Best May Theater

The 9 best plays, musicals, and ballets to see in Houston this month

The curtain might be coming down on Houston’s theater and performing arts 2025-2026 seasons, but before taking the final bow, they’ll give audiences laughs, thrills, earth-moving music, and some ultimate family dramas. This month offers world premieres from the Houston Ballet, Stages, and the Alley and a trip to New Orleans from Dirt Dogs. 4th Wall hams up Hamlet. Ensemble invites us to an awkward family dinner. TUTS makes some Beautiful music. Then the Ally closes May taking Stephen King fans on a wild ride.

Bonnie & Clyde from Open Dance Project (now through May 8)
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, Houston’s home for immersive dance, ODP, has brought back some of its most provocative works from past seasons. Next up, is a complex look at the Texas outlaw legends, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Original music by Garreth Broesche, Hunter Perrin, and Paul Beebe and a stunning, immersive, multimedia set turn the MATCH theater into 1920s and 30s landscapes.

Audiences can wander through these set pieces as they watch the dancers move around them. The company always does its research when creating new work and recreating moments in history through dance. This new vision into the Bonnie and Clyde story delves into the tragic beginnings that turned teens with nothing to lose into the infamous killer lovers that still fascinate us a century later.

Fat Ham from 4th Wall Theatre (now-May 23)
What if Prince Hamlet was a Black, thicc, queer heir to a barbecue restaurant empire, just trying to break the cycle of generational trauma and violence? In other words, what if Hamlet the play was a comedy with some juicy drama? That is the question answered in James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize0winning play, getting its Houston premiere at 4th Wall Theatre.

Like Hamlet, our hero, Juicy, just wants to go back to online college after the death of his father and quick remarriage of his mother to his father’s brother. But the hot and spicy truth from a ghost might send him on a quest for revenge, if he can just get through one family barbecue. Sorrowful, profound, and hilarious, sometimes in the same moment, the show became the ultimate Bard party on Broadway, but we can’t wait to see it on the intimate Studio 101 stage. Stages Theatre artistic director, Derek Livingston, directs a cast of some of our favorite Houston actors. Come for the tragedy comedy, but stay for the rave.

Dear Alien at Alley Theatre (May 8-31)
In this existential comedy, an isolated advice columnist races the clock to make one last deadline before facing financial ruin. Alley resident actor, Dylan Godwin showcases his versatility again in a lead role.

Who All Over There at Ensemble Theatre (May 8-31)
Inspired by the classic 1960s Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, with some modernizing and table turning, this dramedy looks at love, family, and culture clashes in the21st century. When Dean, a young professional, and Danya, an aspiring singer, go on a refreshingly candid first date, they keep it real about the dynamics of a potential interracial relationship. As they grow comfortable nestled in the cocoon of their budding love, the real world brings a whirlwind of inflammatory race relations, opinionated family and friends, and troublesome pasts.

that drive thru monterey at Stages (May 8-June 7)
Stages groundbreaking Sin Muros Festival play reading festival has been nurturing new work from Latinx theater artists for nearly a decade, but this dreamy drama of memory by Matthew Paul Olmos will be the first time the company brings one of those recent works to full production. Set in 1971 East Los Angeles, the play follows Monterey, a young Mexican-American woman navigating first love, identity, and ambition against a shifting cultural backdrop. Inspired by the playwright’s mother, the story explores Monterey’s life filled with love, loss, family conflict, and the realities of being a Mexican-American woman in the United States.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical from Theatre Under the Stars (May 19-31)
This Tony and Grammy winning musical bio has made Houston stops on national tours, but for the first time Theatre Under the Stars will bring its own production to the stage. Depicting the dramatic life of one of the most successful songwriters in music history, Beautiful portrays Carole King’s musical gifts, including her early days as a writer of chart-topping hits for artists like The Shirelles, The Drifters, and Aretha Franklin, and then her move into the spotlight to sing her own Tapestry. The show features some of King’s greatest music, including “It’s Too Late,” “You’ve Got a Friend,” “So Far Away,” "I Feel the Earth Move,” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

Airline Highway from Dirt Dogs Theatre (May 21-June 6)
At a dilapidated motel off Airline Highway, a found family of misfits parties in the parking lot to celebrate the life of one of their own. The larger-than-life Miss Ruby, a beloved community figure and former burlesque dancer, wants to hold court at her own funeral as she nears the end of her days. With both humor and realism, Airline Highway captures a New Orleans not often seen on stage or screen, while portraying life on the fringes of society with honesty and empathy.

An Evening with the Stars from Houston Ballet (May 28-June 7)
For their final mix rep production of the season, Houston Ballet offers a rare, classic Jerome Robbins piece, an audience favorite from company artistic director Stanton Welch, and a world premiere from acclaimed Australian choreographer Alice Topps. While it might not tell a set story, Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering holds themes of community and joy in a work that showcases the HB company with beautiful solos, duets, and ensemble moments. Welch makes connections between the art of dance and weaving in Tapestry, set to Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, a composition known for its joyful melodies and moments of warmth, serenity, and depth. Meanwhile Topp’s world premiere will explore themes of resilience with a work that asks how we continue forward in the face of adversity and keep that human inner spark alive.

Misery at Alley Theatre (May 29-June 21)
The Alley is sure to break a leg with this twisty season ender. Oscar winning screenwriter William Goldman adapted this stage version of Stephen King’s thriller about a novelist and his “biggest fan.” Goldman and King never let audiences forget that “fan” is just the abbreviated version of fanatic, as famous romance author Paul is rescued from a car crash by the lonely Annie, who nurses him back to health. But when Annie gets a very sneaky peek at Paul’s latest novel, she becomes obsessed with taking total control of Paul and the narrative. What begins as a rescue quickly turns into a dangerous entrapment as Paul writes for his life. Long time Alley resident actors, Elizabeth Bunch and Chris Hutchison, who happen to be married in real life, battle it out as Annie and Paul.

Photo courtesy of 4th Wall Theatre Company

4th Wall Theatre Company presents Fat Ham.

fall theater preview

Sneak peek at the 2026 fall performance slates for 15 Houston companies

Theatre Under the Stars presents The Music Man

Photo courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars

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For theater and performing arts lovers, late summer is the most wonderful time of the year, as stage companies across the city begin their new 2026-2027 seasons. But before the curtains rise, most of those companies also give us the gift of Houston Theater Week and all those buy-one-get-one-free discounts.

To get ready, CultureMap has put together this fall theater guide with the opening shows and dates for each company, as well as taking an early look at what the rest of the fall and holidays will bring. So grab those discounted tickets for a fall filled with blockbuster musicals, dramas, comedies, as well as lots of classics and audience favorites.

A.D. Players opens with Holly Street (August 19)
The spiritual and family friendly theater company began its season a bit early with a poignant world premiere set in small town Kentucky in the 1940s after World War II. Holly Street tells the story of two sisters at Christmas time and two unexpected guests.

The company takes a break for a month and then offers one of the funniest, yet heartwarming holiday plays for all ages withThe Best Christmas Pageant Ever, the beloved comedy about a children’s play that goes wrong.

Houston Ballet opens with Pecos Bill (September 11)
HB says howdy to a great fall season with a mixed rep program that holds something for all dance tastes. The performance includes Stanton Welch’s rollicking ballet version of cowboy folklore, Pecos Bill’s adventures. Performances also feature George Balanchine’s elegant and dynamic Symphonie Concertante, and an HB debut, Meadow, a work by celebrated choreographer Lar Lubovitch.

For the first full story ballet of the fall (September 24), HB brings the opulence of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s now classic and tragic Mamon, the doomed love story between an irresistibly beautiful femme fatale and impoverished student. Of course, in November, it wouldn’t be the holidays without Stanton Welch’s version of The Nutcracker Ballet that brings the story’s focus back to the adventurous Clara.

4th Wall Theatre opens with Proof (September 11)
The first of several Pulitzer Prize-winning plays produced this season comes from this intimate stage. Playwright David Auburn’s Proof is the story of the daughter of a genius mathematician who might have inherited both his aptitude for math and his mental instability. The play travels back and forth through the present and past to study the formulas of family, loss, and love

Over the years, 4th Wall has produced several wild and moving adaptations of Jane Austen novels. This year, it will present Are the Bennet Girls Ok? This new version of the Pride and Prejudice story, that had a recent Off-Broadway debut to much critical praise, tells the Bennet girls’ marriage quests from their mother’s point of view.

Main Street Theater opens with Cold War Choir Practice (September 12)
Also earning lots of recent off-Broadway buzz, this genre-defying comedy with music is one of the most intriguing picks for the fall. In Reagan’s America, a young girl is embroiled in intrigue when her estranged uncle, a prominent Black conservative, brings his mysteriously ill, white wife home for the holidays and forces long-simmering tensions within the family to boil.

From Victorian England to a fast food joint, theaters across the world and certainly in Houston have put Dickens’s Christmas Carol into a multitude of settings. For the holidays, MST invites Houstonians to a Dublin pub for An Irish Carol, where rich owner David has lost touch with his own humanity in the interest of self-protection and material success. Now on Christmas Eve, a voice from the past will ask David to look at his relationships in the past, present, and possible future to perhaps change his life for the better.

Theatre Under the Stars opens presenting The Music Man (September 15)
TUTS changes its usual mix of more self-produced shows than touring shows, leaning in on presenting this season. The season begins with this classic musical comedy about a charming con man who gets conned himself by small town sincerity and love.

The touring hits continue in October with Mrs. Doubtfire, the musical based on the Robin Williams comedy about a divorced man who disguises himself as a British nanny to take care of his kids. Then for the holidays, TUTS brings back its own leviathan-sized production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid for under the sea family fun with a cast filled with Houston singing sensations, including students from the TUTS schools.

Rec Room opens with Amadeus (September 17)
The east-ish downtown theater company decided to take some time off after last year's productions of Angels in American to switch from a calendar year season to the traditional fall/spring season that most Houston companies use. Now they’re back and celebrating their 10 year anniversary with plays Houstonians haven’t seen in quite a while, or ever, on a local professional stage. The season begins with the now classic 20th century play about the (mostly one-sided) rivalry between composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and its exploration of jealousy and the nature of genius.

For the ultimate holiday show counter programming, Rec Room will produce a new adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning Italian playwright Dario Fo’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist. It’s Christmas time at the police station, as Rec Room reimagines Fo’s groundbreaking political farce of the 1970s as a contemporary American satire infused with detective noir, Cold War paranoia, and sharp absurdity.

Ensemble Theatre opens with Purpose (September 18)
Ensemble celebrates its 50th season with this recent Best Play Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins about a prominent and political Black family, the Jenkins. While the patriarch was a leader in the Civil Rights movement, the adult sons are having trouble living up to their father’s legacy. Generational aspirations come to a comic clash for one particularly awkward but purposeful family dinner.

For the holidays, the company brings back an audience favorite, the joyful and soulful A Motown Christmas, which melds Motown hits and choreography with traditional holiday classics.

Stages opens with Come From Away (September 19)
Based on the true story, this poignant and hopeful musical tells the story of a small town in Newfoundland that rallied together to host thousands of stranded international travelers after planes were grounded September 11, 2001. It’s been a few years since Come From Away toured nationally, so Houstonians are definitely looking forward to seeing Stages begin its season with an intimate and homegrown production.

In October, Stages jumps from a musical with a large cast of characters to The Roommate, the Jen Silverman comedy about two 50-something women with very different personalities and life experiences who begin living together. For the holidays, it brings back another audience favorite with all the music, fun, and wild plots found in The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical.

Alley Theatre opens fall with Romeo and Juliet (September 25)
While technically the thrilling Girl on the Train began its 26-27 season, the Alley heats up the fall with the play that originated the term star-crossed lovers and is arguably the greatest romantic tragedy in literature. The entire resident acting company will take the stage in Shakespeare’s wrenching tale of young lovers crushed between their warring families.

In October, the Alley leaps from a classic of world literature to a world premiere satire with Uhuru. This play explores very contemporary themes of access and identity as it follows a group of climbers up Mount Kilimanjaro. Uhuru was developed as part of the Alley All New play reading season. For the holidays, look for both Alley artistic director, Rob Melrose’s, lovely adaptation of A Christmas Carol as well as its very contemporary Texas version of The Night Shift Before Christmas.

Broadway at the Hobby Center opens with The Sound of Music (September 29)
Musical lovers might want to see if the Hobby Center will rent a room this fall, because the TUTS and Broadway combined schedules will fill Sarofim Hall with the sound of music almost every week, including the actual Sound of Music. One of the most beloved musicals of all time, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s story of the von Trapp family and the woman who brought music into their lives tours the country again with new direction from three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray).

Then, just in time for spooky season, the ghost-est with the mostest, the irrepressible Beetlejuice, returns to haunt Houston after being a surprising comic hit a few seasons ago. Then, the Tony Award-winning Buena Vista Social Club arrives. Depicting the backstage story of the Grammy-winning album of the same name, the show transports audiences into the heart of Cuba, beyond the glitz of the Tropicana into the soul of the music.

Houston Grand Opera opens with Susannah (October 23)
Continuing its centenary celebration for the great American composer Carlisle Floyd, HGO opens its season with this tragic beauty of an opera inspired by Floyd’s childhood as a minister’s son. With a score infused with revival hymns and Appalachian folksong, the opera depicts life in a small Tennessee town and the gossip, judgement, and hypocrisy that leads to the ruin of one innocent woman.

HGO elevates spooky season with upGounod’s masterpiece Faust in late October. This production from acclaimed Scottish director David McVicar reimagines Faust as a tormented composer in Belle Époque Paris, before making a deal with the devil for youth and earthly pleasures.

Other fall debuts

While it might only be producing one show this fall, Houstonians still have these plays from some of the city's mid-sized and smaller companies on their must-see lists. In early September, Mildred’s Umbrella gets mad with Jen Silverman’s Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, a sharp comedy with its synopsis in the title as it depicts the lives of five very different women all named Betty. The recently announced Catastrophic Theatre season scheduled the majority of its shows in 2027, but in September the company will revive Eugene Ionesco’s epic absurdest play, Rhinoceros, about a small town whose citizens begin to transform into a herd of giant horned mammals.

In mid-October, Dirt Dogs presents one of those great dinner parties from hell plays with Donald Margulies’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends about one couple’s divorce that leads their best friends to question their own marriages. Also in October, Classical Theatre opens its season with one of George Bernard Shaw’s wittiest works from his “Plays Pleasant” collection, Arms and the Man, about a young woman who has romanticized war until she decides to shelter a war-weary enemy soldier.

Photo courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars

Theatre Under the Stars presents The Music Man