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Holiday-themed productions star in Houston's 11 best shows for November

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.

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Best May Art

MFAH's blockbuster modern art exhibit and 7 more openings in Houston this month

as Pablo Picasso, Woman in a Multicolored Hat, part of the MFAH's upcoming Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen exhibit, opening May 20

Image courtesy MFAH

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen (Pablo Picasso, Woman in a Multicolored Hat, 1939, oil on canvas, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. © 2026 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

May brings some of the biggest art shows and museum exhibitions of the year to town. Some fly in with patriotic fanfare, while others give us a rare opportunity to gaze at European masterworks. Whether someone is looking for irreverent performance art at the CAMH, wants to get in touch with whimsical spirits at Moody Art Center, buy art for a good cause at Silver Street, or get ready for the World Cup at Sawyer Yards, Houston artists, galleries, and museums have a show for all tastes.

“Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation” at Houston Museum of Natural Science (now through May 25)
We’ll call this one the art of democracy. This exhibition 250 years in the making might not fit the usual definition of "art," but this touring presentation of Founding-era documents at HMNS has to make this month's must-see list. The National Archives and Records Administration, in partnership with the National Archives Foundation, set aloft this flying tour of some of the nation’s most historical documents, complete with their own plane. Houston is one of only eight U.S. cities where the Freedom Plane will land. The original National Archives records featured in the exhibition are traveling together for the first time. Just some of the historic documents included in the exhibition are an original engraving of the Declaration of Independence; George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr’s Oaths of Allegiance, 1778; and the Secret Printing of the Constitution in Draft Form, 1787.

“As our nation approaches its 250th anniversary, there is no more fitting tribute than bringing these original documents, leaving the National Archives together for the very first time, directly to the American people,” says Joel Bartsch, president and CEO of HMNS. “From George Washington’s oath as a Continental Army officer to the Treaty of Paris that secured our independence, these are not replicas or reproductions. They are the genuine records, and Houston will have the rare privilege of experiencing them in person this May.”

“20th Annual Empty Bowls” at Silver Street Studios (May 15 and 16)
For two decades this beloved grassroots fundraising event has given art lovers the chance to pick up one of a kind, handcrafted ceramic bowl-shaped artworks for just $25 dollars each and helped to serve up millions of meals to the hungry. Over the years, Empty Bowls Houston has raised over $1.2 million for the Houston Food Bank. The lunch fundraiser is a collaboration between Houston-area ceramists, woodturners, and artists working in all media and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. A special ticketed preview party on May 15 will feature light bites, beer and wine, live music, a pottery throw down event with local potters, and a chance to purchase a bowl early before the main event on May 16. Archway Gallery will also host its own annual Empty Bowls exhibition throughout May.

“No Longer, Not Yet” at Art League (May 15-July 19)
This exhibition of mixed media and fiber sculptures from Houston-based artist Marisol Valencia is the culmination of Valencia volunteering at a Houston-area shelter serving migrant women and children. To create the works in the show, Valencia uses material imbued with meaning, including fibers sourced from rural Mexican communities where migration often shapes daily life; bedsheets and pillows gathered from the shelter; and porcelain pieces inscribed with collected definitions of “home.” At the center of the exhibition will be a large cascading crochet sculpture made in collaboration with women and volunteers at the shelter.

“Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen” at Museum of Fine Arts (May 20-September 13)
Houston claims another first as the MFAH hosts the U.S. debut of this monumental touring exhibition of masterworks by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and other major artists of postwar Europe. The exhibition will also tell the story of influential gallerist Heinz Berggruen and his relationship with the artists and collecting world. From the 1940s into the 1990s, Heinz Berggruen assembled a singular collection of hundreds of modern masterworks, many directly from the artists, and then in 2000, Berggruen placed the collection with the German state. The collection is now housed in the Museum Berggruen in Berlin-Charlottenburg as part of the Berlin State Museums/Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage.

“It is especially rewarding to introduce our audiences to the life and legacy of Heinz Berggruen — a pioneering art dealer, publisher, and collector whom I was privileged to know and work with for more than two decades,” remarks MFAH director Gary Tinterow on bringing the exhibition to Houston.

“Ballet of the Masses” at Sawyer Yards (May 21-July 25)
As Houston gets ready for the World Cup, local artists score their own kind of goals with this exhibition of artful soccer balls. Over 40 Houston artists have put a unique spin on a regulation sized fútbol — turning them into sculptural pieces. Organizers will suspend the works from the ceiling of Sabine Street Studios' North Gallery to create a kind of celestial soccer constellation. Together, these works will celebrate the dynamism and joy within sports and art.

“Never Forgotten” at Sabine Street Studios (May 21-July 25)
This powerful exhibition comes from a unique collaboration between Texas Center for the Missing, Houston Police Department Forensic Artists, and Sabine Street Studios, all dedicated to bringing the missing home. Three local forensic artists: Thurston Johnson, Bryan Bradley, and Kristen Aloysius have created age-progression portraits of missing persons in the hopes of reuniting families. Beyond showcasing real art, “Never Forgotten” was organized to shine a light on each individual case and continue raising awareness of the missing in our community. Sabine Street Studios will also host special programming in conjunction with the show, including a workshop on forensic drawing and drawing portraits based on memories.

“Mary Ellen Carroll: How To Talk Dirty and Influence People” at Contemporary Arts Museum (May 22-November 1)
Acclaimed New York-based conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll has spent over four decades crossing disciplines of performance art, photography, architecture, writing, video making, and public art to explore issues of environmentalism, architectural and technological infrastructure, immigration, urban legislation, and identity, as well as tackling fundamental questions of the nature of art. And some of this exploration has taken place in Houston with Carroll’s continual transformation and documentation of a post-war home in the city’s Sharpstown neighborhood.

This first major museum survey of Carroll’s work takes inspiration from legendary comic Lenny Bruce’s 1965 autobiography of the same name, and emphasizes the irreverent and honest nature of Carroll’s work. The exhibition will bring renewed focus onto some of Carroll’s larger series, for example, “prototype 180,” the Sharpstown project, and “My Death Is Pending… Because,” consisting of separate pieces like video documentation of the artist driving and destroying a 1985 Buick in a demolition derby in 2017 and video of Carroll in a polar bear suit climbing a defunct smokestack in Memphis.

“Carroll is that unique kind of artist who continually reminds you of the power of art and artists to inspire radical change, in ourselves and the world,” notes senior curator Rebecca Matalon.

"Shapeshifters, Sprites, and Spirits” at Rice Moody Center for the Arts (May 29 - August 15)
Delve into a world of whimsical wonder in this new exhibition and the first Texas solo show of acclaimed Japanese artist Masako Miki’s sculptural work and installations. Influenced by diverse artistic movements from European Surrealism to Japanese manga, Miki creates sculptures from felt layered over wood armatures. Once completed, they resemble animated and large scale forms of everyday objects infused with personality and character.

Miki’s work is also inspired by folkloric traditions, especially Shinto animism and its belief that all beings and things contain a spirit. For the site specific Moody exhibition, Miki has also created works with a focus on yōkai, supernatural entities taking the form of beings, objects, and apparitions, and particularly those that appear in the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons (Hyakki Yagyō), a legend dating to medieval Japan.

“My characters are ordinary but have extraordinary powers,” describes Miki of her sculptures. “They are secular but are attuned to sacred traditions. As a collective, they advocate for both individual and collective agency, and the importance of stories as unifying systems in today’s complex world.”

$as Pablo Picasso, Woman in a Multicolored Hat, part of the MFAH's upcoming Picasso\u2013Klee\u2013Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen exhibit, opening May 20$

Image courtesy MFAH

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