Lively Theater for Lively Children

Summer stages: 6 family-friendly Houston shows guaranteed to entertain your kids

Schools are shutting down for the summer and parents are looking for ways to keep kids engaged and excited. Fortunately, Houston’s theater companies are ready for culture-seeking families, presenting an array of shows that can spark everyone’s thinking and creativity.

In June, the Theater District offers the indescribable experience of Blue Man Group and the fantastic ballet Peter Pan. In the Museum District, musicals take center stage: the beloved Alice In Wonderland and the popular Disney’s High School Musical. Finally, the Houston Symphony will perform celebration songs in its family concert series tour of the Bayou City.

Scooby Doo Live! Musical Mystery

When: Saturday; two shows 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Where: Jones Hall, Presented by Society for the Performing Arts, 713-227-4772, www.spahouston.org

Story line: Scooby-Dooby-Doo! Why is a ghost haunting a local theater? Who is this ghost haunting the local theater? Scooby and friends Shaggy, Daphne, Velma and Fred try to crack the case of the trouble-making ghost in this musical mystery. With the help of the Mystery Machine and Scooby Snacks, the gang solve one puzzle after another so the ghost stops frightening everyone out of the theater. Scooby-Doo is one of television’s longest-running animated series.

“This is a timeless classic that multiple generations can enjoy,” says Karen Watassek, director of public relations for the Society for the Performing Arts. “Many parents and grandparents can remember watching the cartoons. It’s a fun family theatrical event.”

Length: 90 minutes with a 15-minute intermission

Ticket price: $18 - $48, Family Four-Pack for $99 by using promo code FAMILY

Blue Man Group

When: June 4 to 9 at 8 p.m.; June 8 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; June 9 at 2 p.m.

Where: Jones Hall, Presented by the Society for the Performing Arts, 713-227-4772, www.spahouston.org

Story line: Three bald and blue characters, accompanied by a live tribal rhythm band, somehow entrance the audience from start to finish in this multi-media performance. Guests of all ages, from toddlers to grandparents, are delighted in different ways on the Blue Man journey.

“We say that no matter how high-tech things get, there’s still something human there. We’ll always need others, always need to collaborate. People still need to come together and look each other in the eye,” says Blue Man Group co-founder Philip Stanton. “Through the Blue Man’s connection with the audience, we hope to encourage this human-to-human interaction, while helping people reconnect with their own sense of wonder and discovery, with their own sense of what is possible in their lives.”

The first Blue Man Group performances were staged in 1987.

Length: 100 minutes – No intermission

Ticket price: $35 - $80

Sounds Like Fun

When: June 6 – July 10, Various times

Where: Various locations around the Houston area, 713-224-7575, www.houstonsymphony.org

Storyline: Conductor Robert Franz and the Houston Symphony orchestra perform nine family concerts in different neighborhood schools, churches and halls throughout the Houston area. Venues include Pershing Middle School, Methodist Hospital, The Centrum, Atascocita High School, United Methodist Church and Miller Outdoor Theatre.

"Come join the Houston Symphony and me as we celebrate our 100th birthday this year. From Mardi Gras to Egypt to the final scene of Star Wars, we will perform some of the greatest celebration music ever written. I hope to see you at the party," says conductor Franz.

Families can arrive up to one hour before the start of each concert for the instrument petting zoo. Kids are encouraged to touch and try instruments in the four instrument families: the strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion.

Length: 1 hour

Ticket price: Free

Alice In Wonderland

When: June 8-July 28, Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. Select weekdays at 1:30 p.m.

Where: Main Street Theater, Chelsea Market, 713-524-6706, www.mainstreettheater.com

Story line: This delightful musical is based on the beloved book by Lewis Carroll. Alice falls down a rabbit hole and discovers a world with strange creatures including the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Queen of Hearts.

“Alice in Wonderland is a story about wonder and nonsense. It is absurd, extravagant and whimsical, and our production is all of that and more,” says Vivienne M. St. John, Main Street Theater for Youth producing director. “Our earnest heroine Alice, the Mad Hatter and his wacky antics, the very silly White Rabbit. Producing Alice in Wonderland is a chance to bring to life an enduring classic that allows patrons of all ages the chance to forget for awhile where and who they are and just enjoy a tale of frivolity!”

Length: 1 hour 30 minutes with intermission

Ticket price: $12 - $16

Disney’s High School Musical

When: June 12, 13 and 14 at 11 a.m.; June 14 and 15 at 8:15 p.m.

Where: Miller Outdoor Theatre, Presented by Theatre Under The Stars’ Humphreys School of Musical Theatre, 832-487-7102, www.milleroutdoortheatre.com

Story line: At East High, the students socialize in their own cliques: the Jocks, Brainiacs, Thespians and Skater Dudes. The groups come back from winter break and recount their vacations. Basketball star Troy Bolton met a girl on a ski trip during the break, and soon discovers that the girl, Gabriella Montez, is enrolled at East High. They both audition for the school musical and rock the social status quo.

Talented local students play all the favorite characters in this popular Disney movie musical. “An essential part of TUTS' mission is to further musical theater education in the Greater Houston community, and we believe there is no better way to excite future fine arts audience members than to offer a popular Disney musical at Miller Outdoor Theatre,” says Bob Lawson, TUTS director of education at Theatre.

Length: 50 minutes

Ticket price: Free

Peter Pan

When: June 13, 15, 21 and 22 at 7:30 p.m.; June 15, 16 and 23 at 2 p.m.

Where: Brown Theater, Wortham Theater Center, Presented by Houston Ballet, 713-227-ARTS, www.houstonballet.org

Storyline: Based on the popular story by Sir James M. Barrie, this magical ballet features flying sequences, giant puppets, sword fights, colorful masks, punk fashion costumes and lavish sets – all to capture the adventures of Peter Pan, Wendy, John and Michael on the island of Neverland. Peter Pan is the boy who can fly, the leader of the lost boys and the target of Captain Hook. Choreographer Trey McIntyre received rave reviews when Houston Ballet premiered Peter Pan in March 2002.

Length: 2 hours 15 minutes with two intermissions

Ticket price: Starts at $19

Bernadette Verzosa is founder and editor of ParentsPost.com

Blue Man Group comes to Houston, thanks to the Society for the Performing Arts

Photo by Lindsey Best

Blue Man Group comes to Houston, thanks to the Society for the Performing Arts

unspecified

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

---

Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film