weekend event planner

Here are the top 16 things to do in Houston this weekend

We’re into the heart of Rodeo season, which means thousands of Houstonians will be at NRG Park to eat turkey legs and watch performances by for King + Country, 50 Cent, Hardy, and Ivan Cornejo. Given the mild weather, expect the grounds to be packed.

For anyone not sliding into their Luccheses, this weekend offers a compelling mix of activities. Cirque du Soleil finally comes to an inner loop venue, and some of America’s top comedians will take to local stages. The Houston Arboretum invites dog owners to bring their faithful companions on a nature walk.

Enjoy; here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, February 29

Stags’ Leap Wine Dinner at Warehouse 72
Make the most of that extra day in the month with a Stags’ Leap Wine Dinner at Warehouse 72. Executive chef Jaime Salazar has curated a special menu that complements Stags' Leap vintages — think broiled clams, Ora King salmon, smoked duck breast, sous-vide venison, and sticky toffee pudding for $125 per person. 6:30 pm.

Cirque du Soleil presents Corteo
Corteo, which means “cortege” in Italian, is a joyous procession, a festive parade imagined by a clown. The clown pictures his own funeral taking place in a carnival atmosphere, watched over by quietly caring angels. Juxtaposing the large with the small, the ridiculous with the tragic and the magic of perfection with the charm of imperfection, the show highlights the strength and fragility of the clown, as well as his wisdom and kindness, to illustrate the portion of humanity that is within each of us. 7:30 pm (11:30 am, 3:30 & 7:30 pm Saturday; 1 & 5 pm Sunday).

UH School of Theatre & Dance presents Twelfth Night
The University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance will be getting its Bard on this weekend. One of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, Twelfth Night ponders love lost and found. A shipwreck separates twins Viola and Sebastian, but tragedy quickly turns to comedy when they wash up in a land turned upside-down by love. Mistaken identities and role reversals abound in one of Shakespeare’s most inventive romantic romps. 8 pm (2 & 8 pm Saturday; 2 pm Sunday).

Friday, March 1

Treebeards 46th Anniversary
Treebeards, the local eatery that has been “doing Southern fresh” since 1978, is celebrating its 46th anniversary this weekend. As a nod to its influence on the Houston food scene, the hometown staple will be offering its classic red beans and rice with sausage at its original 1978 menu price of $1.95 and original oval platter presentation (with cheese costing extra) at all four of its locations. The offer is limited to one per person for dine-in or pick-up. 11 am.

Rice Cinema presents Balloon
Balloon narrates a Tibetan family’s challenges in the face of religious conservatism, sexual freedoms and China’s one-child policy. Weaving between material forms, more-than-human contexts and familial tensions, the film raises pointed questions around human well being in times of environmental precarity. There will be a reception in the Welcome Center thirty minutes before the screening. Following the film, professors of anthropology Huatse Gyal and Cymene Howe will share reflections on the film and facilitate audience discussion. 4 pm.

Ronny Chieng: The Love To Hate It Tour
Ronny Chieng comes to Houston with a brand-new hour of stand-up comedy. While he’s best known for being the caustic correspondent on The Daily Show, the man has two Netflix stand-up comedy specials under his belt. He’s also starred in Crazy Rich Asians, Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, M3GAN, American Born Chinese, Doogie Kamealoha, M.D., Vacation Friends 2, Joy Ride, and will star in the upcoming Hulu series Interior Chinatown. 7 pm.

Houston Symphony presents At Last! A Tribute to Etta James
This special concert will celebrate one of the most dynamic vocalists of all time, the incomparable Etta James. Josh Sklair, Etta’s longtime friend and guitarist, joins vocalist Crystal Monee Hall and the Houston Symphony for a celebration of this gospel prodigy’s iconic debut studio album, At Last! with songs like “Something’s Got a Hold On Me,” “Trust in Me,” “At Last,” and more. 8 pm (2:30 pm Sunday).

Saturday, March 2

Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show
The two-day, 6th Annual Spring Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show will feature special guest appearances and over 100 exhibitors with the latest home improvement products and services on the market. Guests can meet Houston home expert Tom Tynan; Skip Richter, HomeShow Radio gardening expert and host of AM 740 KTRH GardenLine; and Houston Chronicle architecture/design writer Diane Cowen. There will be live chainsaw carving art by chainsaw art Nick Smith. 9 am.

First Saturday Arts Market 20th Anniversary Celebration
The Heights market will celebrate 20 years of providing local artists with a platform to showcase their work. Shop from more than 40 vendors including jewelers, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers, and more. Enjoy live music performances by Grifters & Shills and Wendy Elizabeth Jones & Friends while sampling a range of food and beverage options, including Latin street food from Delicias Maya and sips from Houston Cider Co.

Red Bull Dance Your Style
Red Bull Dance Your Style, Red Bull's international mixed-style dance competition, will host a special city qualifier in Houston. Considered one of the world’s foremost dance competitions, Red Bull Dance Your Style features a 16-person bracket-style tournament with dancers, representing diverse forms of dance styles, battling head-to-head alongside the Lone Star State’s top talent. Unique to the Red Bull Dance Your Style fan experience, this event will also allow the audience to ultimately decide who will be named as champion. 1 pm.

Archway Gallery presents Isabelle Perreau: "Rendez-vous à Paris!" opening reception
Archway Gallery will be showing "Rendez-vous à Paris!," featuring photography by Isabelle Perreau. Perreau’s new exhibition is a lover’s hand extended to the viewer in an invitation to take a carefree, romantic stroll through the picturesque Paris of tourists, lovers, and revelers from all over the world. The artist will be in attendance to visit with guests during the exhibition opening reception and also to talk about her work. Through Thursday, April 4. 5 pm.

Moody Center for the Arts presents Spring Fling
Moody Center for the Arts' Spring Fling will feature performances from opening act THEBROSFRESH and headliner Kaitlin Butts. Butts’s melancholic feminist perspective set to a cosmic honky-tonk sound is paired with the duo THEBROSFRESH, who alchemize country and soul to produce genre-defying songs. There will also be after-hours access to the current exhibition, Hayv Kahraman: "The Foreign in Us," and complimentary drinks from Saint Arnold Brewing Company. 6 pm.

Bill Maher: The WTF? Tour
The outspoken comedian and host of HBO’s Real Time comes to the Hobby Center this weekend. His 25 year career as the host of Comedy Central’s Politically Incorrect and Real Time has earned Maher 41 Emmy nominations. “Club Randon with Bill Maher,” his podcast, reached No. 1 on Apple Podcasts shortly after its release. 8 pm

Sunday, March 3

$Cirque du Soleil\u2019s Corteo$

Photo by Maja Prgomet

Corteo comes to the Toyota Center this weekend.

Allies in Hope presents 35th Annual Walk to End HIV
For 35 years, Allies in Hope (formerly AIDS Foundation Houston) has hosted the Walk to End HIV, furthering their goal of ending the HIV epidemic in the greater Houston area. The event will feature a day of music, dancing and walking as they work to raise $350K for Allies in Hope programs and services, as well as their benefitting agencies. And don’t forget about the afterparty that will go down at 1 pm over at KIKI Houston. 10:30 am.

Houston Arboretum presents Pup Crawl & Pet Expo
The Houston Arboretum & Nature Center presents their annual Pup Crawl and Pet Expo. After four special Saint Arnold Brewing Company beer stops along the Arboretum trails, guests can interact with local pet vendors at the Pet Expo and walk away with a commemorative Pup Crawl glass. Proceeds support the conservation and education programs of the Houston Arboretum and BARC, the City of Houston’s animal shelter and adoption center. Pet adoptions will also be available onsite. 3 pm.

Kevin James: Owls Don’t Walk
Actor and comedian Kevin James comes to Houston as part of his 2024 stand-up comedy tour, Owls Don’t Walk. While you may know him as a sitcom star (The King of Queens, Kevin Can Wait) or a star/co-star of several Adam Sandler-produced films (like his Paul Blart: Mall Cop movies), the now-bald James is also good at doing stand-up. James brought his stand-up act to TV with Sweat the Small Stuff, a one-hour special for Comedy Central. His second comedy special, Never Don’t Give Up, premiered on Netflix. 8 pm.

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Movie Review

The Apprentice uncovers the Trump card in Donald's rise to power

Photo courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment

Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice.

Before he was elected president, Donald Trump was a New York businessman who transitioned into a reality TV show host that played upon his bombastic personality. His effect on American politics over the past eight years would not have been possible without his early experiences, some of which are explored in the new film whose title cheekily references that reality show, The Apprentice.

It introduces viewers who may not know the entire history of Trump (Sebastian Stan) to his relationship with lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who was known for using all sorts of sleazy tactics to win cases. The film shows Trump meeting Cohn in the early 1970s, right when the Trump Corporation, then led by Donald's father Fred Trump (Martin Donovan), was being sued for violating the Fair Housing Act for not renting to Black people.

Cohn’s success at limiting the damage in that case leads Trump to fall in love with the way Cohn approaches life, and he proceeds to call upon him for advice and help in many aspects of his own life. These include trying to strong-arm New York City officials into giving Trump a big tax break on his first hotel, setting up an odious prenuptial agreement with Trump’s soon-to-be bride, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), and more.

Directed by Ali Abbasi and written by Gabriel Sherman, the film is both crystal clear in how it wants Trump to be portrayed and yet somewhat subtle in the way it goes about it. Opening with Richard Nixon’s infamous “I am not a crook” speech, the parallels between that fallen president and one who would go on to be indicted for many crimes while president aren’t at all difficult to parse. And yet, the filmmakers do a good job of methodically building their case for how Trump became the person he is today.

This includes showing the young(er) Trump as somewhat awkward and out of his depth, literally going door-to-door to collect rent at Trump Village apartments and still having family dinner with the whole Trump clan. Learning at the heels of Cohn builds his confidence, especially after Cohn reveals three rules that he lives by: 1) Attack, attack, attack, 2) Admit nothing, deny everything, and 3) Claim victory, and never admit defeat.

Because it’s a two-hour film, the truth of what it’s depicting likely falls somewhere on the spectrum of another thing Cohn tells Trump: “There is no truth.” Still, there are factual bases for much of what the film dramatizes, and even the sequences that might be made up completely fall right in line with the type of man who still refuses to admit that he lost the 2020 election. When Trump and Cohn essentially switch roles as the bully and the wimp when the film moves from the ‘70s to the ‘80s, it comes as no surprise.

Stan, in his second starring role in two weeks, does a fantastic job of evolving the character of Trump. He eases into the verbal and physical traits for which Trump is now known, and the slow build helps him tremendously. Cohn is easy to hate as a real person, but love as a movie character, and Strong bursts off the screen with his performance. He is an early favorite for Best Supporting Actor, utterly transforming into a despicable person from which you want to hear every horrible syllable.

Because of Trump’s overwhelming recent influence on American society, The Apprentice is next-to-impossible to view in an unbiased manner. And the filmmakers likely don’t want you to, as they are obviously trying to demonstrate how Trump has long been this way, and it took him becoming president for the whole world to see it.

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The Apprentice is now playing in theaters.

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