of family in this modern look at what it really means to grow old together or apart.

Beyond Broadway: An Evening with Bernadette Peters presented by the Hobby Center (February 6)
The Hobby Center continues to bring the biggest musicals and screen stars for electrifying one-night-only shows with their Beyond Broadway series. Next up, living legend Bernadette Peters – the critically acclaimed queen of stage, film, television and recordings–will present a magical and inspiring evening of songs from some of the greatest musical theater masters. The multi-award winner creates an intimate audience experience when she performs celebrated selections from Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, and others.

The Coast Starlight at Main Street Theater (February 7-March 1)
With its debut in New York a few years ago, Starlight garnered much critical acclaim for its story about passengers on a Pacific Coast train from L.A. to Seattle. These strangers meet on this 36 hour journey and slip into and out of each others lives, perhaps influencing the small and big choices they all need to make.

At the center of this journey is T.J., a Navy medic with a difficult decision to make. With the help of his fellow travelers, all of whom are reckoning with their own life circumstances, T.J. has roughly 1,000 miles to figure out how he wants to live the rest of his life. As MST continues to celebrate its momentous 50th season, they note this show “illuminates our capacity for invention and re-invention when life goes off the rails.”

Hadestown presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (February 10-15)
This multiple Tony-winning musical and Broadway smash returns to Houston after beguiling Hobby Center audiences in 2022. The road to Hell is full of some bad intentions but some heavenly music as the story entwines the ancient Greek love stories of Hades and Persephone and Orpheus and Eurydice into one epic, bluesy tale. As the first song, “Road to Hell” even spoils, don’t expect a happily-ever-after with these stories, but do lookout for modern, complex visions of these classic myths.

Katy Perry Candy Darling Mary Magdalene from Catastrophic Theatre (February 13-March 7)
In a season of mostly world premieres, Catastrophic once again breaks genres and definitions with this edgy musical about Sophia, the lead singer of an underground Houston band called Bird Murderer. Sophia is on a quest to write the perfect song, with the simple requirements that it must be personal, universal, and under three minutes. Most of all, it has to pay tribute to her favorite artist of all time: Katy Perry.

Describing Katy Perry Candy as “a madcap musical romp” and “a psychedelic meditation on the intertwining dualities of religious faith and gender identity, a harrowing disco-punk psychodrama and a hot wet heavy metal nightmare,” Catastrophic once again is set to defy any expectations of what theater can and should be. Playwright Joe Folladori certainly can write from experience as a long time Catastrophic music contributor and founder of the indie pop collective The Mathletes.

English at Alley Theatre (February 13-March 8)
The Alley produces this Pulitzer Prize winning play that just recently became a critically-acclaimed hit on Broadway. The narrative couldn’t be more timely as it deals with themes of language, immigration, assimilation, and ever changing political landscapes.

Set in Iran in 2008, the play follows four Farsi-speaking adults and their teacher in an English class to prepare for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). They each have different reasons for learning English, from job prospects in English-speaking countries to strengthening family connections to gaining bilingual power. Over the course of six weeks, they reveal their unique life stories as well as their relationships with their motherland and identity. They might even forge friendships all the while speaking a foreign tongue.

Million Dollar Quartet from Theatre Under the Stars (February 17-March 1)
While the real 1956 impromptu jam and hangout session between Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash at Sun Record Studios in Memphis remains one of the most iconic and influential moments in music history, this musical depiction of that meeting is relatively new. The hit show made its Broadway debut in 2010 and went on to earn numerous Tony Awards nominations and later a national tour. Now TUTS brings their own rocking production to the Hobby Center.

Along with depicting the real life backstage drama, including the clashing talent and big personalities, the show delivers fiery live performances of billion dollar hits, like “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Fever,” “Walk the Line,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Hound Dog,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” and several beloved gospel standards.

The Counter from 4th Wall Theatre (February 19-March 16)
A small town diner sets the scene and pace for this recent Off-Broadway hit about an unlikely friendship between a regular customer and a waitress. Paul is a retired firefighter, and Katie serves him coffee daily. After months of small talk and hints at their complicated pasts, Paul reaches out for friendship, and Katie agrees, sensing his need.

Through shared secrets, they begin to rediscover hope and joy in human connection. But when Paul makes an unusual request, will their new bond deepen or break completely? With a small, three person cast of some of our favorite Houston actors and the intimacy of 4th Wall’s Studio 101 space, look for the type of poignant experience only live theater can bring.

Sylvia from Houston Ballet (February 26-March 8)
Along with Hadestown, this month brings a second return of a 2022 production of Greek and Roman love myths. Houston Ballet brings back this audience favorite created by artistic director Stanton Welch about the legendary tale of the huntress Sylvia and her love for a mortal shepherd. Look for the whole HB company dancing as gods, goddess, nymphs, huntresses, fauns, and the odd naiad.

Though perhaps not as well known to dance lovers as other story ballets, this depiction of the Sylvia myth, set to music by Léo Delibes, has created faun fans for almost a 150 years. In 2019, Welch put his own mark on the tale, and then HB delivered an epic encore in 2022. It’s no wonder Sylvia leaps into the Wortham Center once more, as the stunning costumes and set designs scenic by world-renowned ballet and opera designer Jerome Kaplan, with lighting design by Lisa J. Pinkham and myth building projections from Wendall K. Harrington, all have made this ballet a favorite for HB audiences.

Venus in Fur from Dirt Dogs Theatre (February 26-March 14)
Dirt Dogs brings a very different kind of romance to the stage for Valentine's season. This dark, sizzling drama from acclaimed playwright David Ives plays on ideas about sexual relationships but also on creative collaborations. Thomas is a playwright searching for the perfect actress to portray Vanda for in his stage adaptation of Leopold Sacher-Masoch’s infamous novella Venus in Furs.

On a dark, stormy night of fruitless auditions, a mysterious and unconventional woman calling herself Vanda arrives to read for the part. Not only is she late, she also appears far from the ideal candidate Thomas had in mind. As the audition unfolds, Vanda’s performance takes an unexpected turn, blurring the lines between script and reality. Masks slips and identities transform, leaving the audience to perhaps wonder who’s really directing and who is acting. As the sexual and psychological tension builds, Thomas and Vanda must confront the complexities of their desires and the darker sides of human nature.

The Chinese Lady at Stages (February 27-March 22)
Last year, Stages had a quiet hit with award-winning playwright Lloyd Suh’s The Heart Sellers, a touching drama about friendship between young immigrants in the 70s. This winter they’re back with another of Suh’s plays, this one inspired by the true story of the first Chinese woman to arrive in the United States. This Lady begins her journey in the early 1800s as a 14-year-old girl brought to America by promoters and toured across the country as a living curiosity. As Afong Moy travels across America over the decades, with her translator her only constant companion, the Chinese Lady shares her witty, poignant, and occasionally heartbreaking observations of a young nation. Balancing Moy’s sharply funny observations with the historical realities of her circumstances, the play touches on themes of identity, exploitation, and racism.

Photo by Andrew Eccles

The Hobby Center presents Beyond Broadway: An Evening with Bernadette Peters.