Our long fall nights have arrived just in time for all the evenings we’re going to need to see some of the most eclectic theater of the year. Holiday favorites like A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker take to stages across town, but we’ve also got lots of comedies from holiday heartwarming to the darkly funny social commentary. Meanwhile Broadway at Hobby yields a corny harvest, and we’ve got two immersive shows for those who want to get caught up in the action.
The Endings from Strange Bird Immersive (ongoing through 2024)
Though known as the company who ties immersive theater with escape room experiences, there’s no escaping (the dark fun) with this new show that makes life and death choices into an absurdist adventure. Consider yourself a player, actor, or audience member. Either way you become a job applicant at an organization that seems to have a very bad history of OSHA violations. Wearing a headset and guided by a narrator, each applicant will explore a ruined office space and the hallways of their own mind. Players make choices that take them down different branching narratives. The Endings boasts eleven different narratives and thirty-six possible endings, but no matter where the story takes each player, it always ends in their very own ludicrous death.
Safe at Home at Schroeder Park, University of Houston’s baseball stadium (November 7-10)
Baseball meets immersive theater in this unique production from UH’s School of Theatre & Dance. In this new play by Gabriel Greene and Alex Levy, a visiting guest artist at UH, the actors and sets act as a kind of set bases as the audience moves from one scene to the next within Schroeder Park to see a whodunit thriller unfold. Each scene ends with a cliffhanger urging the audience to literally move onward into the story.
Set against the backdrop of Game 7 of the World Series, the play provides a voyeuristic look into complex issues of U.S. immigration policies, racial politics, and the intersection of personal ethics with media influences — all the while challenging societal perceptions.
Playhouse Creatures from Lionwoman Productions (November 7-23)
Is there a new queen of Houston’s theater jungle? We’ll find out as this prideful new company Lionwoman sets its debut production at the MATCH this month. It’s a thematically resonating choice of plays for a company on a mission to lift diverse voices, as this play by award-winning playwright April De Angelis tells the story of some of the first women actresses on the British stage.
Set during the 1660s in Restoration London, when women were first allowed into acting professions, Playhouse Creatures focuses on the lives of five, real-world actresses of the time. These fierce and fascinating “creatures” relish their opportunity to work on stage and navigate the society and time into which they’ve been “plopped.” Though a popular play in the U.K, this will be the first Texas production.
Love Bomb from Catastrophic Theatre (November 15-December 7)
It wouldn’t be the Houston theater holiday season if Catastrophic wasn’t decking the halls with some likely absurdist, wild, and avant garde counter programming. This year it’s a world premiere devised musical.
Conceived and directed by frequent Catastrophic guest artist Brian Jucha, this collaboration with the Catastrophic ensemble actors centers around taxi dancers, women in early 20th century dance halls who earned a living by ballroom dancing one song and one man at a time. Featuring songs from 1970’s singer-songwriter and cultural icon Melanie (a.k.a the First Lady of Woodstock), the experimental production will invite audiences into a dance hall where people will do anything to find love. Catastrophic says the rest is going to have to remain a surprise, and we can bet it will be.
The Twelve Ways of Christmas at Ensemble Theatre (November 15-December 22)
With a musical and moving focus on the word “ways,” this new production at Ensemble looks at the many ways people celebrate Christmas — with family, with friends, the holiday's religious significance for some, the wonder of being a child receiving gifts, and the longing of a soldier away at war. The show even tackles the experience of knowing grief during the holiday season. With book and and a jazzy score by artist Chika Kaba Ma’Atunde, the show should bring lots of music, laughs, and genuine feelings to our theatrical holidays.
A Christmas Carol at Alley Theatre (November 15-December 29)
The Alley world premiered this charming new production of the classic tale adapted by Alley artistic director Rob Melrose a few years ago, and it’s already a Houston holiday theater tradition. Melrose went back to Charles Dickens' original novella for inspiration. David Rainey is back as Scrooge with the rest of the resident acting company and Alley regulars playing all the ghosts and Dickensian characters. The Alley creative team and designers weave their own holiday magic alongside the actors in this production to create a music-filled Victorian wonderland with floating houses, intricate and sometimes spooky costumes, beautiful puppetry, wondrous stage illusions, and light snow for every performance.
Shucked presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (November 19-24)
While many a traditional holiday show debuts this month, Broadway at Hobby isn’t quite done with its fall musical harvest, as it brings the Broadway smash musical Shucked to town. If legendary oldies Brigadoon and The Music Man ever had a Gen Z baby, that baby would be Shucked.
In this award-winning show, travel to a lost, magical farming town that needs the help of a Florida (con)man to save its dying corn harvest. With an original book by Robert Horn and an original score by the Grammy Award–winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally that's filled with numbers like the “Corn” song, the “Corn (reprise)” song, and the finale showstopper “Corn Mix,” this is one musical that loves four things: love stories, down home dance numbers, corn, and every corny pun it can sow and reap.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike from 4th Wall Theatre (November 22-December 15)
While not a holiday homecoming, siblings reuniting to hilarious results is definitely a core narrative in Christopher Durang’s Tony-winning comedy that gets an up close and personal production from 4th Wall. The story follows two middle-aged siblings, begrudgingly named after Chekhov characters, who are living a static existence in Pennsylvania until their movie-star sister Masha arrives, accompanied by her attractive and younger lover, Spike. Add in a possibly clairvoyant housekeeper, a wannabe actress neighbor, and a costume party to bring out everyone’s best-worst behaviors as the characters lives get thrown into comic disarray.
This all-in-the family production is directed by 4th Wall artistic director, Jennifer Dean and stars 4th Wall founders Philip Lehl and Kim Tobin-Lehl, along with some Houston favs. It should be a good pick for theater fans looking for a non-holiday comic treat. Small spoiler alert: Vanya and Sonia contains what is arguably one of the greatest comic monologue rants in the last 15 years of American theater, and we can’t wait to watch Lehl tackle it.
Winter Solstice at Rec Room (November 23-December 14)
Leave it to one of Houston’s smallest and most innovative theater companies to bring us a very different kind of awkward holiday family get-together with this play from award-winning German playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig. On Christmas Eve, married couple Bettina and Albert get an unexpected surprise when Bettina’s mother brings a guest to dinner, a seemingly charming stranger she meets on the train. But charm can be deceiving. Rec Room says this sharp edged and sometimes experimental comedy plays with liberalism's inability to immunize itself against fascism’s rhetorical power in this wildly theatrical and inventive production.
A Texas Carol: Part Deux at A.D. Players (November 29-December 22)
A few years ago A.D. Players artistic producer Kevin Dean and executive artistic director Jayme McGhan created a new seasonal comedy for Houston with a decidedly east Texas twang. The holiday trials and tribulations of the dysfunctional but loving Dinkel family as they faced the death of their beloved matriarch made for a moving yet funny hit for the company.
This month, A.D. Players debuts the world premiere sequel with the members of the Dinkel family returning, along with most of the original actors. Two years after the events of the original Texas Carol, the extended family gathers once more at Mee-Maw's beloved ranch on Christmas Day for more holiday mayhem, including a wedding, bickering relatives, budding romances, weather emergencies, visiting French Canadians, Texas hockey, a giant feral hog on the loose, and probably most volatile of all, college cousins on opposite sides of the UT and A&M divide. The company calls the show their zany and heartfelt ode to families who, despite their dysfunction, somehow manage to keep moving forward in love.
The Nutcracker from Houston Ballet (November 29-December 29)
Houston Ballet wraps up the year with Stanton Welch’s sugarplum dreamy Nutcracker Ballet. The full company of dancers will perform during the production’s run, joined by hundreds of young dancers — a mix of students from Houston Ballet Academy as well as locals from the annual open audition. Dancing to the beloved Tchaikovsky score, all our favorites — the Nutcracker Prince, Sugarplum Fairy, Rat King, and the international ambassadors — will take a turn at the magical winter court. In Welch’s imagining, Clara becomes the hero of this enchanting story where the all the animals dance as well as the weather, in the form of the loveliest snowflakes in Houston.
Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Broadway at the Hobby Center presents Shucked.
