best may theater

Dragons, drag queens, 'Mad Men meets Sex in the City,' and more star in Houston's top theater for May

Thankfully, May has 31 days, as could spend nearly every one catching all the theater and performing arts shows this month.

Fans can expect world premieres, contemporary classics, fairytales, Sci-Fi, and shows that are quite a drag — in all their high-heeled glory. With pirates, matadors, Elvis impersonators and hippies as our guides, May makes for quite the theatrical adventure.

Tooth & Tale from Mildred’s Umbrella (through May 13)

This new play from Houston playwright Elizabeth A.M. Keel had almost as much of a dramatic fairytale story as what will go on stage in this world premiere production staged at the historic Deluxe Theatre. The show went through several workshop with Mildred’s originally scheduled to produce it in 2020.

Finally, this story of princesses, dragons, pirates and amazing adventures will have its happy ending, a life onstage. Here’s hoping that ending will just be the beginning.

Catholic School Girls from On the Verge Theatre (through May 28)

For their last show, On the Verge staged a play about competitive swimming at an indoor pool facility. Now, the company is back staging this Casey Kurtti memory comedy in a church, specifically Bering Memorial Church.

Set in the '60s, the play showcases the versatility of this cast of four, mostly local actresses who play both the the school girls from the title and the occasional nun. The girls experience bonds of friendship, reprimands from authority figures, and pressure from home, growing up in a time of the Beatles and the election of a Catholic president.

The Legend of Georgia McBride at Stages (through July 2)

A down-on-his-luck Elvis impersonator with a wife and baby finds he can no longer pull audiences in. When the club where he performs makes some programming changes, this Elvis must trade in his white, Rhinestone-studded jumpsuits for something a bit more subtle—namely drag.

He soon learns he has more talent as a performing queen than impersonating the King. With humor and fabulous numbers, playwright Matthew Lopez’s story challenges our perceptions of identity and classic gender roles with humor and depth.

Brother Toad at Ensemble Theatre (May 11-June 4)

In this all-too-timely play, Black high school student Marques recuperates at home after surviving being shot by a white man while he was just sitting in a car with a friend — who was killed.

As the show begins, Marques’s uncle Randall a sport-radio host want the family to attend a community march against gun violence. The family’s reluctance to attend seems to stem from other, unclear concerns, but it’s that fear, in its many forms that is a thread throughout this powerful play from screenwriter and playwright Nathan Louis Jackson.

1968: The Whole World Is Watching from Open Dance Project

Houston’s driving force for world premiere, immersive dance works that are always theatrical in the extreme is back. This latest work that will transport us back to the history-making ’68 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Breaking down conventional barriers between audience and stage, this immersive experience situates audience members directly in the center of the action, where they walk through and engage with the interdisciplinary, multimedia performance as it mines iconic photographs, news media, music, art, actions, and events of 1968 for a deeper understanding of our conflict-ridden, intensely mediated here and now.

Torera at Alley Theatre (May 12-June 4)

One young woman attempts to break through the red glass cape (capa de brega) in this coming-of-age story. In the world premiere play by Monet Hurst-Mendoza, previously workshopped at the Alley All New festival, Elena Ramírez wants to enter the almost exclusively man’s world of bullfighting.

With the help of her best friend, a matador’s son, Elena begins secretly training to compete with the greatest. When she discovers her seemingly inherent talent can beat even the most accomplished toreros, this young woman must choose between accepting society’s limits or breaking boundaries.

The Best of Everything at Main Street Theater (May 14-June 18)

In what MST describes as Mad Men meets Sex and the City, this comedy chronicles the lives, loves, and careers of a set of ambitious women at a New York publishing company.

One catch to their climb up the corporate ladder: the time is the 1950s and our female heroes are trapped in the steno pool. (Yeah, we had to look up the word steno, too.) We’re guessing this Julie Kramer contemporary adaptation of the Rona Jaffe 1958 novel will have something of 21st century look-back sensibility, as these women try to figure out if they really can have the best of everything.

Rent from Theatre Under the Stars (May 16-28)

The season of love arrives for the final TUTS in-house production for their 22-23 lineup. Jonathan Larson’s show redefined what a musical could be in the late 20th century, all the while inspired by the 19th century operatic heights of La Bohème.

We heard early rumors that director Ty Defoe's vision for this production might include a new focus on documentarian character of Mark and perhaps weaving a multimedia component to the show. Is this Rent for the social media/citizen journalism age? Either way, the core story about love, death, art, and friendship remains timeless.

Drag Wonderettes at Stages (May 19-July 2)

It’s a drag, drag world — at least at Stages — as the company offer this drag version of one of their most popular shows and Off-Broadway smash, The Marvelous Wonderettes.

Stages will actually world-premiere the jukebox musical about the friendship and bond of a '50s girl group conceived as a drag show. Drag Wonderettes will run in repertory with Legend of Georgia McBride, giving audiences the opportunity to see both show a day apart or even on the same night.

The theatre hopes audiences will think of the two shows in conversation with each other about drag as a performance art form. No matter which show we see first, we’re betting the Stages costume designers and assistants will be the hardest working show people in the city this month.

Sin Muros Festival at Stages (May 25-28)

Stages isn’t done in May, as they’ll also bring back their new play festival for its sixth year. See tomorrow’s theatrical works today with stages readings of four new works, including: Hotel Puerto Vallarta: A Legitimate Work of Dramatic Theatre by David Davila; 619 Hendricks by Josie Nericcio; parts per million & prophets by Ricardo Dávila; and a river, its mouths by Jesús I. Valles.

Along with this glimpse of new work from up and coming playwrights, the fest includes the annual presentation of the Premio Puente (Bridge Award) to an individual or organization who has demonstrated great skill/talent/drive/care in serving the Latinx art community in the Houston area.

Other fun includes theater and education workshops and an arts market featuring local vendors, artisans, food trucks, and non-profit organizations.

Divergence from Houston Ballet (May 25-June 4)

The last of HB’s mixed rep productions of their 22-23 season features some very Houston-centric works, including a world premiere from a rock star of the dance world, Justin Beck.

First up, HB brings back Aszure Barton’s Angular Momentum for the first time since its premiere in 2012. This homage to Houston as Space City features otherworldly costume design by Fritz Masten, a Houston-inspired set by lighting and scenic designer Burke Brown and Mason Bates’ hybrid score of orchestral-electronic melodies and archival NASA recordings. The performance will also include the long anticipated return of HB artistic director, Staton Welch’s, Divergence, which hasn’t been seen on stage as a complete work since 2012.

Finally, HB world premieres Tony Award-winning choreographer Justin Peck’s Under the Folding Sky, a dance inspired by the monumental, only-in-Houston artwork, James Turrell’s Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at Rice University.

Peck uses the music from Philip Glass's opera "The Photographer" for his dance, with costumes designed by duo Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung of Reid and Harriet, lighting by Brandon Sterling Baker and scenic design by Rice University alum Karl Jensen.

Divergence will feature the full HB company.

August: Osage County from Dirt Dogs Theatre Co. (May 26-June 10)

When the patriarch of the Oklahoman Weston family disappears, the younger generation — including the three Weston sisters — return to the homestead. Accusations, recriminations, secrets, lies, and bitter truths are revealed.

The large cast of regular Dirt Dog players, as well as veteran Houston actors, will dig their teeth into this Tracy Letts’ darkly comic contemporary classic with shades of King Lear. The show contains so many strong and complex women roles, we’re looking forward to some of our local acting favorites to reveal these dogs as some bad bitches.

A Maroon’s Guide to Time and Space from Catastrophic Theatre (May 26-June 17)

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Photo by Amitava Sarkar

Houston Ballet presents Divergence.

Houston theater artist and filmmaker, Candice D’Meza, is back partnering with Catastrophic for this new, multidisciplinary, immersive theatre piece that merges live performance, music and video.

D’Meza most recent film work has explored Afrofuturism, and it looks like Maroon’s Guide will take further theatrical leaps into strange new worlds, while time traveling into multiple pasts and futures.

When the audiences enter this play — that’s not a play, and much more than a play — they’ll climb aboard a Harriet Tubman time traveling spaceship to transcend science as we understand it, escape their own linear timelines to experience true, abiding, and eternal access to freedom.

Fairview from 4th Wall Theatre (May 26-June 17)

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning play finally gets its first Houston premiere in 4th Wall’s intimate Studio 101. All the better to see (and be seen at) this twisty, layered comedy that has garnered so many awards.

What begins as a situational comedy about the party pressure experienced by a middle-class Black American family preparing for Grandma’s birthday celebration turns into something quite different: a commentary on race, identity, and the power of perception and storytelling.

Best February Theater

A Broadway legend and classic musicals star in Houston's best February shows

Photo by Andrew Eccles

The Hobby Center presents Beyond Broadway: An Evening with Bernadette Peters.

From mythic marriages to small moments of friendship, love is in the air–in its many forms–across Houston stages. This Valentine’s month brings romance and heartbreak among gods and goddess, but Houston theater companies also showcase stories of profound human connections in ordinary spaces, on trains, in diners, and classrooms. If all those dramatic and comic relationships aren’t enough, Theatre Under the Stars invites us to one of history’s greatest jam session and the Hobby Center brings Broadway royalty to town.

Grand Horizons from Mildred’s Umbrella (February 5-21)
Mildred’s is the first of many companies this month picking contemporary and sometimes very recent Broadway plays and musicals as sources for their fresh, local productions. The company begins this heartfelt season with Bess Wohl’s comedy-drama about a mature marriage and the grand chaos of falling out of love. The show opens on an ordinary older couple, Bill and Nancy, having dinner at their home in the Grand Horizons retirement community.

But after 50 years of marriage, they’re ready to call it quits and calmly announce their decision to divorce, sending shockwaves through their family. As their adult sons rush to make sense of the news, long-buried tensions and unspoken truths rise to the surface. With wit and warmth, Wohl explores love, commitment, and the messiness of family in this modern look at what it really means to grow old together or apart.

Beyond Broadway: An Evening with Bernadette Peters presented by the Hobby Center (February 6)
The Hobby Center continues to bring the biggest musicals and screen stars for electrifying one-night-only shows with their Beyond Broadway series. Next up, living legend Bernadette Peters – the critically acclaimed queen of stage, film, television and recordings–will present a magical and inspiring evening of songs from some of the greatest musical theater masters. The multi-award winner creates an intimate audience experience when she performs celebrated selections from Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, and others.

The Coast Starlight at Main Street Theater (February 7-March 1)
With its debut in New York a few years ago, Starlight garnered much critical acclaim for its story about passengers on a Pacific Coast train from L.A. to Seattle. These strangers meet on this 36 hour journey and slip into and out of each others lives, perhaps influencing the small and big choices they all need to make.

At the center of this journey is T.J., a Navy medic with a difficult decision to make. With the help of his fellow travelers, all of whom are reckoning with their own life circumstances, T.J. has roughly 1,000 miles to figure out how he wants to live the rest of his life. As MST continues to celebrate its momentous 50th season, they note this show “illuminates our capacity for invention and re-invention when life goes off the rails.”

Hadestown presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center (February 10-15)
This multiple Tony-winning musical and Broadway smash returns to Houston after beguiling Hobby Center audiences in 2022. The road to Hell is full of some bad intentions but some heavenly music as the story entwines the ancient Greek love stories of Hades and Persephone and Orpheus and Eurydice into one epic, bluesy tale. As the first song, “Road to Hell” even spoils, don’t expect a happily-ever-after with these stories, but do lookout for modern, complex visions of these classic myths.

Katy Perry Candy Darling Mary Magdalene from Catastrophic Theatre (February 13-March 7)
In a season of mostly world premieres, Catastrophic once again breaks genres and definitions with this edgy musical about Sophia, the lead singer of an underground Houston band called Bird Murderer. Sophia is on a quest to write the perfect song, with the simple requirements that it must be personal, universal, and under three minutes. Most of all, it has to pay tribute to her favorite artist of all time: Katy Perry.

Describing Katy Perry Candy as “a madcap musical romp” and “a psychedelic meditation on the intertwining dualities of religious faith and gender identity, a harrowing disco-punk psychodrama and a hot wet heavy metal nightmare,” Catastrophic once again is set to defy any expectations of what theater can and should be. Playwright Joe Folladori certainly can write from experience as a long time Catastrophic music contributor and founder of the indie pop collective The Mathletes.

English at Alley Theatre (February 13-March 8)
The Alley produces this Pulitzer Prize winning play that just recently became a critically-acclaimed hit on Broadway. The narrative couldn’t be more timely as it deals with themes of language, immigration, assimilation, and ever changing political landscapes.

Set in Iran in 2008, the play follows four Farsi-speaking adults and their teacher in an English class to prepare for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). They each have different reasons for learning English, from job prospects in English-speaking countries to strengthening family connections to gaining bilingual power. Over the course of six weeks, they reveal their unique life stories as well as their relationships with their motherland and identity. They might even forge friendships all the while speaking a foreign tongue.

Million Dollar Quartet from Theatre Under the Stars (February 17-March 1)
While the real 1956 impromptu jam and hangout session between Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash at Sun Record Studios in Memphis remains one of the most iconic and influential moments in music history, this musical depiction of that meeting is relatively new. The hit show made its Broadway debut in 2010 and went on to earn numerous Tony Awards nominations and later a national tour. Now TUTS brings their own rocking production to the Hobby Center.

Along with depicting the real life backstage drama, including the clashing talent and big personalities, the show delivers fiery live performances of billion dollar hits, like “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Fever,” “Walk the Line,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Hound Dog,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” and several beloved gospel standards.

The Counter from 4th Wall Theatre (February 19-March 16)
A small town diner sets the scene and pace for this recent Off-Broadway hit about an unlikely friendship between a regular customer and a waitress. Paul is a retired firefighter, and Katie serves him coffee daily. After months of small talk and hints at their complicated pasts, Paul reaches out for friendship, and Katie agrees, sensing his need.

Through shared secrets, they begin to rediscover hope and joy in human connection. But when Paul makes an unusual request, will their new bond deepen or break completely? With a small, three person cast of some of our favorite Houston actors and the intimacy of 4th Wall’s Studio 101 space, look for the type of poignant experience only live theater can bring.

Sylvia from Houston Ballet (February 26-March 8)
Along with Hadestown, this month brings a second return of a 2022 production of Greek and Roman love myths. Houston Ballet brings back this audience favorite created by artistic director Stanton Welch about the legendary tale of the huntress Sylvia and her love for a mortal shepherd. Look for the whole HB company dancing as gods, goddess, nymphs, huntresses, fauns, and the odd naiad.

Though perhaps not as well known to dance lovers as other story ballets, this depiction of the Sylvia myth, set to music by Léo Delibes, has created faun fans for almost a 150 years. In 2019, Welch put his own mark on the tale, and then HB delivered an epic encore in 2022. It’s no wonder Sylvia leaps into the Wortham Center once more, as the stunning costumes and set designs scenic by world-renowned ballet and opera designer Jerome Kaplan, with lighting design by Lisa J. Pinkham and myth building projections from Wendall K. Harrington, all have made this ballet a favorite for HB audiences.

Venus in Fur from Dirt Dogs Theatre (February 26-March 14)
Dirt Dogs brings a very different kind of romance to the stage for Valentine's season. This dark, sizzling drama from acclaimed playwright David Ives plays on ideas about sexual relationships but also on creative collaborations. Thomas is a playwright searching for the perfect actress to portray Vanda for in his stage adaptation of Leopold Sacher-Masoch’s infamous novella Venus in Furs.

On a dark, stormy night of fruitless auditions, a mysterious and unconventional woman calling herself Vanda arrives to read for the part. Not only is she late, she also appears far from the ideal candidate Thomas had in mind. As the audition unfolds, Vanda’s performance takes an unexpected turn, blurring the lines between script and reality. Masks slips and identities transform, leaving the audience to perhaps wonder who’s really directing and who is acting. As the sexual and psychological tension builds, Thomas and Vanda must confront the complexities of their desires and the darker sides of human nature.

The Chinese Lady at Stages (February 27-March 22)
Last year, Stages had a quiet hit with award-winning playwright Lloyd Suh’s The Heart Sellers, a touching drama about friendship between young immigrants in the 70s. This winter they’re back with another of Suh’s plays, this one inspired by the true story of the first Chinese woman to arrive in the United States. This Lady begins her journey in the early 1800s as a 14-year-old girl brought to America by promoters and toured across the country as a living curiosity. As Afong Moy travels across America over the decades, with her translator her only constant companion, the Chinese Lady shares her witty, poignant, and occasionally heartbreaking observations of a young nation. Balancing Moy’s sharply funny observations with the historical realities of her circumstances, the play touches on themes of identity, exploitation, and racism.

Photo by Andrew Eccles

The Hobby Center presents Beyond Broadway: An Evening with Bernadette Peters.