HOUSTON THEATER REVIEWS

What did our critic think of IL TRITTICO at Houston Grand Opera?...

Finally, as the theater district is abuzz for the 2025 - 26 season, Theatre Under The Stars brings out not with a bang but with a heartfelt and endearing show: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. With performances from legendary Houston locals and direction from the original Broadway choreog...

Written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Tracy Letts and nominated for Best Play at the 2022 Tony Awards, THE MINUTES is a political satire infused with dark humor, offering a timely critique of power dynamics, political corruption, and the manipulation of history....

As Houston performing arts ventures grow for the 2025-26 season, Houston Grand Opera surpasses them all with a thrilling 50th anniversary production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Starring powerhouse performers Angel Blue and Michael Sumuel in the title roles, this theatrical staging further cements ...

Class, love, and family are at the forefront of this poignant generational drama....

Forget the haunted house this season, and try something a little bit more involved and engaging. The night I visited MIDNIGHT HIGH was a lot of fun, and this company called The Octarine Accord really does know how to color their magic....

But could director Jon Harvey be purposefully lightening his ELECTRA for this era? Does he want a more pop-friendly approach? Do we need that now? These are all questions that only he can answer, but the show itself has a nice pace and energy....

A Heart of Darkness: THE BODY SNATCHER Delivers Gothic Thrills...

A sweeping epic opens the latest Stages season....

It’s a marvelously entertaining thriller that audiences are likely to flock to, because it has a sense of awe-inspired fun that you seldom find in the theater. It's high-tech Agatha Christie, and perfect for the Fall.  ...

Fourth Wall Theatre Company has a revival right now, and boy, does it feel timed for the right moment in Texas politics. Read BroadwayWorld's review of Eureka Day at 4th Wall Theatre Company. ...

Before this world ends, you need to see Catastrophic’s staging of ENDGAME starring Greg Dean and directed by Jason Nodler. They never truly seem to be finished with this one, but you can’t honestly expect the world to be here for a revival in thirteen years....

The opening of The Ensemble’s 49th season is a H-I-T!...

PURLIE VICTORIOUS: A NON-CONFEDERATE ROMP THROUGH THE COTTON PATCH is certainly a curiosity, a satire of Jim Crow life written during the throes of the equal rights movement of the early sixties. I feel like it should seem more creaky, more antiquated, and backwards. Unfortunately for us, it is not....

What did our critic think of SCHMITT'S PSALM 47 AND STRAVINSKY'S FIREBIRD at Houston Symphony?...

What did our critic think of KIMBERLY AKIMBO at Hobby Center For The Performing Arts?...

This touring production of the 2023 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, KIMBERLY AKIMBO, is based on David Lindsay-Abaire’s play of the same name. Kimberly, about to turn 16, has just moved with her family to a quiet suburb in New Jersey....

Michelle Britton seems to be an actor’s director, and DANCING LESSONS allows her artists to be showcased for what they do best. You get a sense that her assured hand simply guided everyone into the right notes, and she orchestrates this truly lovely play....

INCIDENT AT VICHY is a lesser-known work by the legendary Arthur Miller in which nine men wait in a quiet detention room in Nazi-occupied France, unsure why they’ve been taken, what’s coming next, and who will be spared. As questions swirl and suspicions rise, a chilling truth emerges: the arres...

Broadway, film, and television star Robert Lenzi (THE HAPPENING and THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL) is Patrick Bateman for this Houston run. He plays Patrick as an apex predator, but one that surprisingly gets lonely or feels isolated. There is not just the cold killer, but also a sense of what’s killing...

The level of professionalism and the sheen on The Chosen Ones is gobsmacking. This is a very heartfelt musical that you can sense through every second means so much to this cast and its creators....

CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION will probably hit hardest with those of us who took drama classes at some point, and were subjected to this uniquely silly torture that acting teachers come up with just to knock us all down a few pegs. I imagine those lucky enough to have evaded that will be giggling at...

Brilliant projections, realistic animal puppetry, and a cast that seems to do the impossible are currently at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in Lolita Chakrabarti and Yann Martel's Life of Pi. The production, while a visual wonder to behold, is also one of the most head-scratching and perp...

It probably helps that Domenico Leona is a poet, and that Ashley Galan just knows theater so dang well. They and this cast pull off a really radical, well-realized regional premiere for a play by a complex and compelling force in American Theatre....