fall theater preview

Sneak peek at the fall performance slates for 14 Houston companies

Though the summer theater thrills wind down this month, August brings a special treat for Houston performing arts lovers: Houston Theater Week (August 18-24) and its many buy one, get one discounts. To celebrate, we thought a fall theater preview in order. Theater companies across the city begin their 2025-2025 seasons in the next few months with some of the biggest shows of the year.

We’re marking our calendars (especially September 19) for the opening shows and dates for each company. So grab those discounted tickets for a fall filled with blockbuster musicals, drama, comedy and maybe even a few world premieres.

Before diving in to what's to come, here's one late addition to last month's column that covered shows debuting in July and August. Night Court, Houston's all-lawyer theater company, will present a musical comedy titled Law’s Anatomy on August 20. It takes audiences along on law rounds during a wacky day in the life of Houston’s medical and legal communities.

Houston Ballet opens with Onegin (September 5)
Ballet gets dramatic with the return of John Cranko’s Onegin. This poignant storybook ballet weaves a tale of unrequited love set to Tchaikovsky’s stirring music, as the worldly aristocrat Onegin must face the life changing consequences when he rejects a young woman’s love. Only a few weeks later on September 18, HB rocks out for the mixed rep Rock, Roll, & Tutus, featuring two contemporary audience favorites, Illuminate by Houston Ballet Soloist Jacquelyn Long and Christopher Bruce’s Rolling Stones inspired Rooster. Plus the company unleashes co-artistic director Stanton Welch’s latest world premiere Vi et animo.

Main Street Theater opens with Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch (September 13)
While many performance art lovers likely remember the late, great Ossie Davis’s decades long theater and movie career, Davis was also an acclaimed director and writer. His hilarious satire Purlie Victorious debuted on Broadway in 1961, with Davis starring as Purlie, a traveling preacher who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save the community’s church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s plantation. The show was later turned into a Tony nominated musical and just two years ago, the Broadway revival of the play won acclaim from critics and audiences alike.

After a break last year, MST goes back to spending the holidays in Regency England with Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s plays about the further adventures of Jane Austen’s Bennet sisters. Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley makes a lovely and spirited end to the trilogy, as it puts the focus on the youngest Bennet, Kitty and Mr. Darcy’s sister, Georgiana.

Broadway at the Hobby Center opens with Kimberly Akimbo (September 16)
The big Broadway season begins with this 2023 best musical Tony winner about a teen struggling with both ordinary high school drama, like fitting in at a new school, and a rare genetic disorder that causes her to appear much older than she is. The bittersweet comedy chronicles Kimberly’s crazy life as she navigates her family dysfunction, unrequited love, clueless friends, and possible felony charges.

In November, season subscribers might just want to book a staycation downtown as both the big Neil Diamond bio musical A Beautiful Noise and the 2024 best musical Tony winner, The Outsiders dance into town with only a week between them.

4th Wall Theatre opens with Eureka Day (September 19)
For its big 15th season, 4th Wall offers their own production of this recent Broadway hit that couldn’t be more timely.When a mumps outbreak hits a progressive private school in California, parents must navigate personal freedoms, public health, and the chaos of online discourse.

While not necessarily a holiday show, 4th Wall gifts Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town to audience in November for contemplative reminder of the quiet beauty of every life.

Alley Theatre opens with The Da Vinci Code (September 19)
The Alley unlocks one of the big blockbuster shows of the fall season with this play adapted from the Dan Brown bestseller, which was of course a mega-hit Tom Hanks film. Only a few theaters in the U.S. have produced this show, though the thrilling drama became a hit in the UK before the pandemic.

Symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu race to solve a deadly puzzle that could change history. Following the clues hidden in ancient symbols and imagery, they uncover secrets that lead them on a dangerous quest across Europe. Alley artistic director Rob Melrose will direct, and it looks the large cast and design team will be pushing the Alley stage beyond its limits for this globe trotting mystery.

Then, just in time for the most haunted time of the year, the Alley presents the first of two world premieres in their 25-26 season with The Body Snatcher. Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Victorian Gothic classic, the bodies stack up in this twisted tale. A father's devotion for his ailing daughter and her growing affection for his medical assistant create a horrific ethical dilemma as they push medical boundaries.

Ensemble Theatre opens with Akeelah and the Bee (September 19)
Ensemble begins its momentous 49th season with this heart warming play based on the 2006 Keke Palmer film. Growing up in South Central, Los Angeles, young, and talented Akeelah Anderson won’t let personal challenges, the pressures of her tough neighborhood, and societal obstacles stop her from competing in the national spelling bee.

For the holidays, Ensemble hops the train, the Soul Train that is, for the musical Take the Soul Train to Christmas, chronicling the African American celebration of Christmas.

Stages opens with The Lehman Trilogy (September 19)
This Tony Award winner for best play makes its Houston debut on Stages’ intimate Sterling Stage as three actors play multiple generations of the Lehman family. The show chronicles Hayum Lehmann arrival in mid-19th century New York from Bavaria to make his way in a new world. After changing his name to Henry Lehman, he and his brothers start a small fabric business that evolves over generations to become one of the most powerful finance firms in the world until the market crash in 2008. The play tells a truly American story in all its complexities.

In October, another distinctive portrait of a family over decades is revealed in Mud Row, as a one house in West Chester, Pennsylvania becomes the setting for two generations of sisters who must navigate challenges of sibling relationships, class, race, and love.

A.D. Players opens with Freud’s Last Session (October 1)
Calling their 25-26 season one of exploration, the company begins that journey into the mind and spirituality with this “what if” play. What if on the eve of World War II the aging but world renowned psychiatrist and noted atheist, Sigmund Freud, met the young, up-and-coming author and theologian C.S. Lewis? Sit in on this extraordinary meeting of the minds.

Keeping with the magical, spiritual worlds of C.S. Lewis, the company brings his most cherished novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the stage for the holidays with the big musical Narnia.

Theatre Under the Stars opens with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (October 21)
Spelling bees become something of a trend this fall, as TUTS opens with this Tony winning musical. Artistic director Dan Knechtges choreographed the original Broadway production of this charming comedy about the cutthroat world of middle school spelling bees so we can’t wait to see Knechtges’s full directorial and choreographic vision in this new production. The show also offers the audience the chance to get in on the spelling action, so get those dictionaries ready.

For the holidays, TUTS goes traditional with the classic Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Two tapping army buddies, Bob and Phil, turned song-and-dance sensations, team up with a pair of talented sisters to save a snow-dusted Vermont inn. We wouldn’t be surprise if that “snow” falls upon audiences with this family favorite.

Houston Grand Opera opens with Porgy and Bess (October 24)
HGO is calling their 25-26 lineup a season of “grand dreams” and that’s certainly the case with their opener, George and Ira Gershwin’s grand and great American opera. Set in the Jim Crow era and the fictional Charleston slum of Catfish Row, Porgy, a disabled beggar, and Bess, a woman struggling with addiction, fall in love. Though it originally debuted on Broadway in the 30s, HGO’s production 50 years ago is said to have renewed Porgy’s popularity in opera houses around the world. That 1976 production went on to Broadway and earned HGO both a Tony and a Grammy. In honor of the 50 year anniversary, HGO presents this acclaimed production from Washington National Opera directed by frequent friend of the company Francesca Zambello.

The following week, HGO presents for the first time Puccini’s masterful trio of one-act operas Il trittico. Taken together, these three operas will take audiences from the depths of tragedy to the heights of love to sublime comedy.

Rec Room ends their season with Angel in American (November 8)
One of the smallest theater spaces in town has always done things a little bit differently, like organizing their seasons by the calendar year. They wrap up their 2025 season with what might be the most ambitious production of the 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 while also holding up a kind of celestial mirror to America at the end of the 20th century.

A few of our mid-sized and smaller companies only offer one show the last half of the year, but we know from experience to never miss those fall gems. Mildred’s Umbrella continues its partnership with the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center for the timely The Last Yiddish Speaker. Dirt Dogs returns to one of their favorite playwrights, Tracy Letts, with The Minutes, a political satire set during a small town city council meeting. And Classical Theatre Company goes about as classical as theater can get with an original new vision of the Sophocles tragedy Electra.

Photo by Karli Cadel

Houston Grand Opera presents Porgy and Bess

Best October Art

9 must-see October art openings at Houston museums and galleries

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents "American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection”

Houston falls into new art realms this month as intriguing new exhibitions open that take art lovers from Earth’s elements, specifically silver, all the way to the Moon.

The Blaffer showcases provocative contemporary artists, and the CAMH gets back to the land. For those looking to start their own art collection, October is also the month for art festivals. Then, in keeping with the collecting theme, the MFAH brings Houston the world class Modernism collection from a true Texas original, Charles Butt.

“Maria Gaspar: We Press Our Hands to the Steel Curtain” at Blaffer Art Museum (now through November 21)
In her artwork, interdisciplinary artist Maria Gaspar considers the concept of walls not just as physical structures but as barriers that can influence individual psyches and even societies. Growing up in Chicago in the neighborhood near the Cook County Correctional Facility, Gaspar became interested in jails and prisons and how they impact communities within those wall and outside of them.

The exhibition brings together sculpture, sound installations, video, archival materials, and participatory projects that draw from Gaspar’s years of collaborative research inside and beyond the jails. A highlight of the exhibition is Clamour, a 60 hour video documenting the demolition of one of Cook County Correctional Facility’s housing blocks.

"Singular Visions” at The Silos at Sawyer Yards (now through November 21)
Sculpture Month Houston celebrates its 10th anniversary with this special exhibition in one of Houston’s most unique art spaces, the Site Gallery housed within the decommissioned former rice silos complex at Sawyer Yards. Participating artists have each taken over one of the cylindrical silo spaces, which allows visitors to enter and engage directly with the art in a truly immersive experience.

Look for work that intrigues as it challenges ordinary ideas of reality from some of Houston’s most dynamic artists, including: Tom Bandage, Michael Bhichitkul, Christie Blizard, Steve Brudniak, Alton DuLaney, Jonathan Durham, Alicia Eggert, Tim Glover, Stephan Hillerbrand + Mary Magsamen, Beili Liu, Steve Murphy, Steve Parker, Gladys Poorte, Chris Powell, Margo Sawyer, Amy Scofield, Zulma Vega, and Ed Wilson.

“Adriana Corral: As Long as Life Endures” at Blaffer Art Museum (now through December 5)
Texan interdisciplinary artist Adriana Corral uses a research-based practice to explore themes of memory, loss, human rights abuses, natural disasters, and hidden histories. Corral’s art installations, sculptures, drawings, and films attempt to unearth and preserve those histories.

The exhibition will feature the new film by Corral, Terrebonne, created as part of her research in coastal Louisiana, where she worked with members of the Pointe au Chien Indian Tribe. The film examines how land loss, rising waters, and ecological collapse disproportionately threaten Indigenous communities. Also on view is a large scale transparent bullet resistant polycarbonate sculpture that references above-ground mausoleums often found in places like New Orleans. The juxtaposition of the material with the form asks viewers to ponder questions of who can afford to buy environmental safety and who cannot.

“A Material Inheritance” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (now through January 30, 2027)
In celebration of its 25th “silver” anniversary, HCCC presents this once-in-a-generation exhibition that examines silver as material and metaphor. Giving both a bit of a science and art history lesson, the exhibition will explore how, as the Earth’s most reflective element, Silver has changed human cultures. Silver’s unique properties, along with human ingenuity, led to advances in mirror-making, photography, and scientific instrumentation, while its weight, density, and malleability established it as a prime medium for currency, ceremonial objects, jewelry, and treasured heirlooms.

The exhibition will showcase artists who work with silver in a multitude of ways, including: Shane R. Hendren, Edward Lane McCartney, Jaydan Moore, Leah Ying Lin, and Anjali Srinivasan. The selected pieces will span a range of ways to work with silver as a medium, from traditional metalsmithing and jewelry making to experimental glass, ceramic, and kinetic media practices that reveal silver’s remarkable conceptual and material range.

“Divination: Beverly Buchanan & Dionne Lee” at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston (now through February 14, 2027)
This is the second in a series of new exhibitions from the CAMH to bring together the work of artists across decades as a way to open up new interpretations. “Divination” finds thematic and art-making commonalities between photographers Beverly Buchanan (1940–2015) and Dionne Lee (b. 1988, New York City). CAMH senior curator Rebecca Matalon notes that though the artists come from different generations, they both explore relationships between Blackness and the land, share an interest in survivalist practices, and have unique relationships with their environment and landscapes.

The exhibition will showcase Buchanan’s photography of her large-scale environmental works that she began in the 1970s, placing stone-like fragments in remote locations across the Southeast. "Divination" organizes Buchanan’s work in conversation with Lee’s 21st century photography and films that examine what it means to honor the land on which we live. The CAMH notes that the exhibition’s title comes from the idea that both artists created work to uncover hidden histories, but they were are also committed to letting these histories remain out of focus and elusive.

“Wall Drawing Series: Jitish Kallat” at Menil Drawing Institute (now through August 8, 2027)
Since 2018, the MDI has commissioned a contemporary artist to create a new work on an interior wall within the building. Art, Cold War history, and even state secrets merge in “Wall Drawing / Redux: A119,” the latest Wall Drawing Series installation by acclaimed multidisciplinary Indian artist Jitish Kallat.

The time-based wall drawing grows out of Kallat’s interest and research into Project A119, a U.S. Air Force plan in the late 1950s to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon. Of course, the plan was never carried out, but the report on the project was only partially declassified at the turn of this century. For “Redux: A119,” Kallat has layered pages from the A119 report, titled “A Study of Lunar Research Flights - Volume I” with his own drawings and watercolors. The piece was then sheathed in laminated glass, and Kallat and the Menil team collaborated with researchers at Rice University on an electrical system so that the glass changes degrees of transparency every 500 seconds, which is approximately the time it takes sunlight to travel from the Sun to the Moon creating what we see as moonlight.

“Bayou City Art Festival” at Memorial Park (October 9-11)
The annual festival always gives art lovers and collectors a chance to meet artists, view original pieces, and purchase artwork from more than 270 creators across 19 disciplines, including world-class paintings, prints, jewelry, sculptures, and more, at prices for everyone. The fest will feature more than just visual artists, as a wide range of musical artists and bands take the festival stage, and look for roaming entertainment throughout the festival area. The three days also boast a wide range of interactive and educational activities for kids and adults.

Affordable Art Fair at George R. Brown Convention Center (October 15-18)
Presented in Houston for the first time, this fair's name sums up the mission, for the Affordable Fair is set to bring thousands of artworks from around the world. The prices, ranging from $100 to $12,000, will likely entice both the experienced and novice collector.

The fair will feature work from 55 galleries, including 17 Houston favorites, as well as 22 U.S from the U.S and 16 prestigious international galleries. Affordable Art Fair organizers have programmed many special events over the weekend, such as a spotlight on Hispanic and Latin American artists from Houston, Mexico, and Argentina, in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month; special installations by artists Kayla Powers, Dan Trelenberg, and Brendan Flores; and a print workshops with PrintHouston. Look also for family hours with KIDO Preschool, Art After Hours evenings, and a Fair Director's Tour.

"American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection” at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 25-January 18)
As Americans continue to celebrate the nation’s 250th year, the MFAH offers up one Texan’s extraordinary collection of some of America’s greatest artists of the 20th century. While Charles Butt is well admired across the state for his philanthropy, especially when it comes to education, the H-E-B chairman also has a passion for collecting and wants to share that art with other Texans.

The exhibition will give MFAH visitors new insights into the extent of American artistic diversity in the 20th as it showcases over 80 works of art by such greats as Stuart Davis, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, and Andrew Wyeth, as well as Texas artists like Everett Gee Jackson and Mary Bonner. "American Modernism" will likely also give attendees a glimpse into Butt’s own vision and focus, as it is organized into five intriguing thematic sections reflecting Butt’s life-long passions including: Intimate Perspectives, The Language of the Sea, Land Progressions, Geometric Utopias/Dystopias, and New Directions.

“More than a textbook survey of American modernism, the Charles Butt Collection shows many of the artists at turning points in their careers, with signature works and intimate sketches that encompass a remarkable range of expression and achievement,” MFAH curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Alison de Lima Greene said in a statement.

$The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents "American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d$

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents "American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection.”

affordable art fair bayou city arts festival festivals museums openings visual-art