Best July & August Theater

Broadway hits and Shakespeare festival headline Houston's 12 best summer shows

Lions and tigers and zebras and murder. Oh, my! From big blockbuster shows to annual chilly thrillers, summertime is some of the best time for theater in Houston. Shakespeare, jukebox musicals, mysteries, and madcap comedies always headline our summer must-sees. This year is no different, but we’re also got intriguing musical dramas, Tony Award winning Broadway shows, bittersweet love stories, and even a local world premiere. There’s no place like Houston for summer theater.

The Wizard of Oz at A.D. Players (July 9-August 10)
Something wicked this way comes from A.D. Players this summer. Yes, long before the musical told from certain witches’ perspectives, L. Frank Baum’s original journey to Oz began with a Kansas girl’s ride on a tornado. She found a magical and musical land filled lively lions, tin men, and scarecrows. Follow the yellow brick road to classic songs like “Over the Rainbow” and “We’re Off to See the Wizard,” but after a great adventure, learn that enduring message that there’s no place like home. Our favorite Galleria area Players say this newly imagined production will have incredible production values to delight the whole family.

Crabs in a Bucket at MATCH (July 10-19)
This satire comes by Houston-raised, nationally acclaimed playwright Bernardo Cubría gets its first regional production with a stellar local cast. Amargo and Pootz are two bitter crabs living in a shucking bucket. They spend their days judging the other crabs that got out, the ones who couldn't take it, and the losers who still live among them. When a new crab arrives filled with hope and change, they are faced with who they once were and their incessant dream of getting the shuck out. Any similarities between this crabby circumstance and human relationships are purely intentional.

The Mirror Crack’d at Alley Theatre (July 11-August 17)
Move over Hercule Poirot and you too Sherlock, because it takes a woman to untangle all the mysterious threads of jealousy, lies, and ambition in those seemingly charming English towns. One of Agatha Christie’s greatest detectives, Miss Marple, uses a cheerful and kind-auntie demeanor to disguise a keen intellect and nose for solving crime. For this Miss Marple case, the filming of a star-studded movie in a quaint village leads to a chilling murder, and everyone becomes a suspect. The Alley’s annual Summer Chills mystery production is usually one of their most popular shows, but this one will also make a bit of theatrical history as this production of the Christie classic, adapted by Rachel Wagstaff, marks the first time iconic sleuth Miss Marple has appeared on the U.S. stage.

The 39 Steps at Main Street Theater (July 12-August 10)
The classic Alfred Hitchcock spy thriller becomes exhilarating comic mayhem onstage when performed by just four actors. The original 39 Steps film is the story of an ordinary man accused of a murder he did not commit after he accidentally becomes involved with a mysterious and deadly woman. He must then go on the run over the English and Scottish countryside trying to allude both the police and an international spy ring attempting to steal British military secrets. In this hilarious parody adaptation by Patrick Barlow, the four actors leap in and out of over 150 characters, sometimes playing multiple roles in the span of seconds while also performing dynamic chase scenes, including an onstage plane crash. Look for some of our local favs to get quite the theatrical workout in this breakneck comedy.

Parade presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (July 15-20)
For the penultimate show of Broadway at Hobby’s 24-25 season, they’re bringing in the 2023 Tony Award winner for Best Revival of a Musical. Set at the turn of the 20th century, the dramatic and still very timely story chronicles what happens when murder, politics, and prejudice meet during a sensationalized murder trial. Based on a true story, Parade depicts newlywed Jewish couple, Leo and Lucille Frank, struggling to make a home and find community in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion. Riveting and complex, Parade reminds us that to love, we must truly see one another.

Iolanthe from the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Houston (July 19-27)
We always look forward this annual summer performance treat, as Houston’s own esteemed Gilbert and Sullivan Society presents another opera gem from the Gilbert and Sullivan treasure trove of musicals. Marrying fantasy and satire, Iolanthe is set in a magical version of England filled with both snobby aristocrats and equally smug faeries. The fairy and human world clash when Strephon, the half-fairy, half-human son of the title character falls in love with the lovely human Phyllis, a ward of the Lord Chancellor. Chaos ensues amid a lively and beautiful score as the fairies interfere in British politics, elevating Strephon to Parliament and upending tradition. The comic opera skews the British legal system, the House of Lords, and Victorian sensibilities all with clever lyrics. Keeping with the fairytale setting, the production design will showcase dreamy lighting, larger-than-life flora set pieces, and costumes inspired by whimsical bugs.

The Last Five Years at Queensbury Theatre (July 23-27)
When this bitter sweet musical made its debut in the early 2000s, it garnered lots of critics and audience acclaim with its fresh way to tell its love story, simultaneously from both the ending and beginning. Cathy, an aspiring actress, sings their story from the end of their marriage looking back, while Jamie, a rising novelist, begins with their first meeting full of sparks and attraction. The musical tellings of their love and loss cross just once, with a wedding song they sing together in the middle of the show. Then, fate pulls them apart. Queensbury plans on updating the already innovative show for our cell phone-obsessed digital age. The show will blend live performance with social media and technology to reflect how we connect, communicate, and fall apart today. Get ready for a fresh take on this iconic musical, where texts, tweets, and time collide.

Honky Tonk Laundry at Stages (July 25-August 17)
The history of this show at Stages has all of the highs and lows of a real honky tonk song. The feel-good musical created by Roger Bean, who also brought the world The Marvelous Wonderettes, was supposed to be one of the first shows through the wash cycle when Stages’ Gordy campus opened back in 2020, but the pandemic put it on hold after only a week of shows. Stages did release a streaming version of the show, but now it’s back in its full live and in-person glory. The title says it all as a woman tries to turn an inherited washeteria into a honky tonk club. Two unlikely friends spin suds, stories, and songs by Reba, Dolly, Carrie, and more. This musical load contains over 20 country hits, including “Before He Cheats,” “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” and “Wide Open Spaces.” At the center of all the sudsy songs is a story of friendship, grit, and finding your voice, one spin at a time.

Houston Shakespeare Festival at Miller Outdoor Theatre (July 31-August 8)
It wouldn’t be summer without free Shakespeare productions at Miller thanks in no small part to the University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance. This year brings a bard-tacular pairing with one of the great history plays, Henry V, and the effervescent comedy, As You Like It. Henry V lets us explore the qualities of leadership in all its challenges, complexities, and compromises as the young English king attempts to claim the French throne via battlefields and princess wooing. As You Like It marries some of Shakespeare’s best comic tropes including women disguised as men and urbanities losing their way, and sometimes sanity, in forests. Mix in some brotherly hate, mistaken identity, mixed up lovers, and a happy ending, and what’s not to like. The annual festival also offers some of the greatest roles for young regional actors getting their professional start and local favorites who have graced many a Houston stage.

Life of Pi presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (August 19-24)
The Broadway at the Hobby Center 24-25 season ends not with a musical, but with this epic play. Based on the internationally award-winning novel and visually stunning film, this show won three Tony Awards and the Olivier Award for Best Play. After a shipwreck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi survives on a lifeboat with four companions: a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Royal Bengal tiger. On this makeshift, floating menagerie, boy and animals must survive together. Told with jaw-dropping visuals, world class puppetry and exquisite stagecraft, this beguiling show creates a breathtaking journey filled with wonder, awe and joy.

While Childhood Slept from Garden Theatre (August 15-17)
This emotional musical has some deep Houston history, as it had its world premiere here in 1999. It later received an off-Broadway reading, and its finale number, “We Will Not Forget,” was featured in the documentary Paperclips. In 2005, a revised version with new songs was performed once again in Houston. Based on a true story of the boys of Home Number One in the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin, the musical chronicles how the children create a secret republic within the camp, publishing their own magazine of art, poetry, and short stories. A visit from The Red Cross presents the opportunity to disguise their magazine as a secret message and a means of escape. The show will be produced in partnership with Holocaust Museum Houston.

The Chosen Ones from Thunderclap Productions (August 28-September 6)
While we have many new takes on classic stories on stages across the city this summer, if you’re looking for something new with some timely resonance, don’t miss this world premiere musical, by local and award winning playwright Aaron Alon. The show chronicles the stories of a group of LGBTQ+ teens sent to a conversion therapy summer camp, led by an “ex-gay” minister. With humor, sorrow, and hope the Chosen Ones explores themes of living authentically, found families, and defying conventions. Look for a large cast of fresh and up and coming local performers in this funny and moving musical, which is also a part of Thunderclap’s John Steven Kellett Memorial Series of works relating to LGBTQ+ equity.

Photo by Joan Marcus

Broadway at the Hobby Center presents Parade.

Best February Art

10 art museum and gallery exhibits to see in Houston this month

María Fernanda Cardoso's Maratus: Spiders of Paradise

Image courtesy of Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino

María Fernanda Cardoso, "Spiders of Paradise: Maratus plumosus", 2024. Pigment print on paper, 35 7/16 x 35 7/16 x 1 9/16 inches.

Art and history merge in many museums and galleries across Houston this month, as contemporary artists and curators look to the past for inspiration and examination. From Black History Month to agricultural history in the Americas to queer history to the mid 20th century glamorization of dining, we’ve got a range of shows for all art and history tastes. If that’s not enough, we get up close to Australian spiders and celebrate Houston as a town of makers.

"The Black Experience: Past, Present and Future” at Bisong Art Gallery (now through February 28)
Celebrating Black History Month, Bisong Art Gallery presents this show curated by The Dream Affect Foundation. With a focus on Black artistic practice as both an archive and a catalyst, the exhibition features the work of six contemporary artists, including Lauren Luna, Romeo Robinson, Craig “TheArtist” Carter, Corey Haynes, Lanre Buraimoh, and John Whaley Jr. The gallery notes that these artists’ works reflect the enduring influence of history while asserting bold, forward-thinking visions of Black life, identity, and imagination. Though using a varied of medium and visual languages, what each artist has in common is an engagement with cultural memory, resilience, and creative sovereignty.

"Just Wood - Mostly” at Archway Gallery (now through March 5)
Featuring whimsical, creative, and utilitarian works “mostly” in wood, this new show showcases the quirky utilitarian and decorative sculptures by Robert L. Straight, as well as cabinet work by guest artists and furniture maker Tom Wells. From wooden race cars to body parts, Straight’s work offers many unique visions of what woodwork can be. Look for sculptures, new furniture, clocks, and sundry surprises from both artists.

“Nick Vaughan And Jake Margolin: Around The Corner And Two Blocks Down” at McClain Gallery (now through March 7)
The acclaimed Houston-based duo continues their multimedia 50 State Project to reveal lost queer histories and stories from across the U.S. This exhibition at McClain Gallery features some of the latest art from their wind drawing series, a selection of charcoal work within the larger project.

To explore ideas of history lost and rediscovered, the artists translate photographs of prior queer spaces into laser cut stencils and lay down charcoal powder onto the page. Then, they blow the charcoal away using pressurized air. The force of the wind drags the charcoal particulates across the tooth of the paper, etching the final image onto the page.

“Art, Place, and Power: Project Row Houses in Houston's Third Ward” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (now through November 8)
One great Houston arts institution celebrates the history of another great Houston art organization with this MFAH installation of works on paper by several of the founders of Project Row Houses, including James Bettison, Bert Long, Jr., Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, and Floyd Newsum. In 1993, seven artists came together to transform a block of abandoned row houses in Houston’s Third Ward neighborhood, making them into a new kind of cultural space. As the Project Row Houses mission reminds us, the founders sought to preserve the culture and history in one of the city’s oldest Black neighborhoods through the practice of socially-engaged art.

For over three decades PRH has staged free exhibitions, offered artist residencies and youth programs, promoted the preservation of historic architecture, and become a cultural landmark in Houston. With this installation, the MFAH helps Houstonians gain further appreciation of the founders' art. These works celebrate the powerful impact of community-oriented artists and art.

“Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try” at Holocaust Museum Houston (February 13-July 19)
For this exhibition focused on Boris Lurie, the acclaimed artist, writer, and Holocaust survivor, organizers use his artwork to trace the story of his remarkable life. Viewed together within the show, Lurie’s paintings, drawings and sculptures – many of which he never exhibited during his lifetime – create a portrait of an artist reckoning with devastating trauma, haunting memories, and a lifelong quest for freedom. The HMH notes that these works, presented along with objects from the artist's personal archive, trace his experience from his childhood in Riga through the concentration camps and postwar period in Europe, to his immigration to the United States, followed by his return visit to Riga thirty years after the Holocaust and beyond. Photographs, official documents, and personal writings underpin the visual retelling and processing of Lurie's survival and its crucial function in forming his identity as an artist.

“Midcentury Menu: Dining in the Atomic Age” at Rienzi (February 18-July 31)
The MFAH plates up a visually delicious dish of Midcentury Modern at Rienzi, the museum’s house for European decorative arts located in River Oaks. This unusual and fascinating exhibition draws from Rienzi’s historical cookbook collection and loans from the Heritage Society, to explore how convenience, technology, advertising, gender, and labor converged to redefine the meaning of eating in postwar World War II America.

The exhibition will examine how American’s perspective on food and dining changed at the end of WWII with waves of scientific advancement, complex supply chains, and the rise of popular culture media that put preparing meals, dining, and ads for modern appliances into magazines and on television. Cooks like Julia Child encouraged women to experiment with French cuisine, and the fictitious Betty Crocker championed convenience with step-by-step guidance. Food and home entertaining took center stage in this new age of abundance, and a wide range of cookbooks promoted everything from curious Jell-O salads to international cuisine.

“In Search of History” at Throughline Collective (February 20-March 21)
This juried exhibition and part of FotoFest Houston’s “Participating Space” program, examines the evolution of lens-based art. Curated by Museum of Fine Arts photography curator, Lisa Volpe, this show focuses on 21st century photography and especially the new uses of technology and the diversity in stories that technology brings.

“The works of art submitted to Throughline Collective demonstrate the wide-ranging vision of lens-based art,” Volpe said. “The artwork included in this exhibition provides a fascinating cross-section of artistic production, representing the diverse landscape of contemporary photography and also the vigorous involvement of the artists in contemporary discourse.”

“Maratus: Spiders of Paradise” at Sicardi Ayers Bacino (February 27-April 11)
This show of multi-disciplinary artist María Fernanda Cardoso’s work will feature her ongoing photographic project to bring the minuscule Australian Maratus spider into larger focus. Featuring large-scale and small-scale digital photographic portraits of various Maratus species, each photographic image is comprised of over 1000 individual photos. Seen together as one spider image, the photos reveal the spider’s colors and form and especially its unique and brightly colored abdomen that are part of the species’ elaborate mating rituals. Much of Cardoso’s work explores connections and tensions between society and the natural world.

“Mud + Corn + Stone + Blue” at Lawndale Art Center (February 28-May 2)
Last month, the Blaffer Museum opened the first section of this exhibition, organized by Blaffer chief curator Laura Augusta, that uses artwork to trace the historical entanglements between the United States and Central America through the angle of U.S. agricultural policy. Now Lawndale expands the selection of works from artists with ties to farming communities in the U.S., Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador. To complement the Houston presentation of this exhibition, Lawndale has commissioned a mural from Dario Bucheli, activations with Zine Fest Houston, and textiles and candies made by Jorge Galván. Lorena Molina will also install an outdoor corn maze in Lawndale’s 4900 Main Street lot as an immersive piece that explores the experience of immigration and diaspora.

“Clutch City Craft” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (February 28-August 8)
Clutch City, Space City, Bayou City, now among our other favorite monikers for Houston, HCCC would like to add one more: Maker City. Calling H-Town “one of the nation’s most formidable centers of making” HCCC celebrations that maker spirit by organizing this special exhibition to examine Houston’s craft traditions and material cultures. The show features a wide spectrum of making practices, from the artists behind century-old, mosaic street signs to cowboy boot makers and fiber artists who design space suits and preserve the woven interiors of NASA mission control.

“Drawing its title from the city’s emblematic nickname — earned during the Houston Rockets’ back-to-back NBA championship wins in 1994 and 1995 — this exhibition uses Clutch City as both a cultural ethos and curatorial framework to examine how skilled craftsmanship underpins Houston’s industrial, social, and aesthetic identities,” HCCC Curator and Exhibition Director Sarah Darro said.

$Mar\u00eda Fernanda Cardoso's Maratus: Spiders of Paradise$

Image courtesy of Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino

Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino presents "Maratus: Spiders of Paradise"

visual-art museums openings