Best Bets: Bastille Day, Shōgun and The Wizard of Oz

It’s been quite the week, huh?
Post-Beryl, we hope everyone is safe and well, and we wish you all working electricity
and Wi-Fi, air conditioning and refrigeration, and (hopefully) a well-deserved break
from recovery efforts. If you were lucky enough to come through unscathed, or
just need a place to go with working AC, we’ve put together a list of this
coming week’s best bets. Keep reading for musicals, classical music, a
non-American holiday celebration and more.

One of the most beloved animated Disney
films-turned-musical will open tonight, July 11, at 7:30 p.m. when Broadway at the Hobby Center presents The Lion King.
Peter Hargrave, who’s playing the
villainous Scar in the national tour, recently told the Houston Press that The Lion King is “one
of those incredible stories that means something different to you in your
childhood than it does as an adult,” adding that though “the
adversity” in the show can be scare for kids, he thinks “that
what children experience most of all is the potential of what a life can
become.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays,
8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays through
August 4. Tickets are available here for $35
to $140.

The
Wizard of Oz is an American classic, and many have tried to explain why, including
Salman Rushdie, who noted that the
1939 MGM film “is
that great rarity, a film that improves on the good book from which it came.”
On Friday, July 12, at 7:30 p.m. you can see a reimagining of L. Frank Baum’s “optimistic
American fable about one group of friends’ path toward happiness” when Queensbury Theatre opens their
main stage production of The Wizard of Oz.
And of course, it will include the music you love from the MGM film.
Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2 p.m. and 7:30
p.m. Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays through July 28. Tickets can be purchased here for $30 to $65.

We are officially 112 days from
Halloween, so there’s no better time to celebrate all things horror, which you
can do on Friday, July 12, from 8 p.m. to midnight when Insomnia Gallery presents their
annual Summer
Slashers – Horror Art Show + Night Market at Hardy & Nance Studios. The art
show will showcase the works of local artists, all putting their unique spins
on different scary movies and TV shows, while the horror-themed night market
will feature vendors that specialize in spooky. Of course, you can also expect complimentary
drinks from City Orchard, Equal Parts Brewing, Bad Astronaut Brewing Co. and Eureka Heights Brewery as well as
food from Boom Box Tacos. The show is
free and there’s no ticket required for entry.

In 1938, Aaron Copland halted his work
on Billy the Kid to compose a piece
of music for a high school orchestra, and the result, An Outdoor Overture, will open the program of the first of four Summer
Symphony Nights over the next two weekends at Miller Outdoor Theatre on
Friday, July 12, at 8:30 p.m. when the Houston
Symphony returns to Miller to present American
Masterworks. Guest conductor Kellen
Gray will lead the Symphony in the all-American program which, in addition
to Copland, will also include George Gershwin’s
Catfish Row, a concert suite from Porgy and Bess, and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3 in C
minor. Tickets for the free show can be reserved here starting
today, July 11, at 10 a.m., though you can always sit on the no-ticket-required
Hill
instead.

click to enlarge

Ian Lewis and Danny Hayes in Main Street Theater’s production of The Woman in Black.

Photo by Andrew Ruthven

There’s nothing better than a ghost
story in the summer, and Main Street
Theater has one for you: The Woman in Black,
opening on Saturday, July 13, at 7:30 p.m. The play, adapted by Stephen
Mallatratt from a novel by Susan Hill, is about a man named Arthur Kipps, who’s
sure his family is cursed. Danny Hayes, who plays the actor Mr. Kipps hires to
help tell his story, told the Houston Press the play is “really
unsettling,” but that it is “not
just scary for scary’s sake or trying to be scary with silly jump scares,” noting
that the characters “are
very human” and the play is “so
well crafted.” Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through
Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. through August 11. Tickets are available here for $39 to $59.

For the second of four Summer
Symphony Nights at Miller
Outdoor Theatre, the Houston
Symphony, under the baton of conductor Gonzalo Farias, will turn to a
double bill of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on Saturday, July 13, at 8:30 p.m.
during Tchaikovsky’s
Symphony No. 5. William
Grant Still’s “Summerland” and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major,
Opus 35 (featuring violinist Blake Pouliot)
will set the stage for the concert’s finale: Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony
which, though “not explicitly
nationalistic,” has “a distinctively
Russian flavor” and “stands
as one of [the composer’s] most loved large-scale creations.” You can
reserve free tickets in the covered seating area here beginning on
Friday, July 12, at 10 a.m. or you can plan to sit on the no-ticket-required Hill.

Shōgun, “FX’s
most watched
show ever (based on global hours streamed),” is “one
of the year’s most outstanding shows” and has been described as “rollicking,
violent, transcendently silly, often incisive, and most importantly, totally
legible.” We’ll know within a week whether or not the show, based on a
novel by James Clavell, will nab an Emmy nod for Best Drama Series (an award it
could easily win), but on Sunday, July 14, at 2 p.m. the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will welcome
local filmmaker Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, who directed the eighth episode of the
series, during Shōgun: A Director’s Perspective. Osei-Kuffour
will introduce the episode, titled “The Abyss of Life,” which will be screened
and then followed by a Q&A. Admission is free and you can get your ticket here.

The 14th of July is Bastille Day, a public
holiday in France that commemorates the day Parisians stormed the Bastille – a
prison that at one time held Voltaire (as well as the Marquis de Sade) – and
kicked off the French Revolution. You can find a little “liberté, egalité, fraternité”
right here in the Bayou City on Sunday, July 14, at 5 p.m. when the Consulate General of France
in Houston hosts Celebrate
Bastille Day at Rice University Stadium.
Francophiles can enjoy a showcase of sports (remember, the Olympics are in Paris this year),
music, space and cuisine during the festivities. We’ll also go out on a limb
and bet you’ll hear at least one rendition of “La Marseillaise.” Admission is
free, but registration here
is mandatory.