weekend event planner

Here are the top 15 things to do in Houston this weekend

Pale Waves ride in on Sunday.

Photo by Katia Temkin

This weekend sees hot temps and red-hot fun. Look for choice theater, a restaurant grand opening, beer olympics, and a bar party. Also look for events celebrating our African American community and Pride — specifically a pool party. And one party celebrates the year — half of it, anyway.

Dive in; here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, June 23

Shabach Enterprise presents Fade To Black Play Festival
The Fade To Black Play Festival, Houston's first and only, three-day short-play festival to celebrate African-American playwrights, has been around for nearly a decade. Each year they perform 10 platys, 10 minutes each, written by the nation's finest, African-American playwrights, including scribes from right here in Houston. And even though COVID prevented them from doing the fest for a couple years, they are back with a vengeance this weekend. 7 pm.

The Warwick Grand Opening
The Warwick celebrates its grand opening this weekend. Look for drink specials, private tastings, a photobooth, DJ, summer swag, and much more. The event is open to the public and individual reservations can be made here. Also happening at The Warwick is a brand new happy hour, everyday from 4-6 pm, with half priced bottled wines. Guests can enjoy discounted wines anywhere in the restaurant, or choose from the bar bites menu if they prefer bar seating. 8 pm.

Two Schmucks at Two Headed Dog
Two Schmucks, the acclaimed Barcelona cocktail bar that recently placed No. 11 on the 2021 World’s 50 Best Bar List, is returning to the states this summer. The Schmucks US Tour 2022 will take the bar across five states with events at some of the country’s most renowned bars, showcasing its signature “Five Star Dive Bar” concept. The team will be offering up cocktails with such names as Ice Cream for Astronauts, Disco Infante and, of course, Schmuck 2020. 9 pm.

Friday, June 24

Proud + Present Yoga + Vendor Market
GreenStreet will be opening up its lawn for this Pride Month-celebrating event. Things will kick off with a 45-minute, outdoor yoga class on the lawn, hosted by LifeTime Fitness and featuring a live DJ. Following yoga, guests can sip on refreshments while shopping from over 10 vendors surrounding the lawn. Afterwards, guests can grab dinner at one of GreenStreet’s delicious restaurants. Guests can register here. 6 pm.

Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company presents Women Rock!
Mildred’s Umbrella is teaming up with Rudyard’s British Pub for this fundraiser, benefiting the theater company’s 2022-23 season. The benefit concert will feature local female-fronted bands, comedians, burlesque acts, solo artists, a silent auction, and food and drink for purchase from Rudyard’s menu. The party will be prom-themed, so guests can dress up fancy. The "King and Queen of the Prom" will be crowned later in the evening. 7 pm.

Marlon Wayans: Microphone Fiend Tour
Fans of the Wayans family will be spoiled rotten on this evening, as not one, but two of the bros will be doing stand-up in the city. Damon Wayans will be in the middle of a four-night stint over at the Improv. But little brother Marlon will be downtown, making a stop on his Microphone Fiend Tour. If you wanna check out both shows, see Marlon first. Then, speed over to Damon's second show at 9:45 pm. 7:30 pm.

The Alta Arts presents Massacre: Sing to Your Children
It will be a wild, bloody, political-poetical ride when The Alta Arts presents this play by Oscar-nominated, Puerto Rican-born American playwright José Rivera. It follows eight “average” previously non-violent folks, in the small town of Granville, who have just committed a gruesome act. Although the playwright’s Latin-American power themes are evident, the complex dynamics of perception and fear will be frighteningly familiar to any audience. Through Sunday, July 3. 8 pm.

Saturday, June 25

Heidi Vaughan Fine Art presents Objects from Sanders, Canfield, and Other Private Collections Benefitting the Houston Arts Foundation
At this secondary market art exhibition and sale, works that are presented will be from some of the most noteworthy private collections in Houston, including those of Don Sanders, William and Ginny Camfield, Jereann Chaney, Lester Marks, Dr. Alton and Emily Steiner, Bryn Larsen, and other important local collections. Available artworks will rotate throughout the summer. As works are sold, new art objects will be brought in. Through Saturday, August 20. 11 am.

Revelry on Richmond Summer Beer Olympics
The popular bar is hosting its annual Summer Beer Olympics. Grab a team of four of your family, friends or fellow coworkers to compete against each other and prove who’s best. There will be fun games such as giant beer pong, cornhole, b-ball shootout, flip cup and a water obstacle course. To enter it’s $20 per team. The first place winner will receive $400 in cash and a trophy, second place $100 dollars in cash and third place a $100 gift card. 1 pm.

Half-y New Year at the Rustic
The Rustic is inviting folks to come raise a glass and celebrate making it halfway through the year. The restaurant/live entertainment venue is putting a spin on the traditional New Year celebration by throwing a Reverse Happy Hour party, filled with fan-favorite, hand-crafted food and cocktail specials. Although it may only be the half-year mark, guests can prepare for a full night of live music that will lead up to a celebratory balloon drop and a champagne toast at midnight. 9 pm.

14 Pews presents In the Mood for Love
At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s 2000 love story, starring the powerhouse duo of Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai, is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career. 7 pm.

Sunday, June 26

Pride Pool Party at Space Cowboy
If you would like to celebrate Pride Month — but need to be in a cool, preferably wet environment while you're doing it — Space Cowboy is partnering with VeganChill for this special pool party. Billed as “the biggest vegan adult festival in Texas,” the event will feature vegan cuisine by chef Adriana Maldonado, cocktails by bar manager Sam Ruiz, local vendors, DJs and other entertainment. Admission is free, and attendees are asked to RSVP here. 2 pm.

Discovery Green presents The Fairytale Project
This project is a historically inspired tale for children of a modern-day, African-American family reconnecting with their East Texas roots through peculiar encounters with the past. With choreography rooted in a fusion of modern/contemporary dance, jazz, musical theater, and dance styles inspired by the African Diaspora, the plot follows the journey of a family with ancestral roots in Shankleville, Texas, wherein newly emancipated African-Americans began their independent towns. 5 pm.

Ferragamo Wine Dinner at Doris Metropolitan
Italian design house Ferragamo is collaborating with Doris Metropolitan for an exclusive night with the Ferragamo family winery, Il Borro. The Tuscan winery and farm runs as a carbon-neutral outpost for organic farming. Dinner will be $325+ a person. Salvatore Ferragamo, the grandson of the company’s founder, will be in attendance, mingling with guests and signing bottles of Il Borro. Dinner is at 7. Reservations can be made by calling the restaurant. 6:30 pm.

Pale Waves and 5 Seconds of Summer at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Rising indie stars and one of the hottest bands out of the UK Pale Waves will be opening for 5 Seconds of Summer’s North American tour amidst releasing new music ahead of their August album at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. The pop-punk band has made a name by inspiring inclusivity and self-discovery and creating an accepting place for their passionate fans looking to find a community. 7 pm.

event-planner

Music feature

Texas country star Cody Johnson's new album goes to 'Banks of Trinity'

Photo by Cameron Powell

Cody Johnson.

There's a moment at every Cody Johnson show where the Texas-born-and-bred country star asks the crowd, “How many of you tonight are watching me and this band live for the very first time?” he told The Associated Press. “And every night, I would say at least 80% of the crowd raises their hands.”

It's not the kind of reaction most veteran artists receive. “And I’m thinking, you know, 20 years is a long time to work for something. But when you see that … What’s the next 20 years look like?” he asks.

The rancher, rodeo competitor, and onetime prison guard started his two-decade career playing honky tonks and dive bars. That led to slow and steady growth for the country traditionalist, but in the last few years, something has shifted. He landed his fifth career No. 1 song with “The Fall.” He was named Entertainer of the Year at the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards, the show's highest honor. That was a month after he headlined Stagecoach Music Festival. For an artist with legions of fans, it looked like he was accessing new heights.

“I feel like I’m closing a book and I’m opening another one and it’s all blank pages,” he says of this period. “Let's get to the next chapter." On June 26, that new era began with the release of his latest album, Banks of the Trinity.

Traveling to the Banks of the Trinity
It hasn't been an easy road. Last fall, Johnson had to cancel a bunch of tour dates after upper respiratory and sinus infections caused a burst eardrum that required surgery — an intimidating medical procedure for anyone, but especially nerve-wracking for a musician. “I was scared,” he said simply. But “in a roundabout way, it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

It forced him to take three months off, which allowed him to be home during the birth of his son. It also rejuvenated his approach in the studio. Before the incident, he thought the album was complete. It was not. The additional time resulted in the inclusion of a few songs that now feel inextricable from the record: “Thank Somebody Country,” “Take Me Back (Leave Me There),” “Cricket on a Hook,” and the resilient “I Have” among them.

“What a blessing to have that kind of song fall in your lap when you’re kind of up against the ropes,” he says of the latter. “I mean, we thought we had the record done. It wasn’t done.”

A title track with real resonance
At the heart of Banks of the Trinity is its title track, which recalls Eagles' cover of “Seven Bridges Road” meets bluegrass and Southern gospel.

Lyrically, it's an ode to Johnson's childhood. “I grew up on the banks of the Trinity [River.] Fishing for catfish, not so much out of pleasure or sport but for necessity to put food in the freezer. Deer season for me was not a trophy thing,” he said.

And while that track inspires a feeling of nostalgia within the listener, he doesn't consider this album a throwback collection. He says it's about showcasing his evolving sonic diversity.

"The rest of the album for me is a musical journey from track one to track 16,” he said. “There’s a little bit of a flavor for everybody. It does kind of hit Motown. It does kind of hit bluegrass. It does hit progressive country. It does it old country. It does a little rock here and there.”

It's the result of a new kind of freedom, one that is at least partially due to his recent accomplishments, including taking home the top prize at the ACM Awards.

“I just did the thing that I’ve aspired to do in my career my entire life,” he says. “A really good place is a really good way to describe where I am.”

And now that the album is out, he's ready to take a breather.

“I will be shirtless with no shoes on a beach at an undisclosed location,” he jokes about the days after record release. “'Cause I have already done all the prep work. I've been working on this album for two years. I’ve done all of the interviews. I’ve shook all the hands. Me and my wife and kids are gonna disappear for 10 days and I’m gonna become, I guess, every Kenny Chesney song ever.”

texas country artist cody johnson interview music