Best July Theater

Houston's 8 best theater shows for July spotlight classic Broadway hits

It’s looking to be a "Hakuna Matata” summer as July brings us singing lions along with chills, thrills, and musical spectaculars to stages across the city. Musicals are kings this month, but we won’t say no to spooky season in July as other companies mount some haunting and murderous productions for a good summer scare. Whether you want to sing a long with kings, witches and wizards or to hone your detective skills, Houston theater has a show for you.

Pullman Porter Blues at Ensemble Theatre (now through July 28)
Ensemble ends its 47th season with what they’re calling a play with music that enlightens as much as it entertains. Inspired by her grandfather’s life adventures during his career as a postal worker working on the trains, playwright Cheryl L. West tells the story of three generations of pullman porters who work on the luxurious Panama Limited train. Midwest blues songs flavor their journey from Chicago to New Orleans as the porters confront dark secrets from their past and tough truths about their future together. Iconic blues music becomes the soundtrack to this moving and dramatic coming of age story.

Feeling Groovy from Music Box Theater (now through September 21)
Houston’s home for cool comedy cabaret, Music Box Theater, continues its tradition of summer tripping on groovy tunes in an all-new exploration of the music from the 1960s and 1970s. At their new(ish) weekend home at Queensbury Theatre, the MBT cast have created a show featuring classics songs originally sung by The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, Blood, Sweat & Tears, 5th Dimension, Led Zeppelin, and more. If you’re looking to combine an evening performance with a day at the beach, consider taking a short roadtrip to Texas City, as MBT has begun a music residency featuring Feeling Groovy at the Blue Lagoon Bar and Grill in Texas City, Texas’ largest man made lagoon.

Disney’s The Lion King presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (July 11-August 4)
It’s something like the circle of musical life as each summer Broadway at the Hobby Center brings in a blockbuster musical for an extended run, and this year is no exception as Houston feels the love each night for almost three weeks for the contemporary classic The Lion King. Based on the Disney animated film with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice, the show went on to win six Tonys, including one for best musical, with no small thanks to director Julie Taymor and the show's groundbreaking puppetry and costume design. This coming of age story with a Shakespearean plot filled with palace intrigue, fratricide, a lost prince, revenge, and, of course, the comic stylings of a warthog and meerkat duo make for the perfect musical for all ages.

The Wizard of Oz at Queensbury Theatre (July 12-28)
In the past, CityCentre’s Queensbury Theatre has been home to some terrific musical productions including some shows we rarely see staged in Houston, but in the last few years the theater has put a focus on performing art education and their Tribble School. This summer they’re back with a witchy, family-friendly classic for a main stage production with a stellar cast of local performing faves. The road to Oz is filled with adventures and song as Dorothy, Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man head down the Yellow Brick Road to find home in this reimagined production of L. Frank Baum’s beloved tale, featuring the iconic musical score from the MGM film.

The Woman in Black at Main Street Theater (July 13-August 11)
Houston’s theater staple for brainy productions gets spooky this summer with this ghostly tale that embraces both horror and theatrical playfulness with a show-within-a-show story about a man who turns to playwriting to rid himself of a haunting spirit. Arthur Kipps is obsessed with a deadly curse he believes has been cast over him and his family by the specter of a woman in black. He hires a skeptical young actor to help him dramatize and stage his terrifying story in the hopes to exorcise the fear gipping his soul. But as actor and author become caught up in the Arthur’s darkest memories will the past and perhaps even the dead find a door into the present?

And Then There Were None at Alley Theatre (July 19-September 1)
Before there was ever that final girl or guy to survive any murder mystery massacre, there was one of Agatha Christie’s most twisty stories of 10 people brought to an isolated island and then bumped off one-by-one in spiraling macabre ways. Adapted multiple times for stage, screen, and even streaming, the story still thrills and chills audiences even if you go in vaguely remembering the ending. The Alley has served up the killer mystery before for their Summer Chills production, but for this run they’re bringing in New York’s Geva Theatre artistic director Elizabeth Williamson, who they say is known for her ability to breathe fresh life into classic stories while staying true to their essence. The cast features the Alley resident company and some of our favorite Houston actors all dying to murder each other in good fun.

Ruddigore from the Gilbert & Sullivan Society (July 20-28)
If it’s July, it must be time for another annual performance from Houston’s longest running opera company, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society. While Ruddigore or The Witch's Curse might not be as well known by today’s audiences as other Gilbert and Sullivan classics like The Yeomen of the Guard and The Pirates of Penzance, when the society describes the show as Jane Austen meets Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein, it certainly goes high on our list of must-sees. In this satirical take on Victorian and gothic melodrama, a witch’s curse sentences a family line of baronets into lives of crime or else they’ll die in agony. Throw in a reluctant baronet on a light crime spree, an etiquette-book consulting fair maiden and meddling ghosts and that’s an operetta party. Professor Emeritus and founder and former director of the Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston, Buck Ross, stage directs, with Opera in the Heights’ Eiki Isomura once again serving as music director.

Next to Normal presented by Houston Broadway Theatre (July 26-28)
H-Town’s newest theater company, Houston Broadway Theatre, will make a splashy, Broadway-style entrance with this Tony and Pulitzer-winning musical. Going big early, the company also brings to town some veteran Broadway and television performers for this production that will be staged at the Hobby Center’s midsize Zilker theater. This rock musical, with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt, explores issues of mental illness and family relationships as it tells the story of a seemingly average suburban American family, but one struggling with a member with bipolar disorder. Tony-nominated and American Idol finalist, Constantine Maroulis, stars as Dan and Broadway and television veteran Mary Faber stars as Diana.

Photo by Deen van Meer

Broadway at the Hobby Center presents The Lion King

performing-arts

best july art

MFAH celebrates America 250 and 7 more must-see art openings for July

Photo courtesy of Art Club

Orkhan Mammadov’s “Visions” at Art Club

The middle of summer is traditionally a time for Houston art galleries, museums, and institutions to take a bit of a breather, allowing art lovers a chance to catch up with spring exhibitions in cool art spaces. But this July keeps the art openings coming as the month brings several celebratory shows and intriguing exhibitions of local artists. Let’s enjoy a sizzling summer of art as the MFAH honors our nation’s big 250; Art Club unveils a new lineup of exhibits; and Avenida Houston expands our art horizons.

Art Club’s New Season at POST (ongoing)
When Art Club, the immersive space and DJ venue opened over a year ago, it promised Houston art lovers and club goers this techno art museum would continue to change and evolve over time with new artists and large-scale installations. Now with 12 fresh, radical, and cutting edge, gallery-sized works for the summer, it has certainly delivered on that promise. Created by individual artists, collectives, and international design studios, the new exhibits send visitors into kinetic light space and beguiling soundscapes. Many of the installations merge ancient cultures and practices with some of the most high tech art mediums, taking visitors into a different strange, alien world with each gallery, but ones that always echo with human connection.

One highlight of the new season is Lina Dib’s “Here and Now,” where beautiful yet eerie flower descend from a darkened sky, blooming to a soundscape of migratory bird sounds made by human immigrants to Houston. Art Club’s mirrored "infinity room" gets a new resident in Orkhan Mammadov’s “Visions,” which merges a thousand years of art history with machine learning.

Light artist Sasha Kojjio processes large bodies of text through sorting and generating algorithms, spinning the results into light until meaning dissolves and only movement remains. For Sphere³ II, international design studio Radugadesign, explores ancient Greek geometry through light, mirrors, and sound, creating an object that feels as if it could transport humans across space and time.

“This season, we’ve continued to bring new media art from around the world to Houston with digital art ranging from the Islamic world to the Incan traditions of the Andes,” said Kirby Liu, founder and curator of Art Club Houston and managing director of POST. “The theme is the conviction that the binaries we use to see the world – whether analog versus digital, human versus machine, or tradition versus technology – are no longer doing the work we ask of them.”

“Horizon” at The Plaza at Avenida Houston (now through September 7)
Outdoor art gets expansive with these new interactive installations set between George R. Brown Convention Center and Discovery Green. Created by acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and set designer, Olivier Landreville, in collaboration with sound and light designer, Serge Maheu, “Horizon” invites Houstonians to take a seat inside these domed art structures and contemplate the sculpted skies. Gently rocking the chairs within the pieces will trigger a series of light and soundscapes.

Houston First Corporation has partnered with international public art producers Creos and Init to present Horizon with the hope it gives Houstonians and all the national and international visitors we’ve had this summer to slow down, unwind, and enjoy one of our favorite community spaces.

“George Washington: America's Enduring Icon” at Bayou Bend (now through November 22)
The MFAH celebrates America's first president with this fascinating decorative art exhibition at its Bayou Bend house museum. “Enduring Icon” includes objects from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries featuring images of George Washington during his lifetime, as well as many that mourned or honored him after his death. The exhibition examines the many ways that Americans have recognized, honored, celebrated, memorialized, and appropriated Washington as both a man and icon.

“America 250” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (now through January 3)
The 4th of July might have passed, but Houstonians and visitors from around the world can continue to celebrate the United States’ 250th birthday by taking this special marked journey through the MFAH. Instead of a contained exhibition, museum curators have chosen over 70 artworks from the collection across the campus to tell a uniquely American story through art.

From golden antiquities to Native American pottery to vast painted landscapes to large-scale installations of futuristic cities, these pieces reflect the complexity and diversity of the American experience, while drawing connections between our nation and the MFAH's history as a collecting institution. As visitors explore the museum, indoors and out, they’ll find guides to the artworks, along with newly created audio stops and labels that discuss each artwork from these historical and cultural perspectives.

"On the occasion of the nation’s 250th anniversary, we saw a singular opportunity to look at our collections and select objects that reflect the multitudes of individuals who have contributed to the identity of our nation,” describes MFAH director, Gary Tinterow. “The curators’ choices will allow our visitors to experience our collections framed within a series of illuminating and sometimes surprising narratives.”

"Representation of Form" at MATCH (July 9-12)
Photography and choreography dance together as Group Accord and photographer Christopher Peddecord collaborate in the creation of this multidisciplinary art event. Peddecord has taken photographs of Group Acorde dance artists and layers the images with one another. Those photographs will then be displayed and projected throughout the MATCH Box 1 space. During live performances, the dancers will move within the images of themselves. Audiences will also be free to move about the space, immersing themselves within the installation.

“Casa de Cultura: The Living Archive” at the Fresh Arts Gallery in Winter Street Studios (July 9-August 22)
Fresh Arts’ ongoing Space Taking Artist Residency invites traditionally underrepresented local artists to experiment and “take over” Fresh Arts’ gallery space at Sawyer Yards. The initiative has produced some stunning and surprising artwork and live performance experiences over the past few years.

For “Casa de Cultura,” Violeta Alvarez, an award-winning local photographer, will present work inspired by her mother’s life and journeys. Alvarez will create a “Living Archive” exploring cultural identity, migration and collective memory. The project will feature two photography exhibitions: one a curated selection of Alvarez’s music photography, including her early work with Justice Records, and the second built entirely from open-call live portrait sessions of individuals with ancestral ties to Mesoamerica. Several live events and performances will take place throughout the residency, including community photo sessions, panel discussions, a podcast recording, Aztec dance performances, Chicanx artist vendors for Second Saturdays, and community drives.

"World of Color” at Laura Rathe Fine Art (July 16-August 14)
This exhibition brings together a group of artists working in different mediums and producing very distinct imagery, but all their art explores vivid colors and manifests a sense of wonder and play. "World of Color" explores color as both a meaningful and nostalgic force, brought to life through Miriam Fitzgerald’s intricately folded paper, Gian Garofalo’s flowing stripes of pigmented resin, Pablo Dona’s miniature figures swimming within teacups, and Lynn Sanders' layered colorscapes. Exhibition organizers note that through curious and intuitive explorations of color, each artist engages with combinations that create a childlike sense of discovery.

"Learning Curve 18” at Houston Center for Photography (July 16-August 16)
This annual exhibition celebrates the HCP students’ work over a given year, and for the 18th iteration, the exhibition will showcase students from various programs at the Center doing a range of photographic work from digital to alternative processes. Jessi Bowman, the Houston-based photographer, curator, and founder of FLATS, a community darkroom and photo lab, is this year’s juror. Bowman has intentionally selected pieces exploring photography from a multitude of approaches, subjects, and perspectives in order to create an show that reveals artists working in community.

“As a juror, I was drawn to work that embraced curiosity and possibility. The strongest images often reflected a willingness to take risks,” explains Bowman in a statement about the selections, adding “Many of these photographs show artists pushing beyond technical proficiency toward a more personal visual voice.”

$\u200bOrkhan Mammadov\u2019s \u201cVisions\u201d at Art Club$

Photo courtesy of Art Club

Orkhan Mammadov’s “Visions” at Art Club

openings visual-art museums