Best Bets: Barricade Boys, mutability and Apollo 10 ½

We’re officially into June, and the month of June – if you didn’t know – is National Outdoors Month. There’s been very little reason to want to be outdoors so far this month, so rest assured that most of this week’s best bets will keep you in a nice, air-conditioned, rain-free building. Keep reading for our picks, which include jazzy films, glow-in-the-dark art, and a “scandal” at the Symphony.

The Barricade Boys are coming to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, June 6, at 7 p.m. to sing songs from musicals like Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera and Wicked, as well as pop tunes, Motown hits and even “Bohemian Rhapsody” during for The Barricade Boys West End Party! Barricade Boys Kieran Brown and Scott Garnham recently described their show to Broadway World Houston, with Brown saying the set is a mix “of pretty much everything” and Garnham noting that it’s “called a Broadway party, and there’s a reason for that,” adding that they want “people to come and get involved” with singing, dancing and cheering. The show will be performed a second time at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 7. Tickets for either performance can be purchased here for $54 to $124.

Houston Ballet’s latest mixed repertory program, Four Seasons, will open on Thursday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m. with dance works from George Balanchine, Disha Zhang, Dwight Rhoden and Stanton Welch, whose “The Four Seasons” will feature a familiar face. Former principal dancer and current ballet master Amy Fote, whose role in Welch’s work marks her return to dancing on the Houston Ballet stage after more than ten years, recently told the Houston Press that the ballet tells “one woman’s story through…four different artists who dance each of the seasons,” and that it’s “quite a special story with iconic, lovely music.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and June 8, and 2 p.m. Sundays through June 16 at the Wortham Theater Center. Tickets can be purchased here for $25 to $215.

Did you know that Vaseline and ripe bananas glow blue under a black light? A black light emits ultraviolet light and those things that glow under it are called phosphors, and phosphors will be all over Hardy & Nance Studios on Friday, June 7, at 7 p.m. when Insomnia Gallery presents Near Dark: A Black Light Art Show. The all-ages-welcome, free show is returning for the fifth time, so get ready to enjoy work – all fluorescent – from local artists. Get in on the fun and deck yourself out in neon colors or be ready to glow yourself up with highlighters that will be provided on-site. Food trucks will also be present, and Eureka Heights Brewing Company, Bad Astronaut Brewing Co., Equal Parts Brewing and City Orchard will be pouring the (free) drinks.

A restoration of Bruce Weber’s 1988 documentary Let’s Get Lost, a “shimmeringly decadent and fascinating portrait of the West Coast jazz legend Chet Baker,” will open Jazz on Film, a films series curated by Peter Lucas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on Friday, June 7, at 7 p.m. Over three weekends, the series will feature films that sit at the intersection of jazz and cinema, including the Houston premiere of Elis and Tom, about the 1974 collaboration between Brazilian artists Antonio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina; a special 50th anniversary screening of Afrofuturist classic, Sun Ra’s Space Is the Place; two short documentaries focusing on women (International Sweethearts of Rhythm and Maxine Sullivan: Love to Be in Love) and more. You can view the full schedule here and also get individual tickets for $7 to $9.

Haruki Murakami’s literary “world is an allegorical one,” making him “arguably the most experimental Japanese novelist to have been translated into English” as well as “the most popular, with sales in the millions worldwide.” The latest program from ISHIDA Dance Company, mutability, includes two original works from Brett Ishida, one of which is the women-centric “green apples” and the second, which lends its name to the program, draws inspiration from Murakami. In true ISHIDA fashion, the program, which opens at Asia Society Texas on Friday, June 7, at 8 p.m., will also include works from international guest choreographers that you are unlikely to see anywhere else in the U.S. The program will also be performed at 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 8, and 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 9. Tickets can be purchased here for $40 to $120.

Kaiser Wilhelm II famously lamented Richard Strauss’s “scandalous” Salome, an opera based on Oscar Wilde’s equally “scandalous” play, fearing it would do Strauss “a lot of damage.” Instead, “Salome played to sold out opera houses around the world,” and on Friday, June 7, at 8 p.m. the Houston Symphony will produce the opera with costumes, projections, lighting and more during the Strauss Festival: Salome in Concert at Jones Hall. Soprano Jennifer Holloway will sing the title role in the opera, which includes the (in)famous “Dance of the Seven Veils,” which Salome performs in exchange for anything she wants – and what she wants is the head of John the Baptist. Salome will be performed a second time on Sunday, June 9, at 7 p.m. Tickets for either can be purchased here for $34 to $125.

Get a taste of Caribbean and Latin American culture, including the music of Argentina’s most iconic dance and Venezuela’s most traditional (and national) dance, without blowing your savings on a roundtrip plane ticket at Miller Outdoor Theatre on Saturday, June 8, at 8:30 p.m. during Tango, Joropo, Danzas y Mas! produced by Aperio, Music of the Americas. Conductor Marlon Chen of the Manila Symphony Orchestra will lead Aperio’s ensemble, which will be joined by clarinetist Ernesto Vega, Venezuelan violinist Eddy Marcano and tango pianist Pablo Estigarribia. As with all shows at Miller, the program is free, and you can reserve tickets here starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 7, or you can take a seat on the no-ticket-required Hill.

Experience the summer of 1969 and the days leading up to the moon landing through the eyes of a Houston fourth grader named Stan in Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood, an animated coming-of-age film that will screen on the lawn outside The Menil Collection’s main building on Saturday, June 8, at 8:30 p.m. The film, co-presented with Friends of River Oaks Theatre, is “a lively and charming stroll down memory lane,” one loosely based on Linklater’s own childhood with a “meticulous sense of detail” and “tolerant, easygoing spirit.” The event is free, and before the film at 8:30 p.m., you can enjoy music by DJ Vincent Priceless at 7:30 p.m. and remarks by the film’s co-producer, Craig Staggs, at 8:15 p.m. (and don’t forget to bring a picnic blanket).