Best November Theater

Tony winners and holiday favorites lead Houston's 11 best shows this month

Houston theater gets set to ring in the holidays with some traditional favorites and roaring new works. But for those holiday Scrooges in the house, performing arts companies also unwrap some intriguing and theatrical dance, new and intimate visions for classic drama, and one heavenly world premiere. Plus, Broadway at the Hobby Center makes some noise presenting two smash productions this month.

A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (November 4-9)
When Broadway at the Hobby Center first announced its 25-26 season, this production seemed poised to be the sleeper hit of the year. And a recently-added and rare Thursday matinee proves Houston theater lovers will “Come Running” for this look at the life and songs of Neil Diamond. In the tradition of jukebox musicals like Jersey Boys and Tina, this latest Broadway biography puts the Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee at center stage.

Created in collaboration with Diamond himself, the show chronicles his beginnings as a poor kid from Brooklyn to became a chart-busting, American showman with 120 million albums sold. Featuring some of the biggest songs of Diamond’s catalogue, including “Sweet Caroline,” “Love on the Rocks,” and “Kentucky Woman,” Beautiful Noise draws connections between the songs’ powerful lyrics and important moments in Diamond’s life.

Dada Gert from Open Dance Project (November 7-22)
Houston’s source for truly immersive dance continues to celebrate its 20th anniversary by bringing back some of its most innovative works. Debuting in Houston back in 2018, the multidisciplinary Dada Gert transported audiences back into Weimar-era Berlin and into to the life and dances of pioneering Jewish dancer/performance artist/film star, Valeska Gert. The original production wowed critics, contemporary dance lovers, and those simply immersive-curious.

The show invites audiences to wander through cabaret and street scenes amid set pieces, video projections, and the dancers themselves who depict some of the Gert-created personas and characters. Resembling some of the big immersive performance art companies in New York or London, ODP encourages audiences to explore the story as closely as they want within a space that surrounds them with dramatic dance and stunning sets.

Angels in America at Rec Room (November 8-December 20)
One of the smallest theater spaces in town has always done things a little bit differently, like organizing its seasons by the calendar year. It wraps up its 2025 season with what might be the most ambitious production of this fall, Tony Kushner’s masterpiece of late 20th century American theater, Angels in America. Rec Room will produce both part one, Millennium Approaches, and two, Perestroika, on alternating evenings in repertory.

Winning pretty much every award possible, including a Pulitzer and multiple Tonys, Angels depicts the AIDS crisis on both a personal and cosmic scale, while also holding up a celestial mirror to America at the end of the 20th century. Look for a few special dates that pack both shows into one day and include dinner.

Take the Soul Train to Christmas at Ensemble Theatre (November 14-December 21)
Ensemble always presents heartfelt holiday musicals. This one takes audiences on board a Soul Train for a joyous, family celebration. The show tells the story of three students assigned some winter break homework, a research paper chronicling how African Americans have celebrated Christmas throughout history. Luckily their granddad possesses time traveling powers and summons the magical Soul Train for a field trip into the past. The show features the sounds of African drumming, Harlem Renaissance jazz, the beats of the Civil Rights Movement, disco party jams, hip-hop, and traditional holiday tunes.

Of the message of the musical, director and choreographer, Aisha Ussery, says, “Christmas is a time when we look for hope despite our circumstances. This piece is a whimsical and joyous journey through various eras wherein African Americans make magic from mud.”

A Christmas Carol at Alley Theatre (November 16-December 28)
The Alley premiered this charming production of the classic story, as adapted by Alley artistic director Rob Melrose, in 2022, and it’s already a Houston holiday theater tradition. Melrose went back to the original Charles Dickens novella for inspiration, making a Carol from the heart. David Rainey is back as Scrooge with the rest of the resident acting company and Alley regulars playing all the time-traveling ghosts and human characters.

The Alley creative team weaves its 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, and wondrous stage illusions. We might even forecast a bit of magical light theatrical snow for every performance.

The Outsiders presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (November 18-23)
Winner of the 2024 Tony Award for Best Musical, this show is based on the classic young adult novel by S. E. Hinton, as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation. Set in 1960s Oklahoma, The Outsiders tells the story of orphan Ponyboy Curtis, his brothers, his best friend Johnny Cade, and their Greaser family of ‘outsiders.’ Always in battle with the upper-class Socs, the Greasers live in a world of violence where “nothing gold can stay” but they dream of a better life filled with love and acceptance. In the end, hope might live in the act of storytelling. People who saw the show in New York are still talking about the choreography and theatrical effects of the “rumble scene” — expect it to be just as extraordinary on the road as it was on Broadway.

Narnia the Musical at A.D. Players (November 19-December 23)
A.D. Players celebrates the holidays with this magical musical based on C.S. Lewis’s most cherished novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Narnia tells the story of the four siblings — Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy — who stumble upon a mysterious wardrobe that leads them into the enchanted land of Narnia. But all is not well in this wintery world. The evil White Witch has cast a spell, trapping Narnia in eternal snow and ice. With the help of talking animals, brave warriors, and the mighty lion Aslan, the children must find the courage to fight for Narnia’s freedom. This one will definitely be a show for the whole family.

Birdy presented by Performing Arts Houston (November 21-22)
Taiwan’s Hung Dance has garnered international acclaim for its lyrical precision and spiritual intensity that melds the meditative flow of Tai Chi and the expressive force of contemporary dance. Currently on their first U.S. tour, choreographer and company founder Lai Hung-chung explores themes of wild creativity forged by constraints and a burning desire to fly free. PAH says that the dance is set to an evocative blend of electronic and Chinese classical music and becomes a dialogue between tradition and modernity, where stillness and motion, struggle and hope, move as one.

Beautiful Princess Disorder from Catastrophic Theatre (November 21-December 13)
While Catastrophic Theatre might be one of the more experimental theater companies in town, it does have some steadfast traditions beloved by Cat fans. Every November or December, Houstonians head on down to the MATCH for whatever weirdly wonderful or avant garde show the company will gift us as holiday counter-programming with not an elf, sugarplum, or cute Victorian street urchin in sight. This year, they're performing a world premiere work by emerging playwright Kathy Ng.

The show follows Triangle Person, a being with a human body and triangle head, on TP’s many adventures living in Heaven’s parking lot hanging out with Mother Teresa. While that premise only adds more mystery to the premiere, the title’s acronym, BPD, might give some psychological hints. Ng has described the work as an invitation to a party in her mind, and this is one wild, non-holiday blowout we don’t want to miss.

Our Town at 4th Wall Theatre (November 21-December 20)
While not necessarily a holiday play, Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece makes for a contemplative drama about some of those ideas and ideals we hold so dearly this time of the year, like family, love, and memory. With minimal props and an all-knowing stage manager as narrator, this great American play tells the story of small town life in the early 20th century.

The Stage Manager introduces us to Grover’s Corners and the Webb and Gibbs families. The audiences watches their children grow up, marry, and have children of their own. In Our Town, the seemly simplest of relationships and stories hold wonder of lives well-lived, whether long or cut short. 4th Wall’s intimate space will likely add even more universal connections between audiences and these players, especially with a strong cast of Houston favorites, including company co-founder Philip Lehl as the Stage Manager.

Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley at Main Street Theater (November 22-December 21)
After a break last year, MST journeys back in time to Regency England and the beloved world of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s trio of Christmas sequels to the classic novel — told with a persuasive 21st century sense and sensibility — have become a new holiday tradition among regional theaters across the country.

This time Mr. Darcy’s talented pianist sister, Georgiana, and her best friend, the younger, spunky, and usually forgotten Bennet sister, Kitty, have their chance in to become heroes of their own stories. When unexpected guests arrive for the annual Christmas celebration at the Pemberley estate, new love and new music might be in the air. While staying close to the themes of family, love, and sisterhood of the earlier plays in the trilogy, Georgiana and Kitty, expands the story beyond Pemberley, exploring what women can achieve with bravery and determination even admit societal restrictions and some well meaning brotherly disproval.

Photo by Jeremy Daniel

Broadway at the Hobby Center presets A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.

performing arts theater

honoring the past

Houston museum's new project preserves historic Freedmen's Town bricks

Freedmen's Town Rebirth in Action pavilion rendering

Rendering courtesy of Studio Zewde

Rebirth in Action is set to open in 2027.

As Houstonians come together to celebrate Juneteenth, it’s jarring to think that this day of celebration has only been a federally-recognized holiday since 2021. After all, it was in 1865 that U.S Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston on June 19 to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. After this event many formerly enslaved Black Americans made their way to Houston, establishing what is now Houston’s very first Heritage District, known as Freedmen’s Town.

Now, the robust Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and Mount Horeb Church, are working with the City of Houston on a long overdue project, Rebirth in Action, to honor this historic site. Designed by artist Theaster Gates in partnership with landscape architect Sara Zewde, the monumental pavilion will temporarily house more than 20,000 historic bricks previously removed and preserved from Houston’s Freedmen’s Town. Houston Mayor John Whitmire attended the groundbreaking, which took place last month.

While many people recognize Galveston as the site of the first Juneteenth celebrations, both of those took place on January 1, to honor the Emancipation Proclamation. However, recent research by Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humanities at Rice University W. Caleb McDaniel, has uncovered that the first official Juneteenth celebration was led by two ministers, Sandy Parker and Elias Dibble, right in Freedmen’s Town in 1866. McDaniel’s fascinating article will appear in the next issue of the Journal of Texas History.

Freedmen’s Town, established in 1865 by over 1,000 newly-free Black Houstonians following Juneteenth, has significantly dwindled in recent years due to systematic reductions in resources, despite its initial 500+ historic structures, including churches, schools, and cultural institutions. Rebirth in Action aims to preserve and promote the neighborhood as a monument of Black community, agency, and heritage.

“The work of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is to utilize our museum as a platform for resources sharing; a platform for unearthing new conversations around gems in our city that are also right down the street,” explains Ryan Dennis, co-director and chief curator for the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. “Artists have different practices and artists like Theaster [Gates] can really help understand preservation conditions and needs of community, revitalization, and bringing resources together to better serve a neighborhood and realize optimal benefits, particularly antiquities like the bricks in Freedman’s Town that have been taken out of the neighborhood, displaced in other areas of Houston, and not in the home where they were originally created, paid for, and laid down in (by formerly enslaved individuals), which is Freedmen’s Town.”

The first phase of Rebirth in Action involved artistic activations (including Gates’ exhibition The Gift and The Renege in 2024), artist residencies, community and stakeholder meetings, and the identification, cataloging, and preservation of over 20,000 historic bricks. The pavilion will encourage public viewing of these historic bricks and serve as a hub for engagement with the history, cultural significance, and future of Freedmen’s Town. Additionally, Hines Architecture + Design will rehabilitate three row houses into an adjoining community center.

“I think the whole project is one that’s quite interesting, useful, and productive. I think it’s important for us to think about how we can use our resources to accomplish the things that build collective wellness — right? Wellness in the space of really preserving our communities that have been disinvested in, elevating the real gems of our city,” says Dennis. “We can do that through collaborations and partnerships; we are much stronger when we can do that with others, versus by ourselves, and I think this project really speaks to that ethos.”

Phase Two has been made possible by Mount Horeb Church’s continued stewardship of both land and existing historic structures in Freedmen’s Town. The project will include an arts pavilion and community green space designed by Sara Zewde, with an installation by renowned artist Theaster Gates, plus three historic structures redesigned and restored by Daimian Hines Architecture + Design for adaptive reuse as a food pantry and community garden, after-school programming, and senior services for Mount Horeb Church, who will guide programming and operations.

The art installation will display the original Freedmen’s Town bricks that once lined the streets, giving visitors a chance to experience their significance firsthand. Working with the City of Houston and the North Houston Highway Improvement Program that will reconnect Freedmen’s Town to downtown, Phase Three will see these bricks returned to the streets in a pedestrian promenade capacity. Subsequently, the pavilion will showcase rotating artist activations.

“The Brick Pavilion for Freedmen’s Town is a project that is deeply resonant for me,” shares Gates. “In part, because there are several opportunities to cultivate community and institutional trust, to create an additional neighborhood heart, and to invest in more beauty for this hugely important district of Houston.”

Landscape architect Sara Zewde's pavilion, gardens, and landscape design will help centralize all facets of Rebirth in Action, creating a community hub: “Studio Zewde's collaboration with Theaster Gates began with a shared belief that the future of Freedmen's Town must be rooted in the wisdom of the community that built it,” she writes in an email. “The pavilion and landscape draw inspiration from the neighborhood's tradition of shared backyards that connected the community across property lines. The project builds on this inheritance by forming a shared landscape at the center of the sacred bricks and their pavilion, the restored row houses, the Freedmen's Town Conservancy Visitor Center, and Mount Horeb Baptist Church.”

Architect Daimian Hines credits Reverend Dr. Smith of Mount Horeb Church for the continued stewardship of the land and notes that Dr. Smith oftentimes remarks that the holding of the land has been a form of resistance, the act of holding the land keeping outsiders from contributing to the erasure of Freedmen’s Town and its history.

“The fact that these three houses, and more in the community, that these post-emancipation structures still exist, it wasn’t for a lack of community pressure. It was a combination of efforts by folks like Dr. Smith, who were resisting [gentrification] through ownership,” explains Hines.

“Some of the ownership of some of these properties are so complex, it was difficult for potential buyers [developers] to actually get ownership of some of these structures—I consider that sheer luck.”

Hines worked closely with the Houston Archeological and Historic Commission to propose rehabilitating, modifying, and even relocating the row houses a mere 15 feet. The gabled, cottage-style row houses date back to the late 19th century. These post-emancipation row houses were built by formerly-enslaved, new residents of Houston.

“We wanted to think through: ‘what was the original story, how did the front of the houses and the back of these structures — what role did they play in day-to-day life?’ We were able to make some strategic moves to bring that to the forefront again,” Hines says. “The Rebirth in Action project and the houses are part of a broader preservation goal within the community to not just preserve, but to reuse either for housing, or — in this case — adaptive reuse as a community space.”

Hines notes that one of the row houses is of double-door configuration. This typology signifies that it was most likely a boarding house in its prime, a time when Black Americans weren’t welcome in downtown hotels. The two front doors let travelers know that they were welcome to rent a safe place to stay. Together, the three row houses will offer approximately 3,200-3,600 square feet of space, plus a large back porch that will face the pavilion.

As resources were often few and far between in post-emancipation Freedmen’s Town, the cladding on row houses was patchwork in appearance, as purchasing gaps meant that continuing on with the same materials was unlikely. Regardless, these homes were remarkably well constructed, with solid wood, wooden dowels, and shiplap interior walls. These construction methods, along with allowances for airflow, contributed significantly to their preservation.

“The one thing about these structures is, that as robust as they are, they have taken a beating,” says Hines. “The actual wood, the detailing, a lot of that has been lost, but these structures tell a story. This is a project I knew I wanted to be personally involved in, and my firm. [The structures] will be able to continue telling a story and play an active role in that community, and that’s why I’m excited.”

Rendering courtesy of Studio Zewde

Rebirth in Action is set to open in 2027.

museums contemporary art museum houston freedmen's town visual-art