Here it is the day after Kathy Ng’s World Premiere of Beautiful Princess Disorder at Catastrophic Theatre and the vertigo from the mood swings is still hanging around. Beautiful PrincessDisorder might not be in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but maybe it should be. Or maybe you will just know it when you see it after this will-never-get-out-of-your-head production.
First of all, get used to “heaven” having the required fluffy and puffy cloud coverage, but also a 1971 dilapidated once super deluxe station wagon sitting in the parking lot where entrants to heaven await being processed. “God is procrastinating His judgment.”
And who is waiting in this parking lot? Triangle Person (A mind-blowingly funny but also serious as a heart attack actress T Lavois Thiebaud), Mother Theresa (Amy Bruce, proving that only the best actresses can pull off showing the Most Famous Nun in the World at her worst), and infamous killer whale Tilikum, also known as Tilly (a vivacious Kyle Sturdivant, who is so meow-meow funny one minute, and then the next is answering interrogation questions to get into heaven that will punch you in the gut). This is quite the trio of actors, and they make the avante-garde-ing that Catastrophic is known for look easy—but of course it’s not, and that kind of risky business never is.
Triangle Person DEMANDS that she is a beautiful princess, and Disney is one of her many homes. But she’s not in Disney Land, she is in the Heaven Can Wait Parking lot, breaking the 4th Wall with a sledgehammer, demanding the audience coach her as a competitive swimmer for external success and saccharine photos of a fabulous elite-swimmer-coach relationship. It’s the kind of pie-in-the-sky delusion on demand that Triangle Person welcome us to, literally: “Welcome to the Sky.” And what is the sky? No borders, and one anticlimax after another. This surreal psychological and physical landscape is bonkers: a killer whale has a better chance than Mother Theresa of getting into heaven! But is that really so different than anything else in the world? Hmmm.
Did I mention that Triangle Person has a big yellow triangle for a head while in a “no-nonsense” swimsuit ready for intense competition and external validation sown through obsessive hard work to model after the loved/hated freak of nature Michael Phelps? You might be thinking the yellow triangle is an ironic yield sign for the Beautiful Princess Disorder in which there is no filter and no yielding, because that would get in the way of some serious Bi-Polar or Borderline Personality Disorderly conduct. Or you might just think “Constant Triangulation to up the drama quotient, as in on stage, right now?” Don’t stress too much about it—you are going to try to allegorize, but better just to float on the water of the show and hope that you are not in a pool near Tilly.
Expertly directed by Founding Artistic Director Jason Nodler, this production had extensive consultations and deep revisions with the playwright, Kathy Ng, who was present for an illuminating talk-back after Sunday’s performance. In the play, Ng appears in a filmed backdrop of her discussing herself in a way that illuminates the autobiographical elements in the play.
Maybe this is Theatre of the Absurd, but who cares what you call it? The world is a little too much with us, reality showing through too much for the dodge of that label. Mother Theresa is a hot mess of insecurity and not-enough-ness paired with cruelty and a big empathy deficit. You might think she was the best nun in the world, but Christopher Hitchens’ book expose of her, The Missionary Position, is tossed around and there’s no unringing that bell. Your formerly favorite nun is a sketchy fraud who says she is pro-life, but she won’t even entertain Triangle Person’s pleas for her to care about all the “Thought Babies” that are killed. If a nun won’t care about your aborted dreams, who will?
In Ng’s liminal waiting room, God is right next door to heaven, but he never visits. He wants people to do Netflix specials that are more to his liking. But what has replaced God in this play? Well, the internet and podcasts—they provide the answers to everything, right? One of the best scenes is when Triangle Person tries to reach the pinnacle of her head mentioning all sorts of triangles of improvement that we have shoved into our own triangle heads, like that ridiculous food pyramid and even Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which is such a struggle, impossible really, to reach.
Amy Bruce as Mother Teresa and Kyle Sturdivant as Tilikum Credit: Anthony Rathbun
Matt Fries’ set design, the spot-on costumes by Macy Lyne, the pendulum of soft and harsh lighting by Roma Flowers, and the music, video and sound design by James Templeton all dovetail to create a theatrical experience that keeps you engaged and in a state of constant interpretive schizophrenia, but in a good way.
Triangle Person is a Beautiful Princess but has “never been treated like one.” Maybe she is a petulant brat, maybe she has one of the types of bipolar disorder, or maybe it is a just a big case of “Welcome to the Sky,” where there are no borders, but plenty of room for borderline personality disorder. But who doesn’t have THAT in this play, where a killer whale is shamed for killing, even though he “loves” his victims? They just trigger major splitting as they fail to give the external validation that keeps the performing animal doing their bidding. You wouldn’t think that Sturdivant’s interrogation answers in a full Orca costume would move you so much, but they do. Plus, the bonus that this play probably dramatizes BPD better than any college course or podcast ever will.
Trigger warnings: there is lots of sexual innuendo, hilarious physical demands on the actors, obsessions with sushi and Californication, compulsory blasphemy, accusations against the audience by Triangle Person that make you feel like maybe you are guilty. But mainly the trigger warning is for the revelation that it is a Never Enough World—two medical miracles won’t get you into heaven, you need to look down and eat dirt all the time, you have to swim and swim and swim and never stop unless you think you are about to have a heart attack. You might not know that from the internet and all.
It’s The Catastrophic Theatre being The Catastrophic Theatre, just like a killer whale has to be a killer whale. You know: that animal we take our kids to see in case they might want to be a marine biologist.
Beautiful Princess Disorder continues through December 13 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at the Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH), 3400 Main. Special Monday Night performance on December 1 at 7:30pm. This production is recommended for audiences 12 and older, but this reviewer recommends older. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit matchouston.org. Pay What You Can.
There are two distinct locales for this critique: the Regency manse at Pemberley (Georgiana and Kitty, Christmas at Pemberley at Main Street) and C.S. Lewis’ mystical realm of Narnia (Narnia, the Musical, at A.D. Players). Both places are required viewing during the holiday season; G and K for the adults, Narnia for the kiddies (although adults might learn a thing or two, also).
Georgiana and Kitty, Christmas at Pemberley
Lauren Gunderson remains the most produced playwright in the U.S., so says the statistical bible of theater production, American Theatre magazine. Who, I hear you asking? This young prolific writer has penned a raft of plays that have struck a chord with audiences: The Revolutionists, Silent Sky, The Half-Life of Marie Curie, The Book of Will, I and You, among others. She focuses on women in historical contexts, to honor their courage, grit, and determination to match men in whatever field they espouse. She gives these under-appreciated women their due, deservedly so.
She hit gold with her social satire trilogy, Christmas at Pemberley, a witty, Wildean triple bill that asks the question, What happened to everybody after Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Where are they now? The Janeites turned out in droves to re-connect with the five Bennet sisters and learn their fate, and, during the holiday season, one of her triad is playing somewhere in America. Be it Miss Bennet, The Wickhams, or Georgiana and Kitty.
Clever, intelligent Elizabeth and her cat-and-mouse maneuverings with Fitzwilliam Darcy was so thoroughly covered in P&P that I assume Gunderson and co-writer Margot Melcon decided that these two had enough print time, so they sought to mine the other four daughters. Bookworm Mary, an observer with sharp tongue and bon mots, takes center stage in Miss Bennet; wayward and flighty Lydia, the youngest, is the protagonist of The Wickhams; and Kitty is somewhat the focus of Georgiana and Kitty. Somewhat, because Darcy’s sister Georgiana is soloed almost exclusively. Poor Kitty is a plus-one. And dear, sweet Jane, the eldest, is relegated through the triptyph as almost non-existent, sitting on the divan either pregnant and doing needlepoint or as a new mother on the divan doing needlepoint. Yemi Otulana is a striking presence on stage, but Jane is so underwritten and underused you wonder why Gunderson and Melcon even included her.
So the play falls to Georgiana and actor Lindsey Ehrhardt, who has a field day in the role. She is headstrong, at odds with her stuffy brother, and a prodigy at the piano. She composes on the side, but under an assumed male name. This ruse will be the fulcrum around which the second act – and her love story – revolves. Ehrhardt never disappoints, whether playing the haughty and pompous Anne de Bough in Miss Bennet or the liberated, outspoken Georgiana. If she keeps her light under a bushel, it isn’t for long. She blazes.
Robby Matlock (so memorable in Stages’ The Lehman Trilogy as youngest brother Mayer, the “potato”) plays Henry Grey, in love with Georgiana from afar ever since he met her at one of her concerts. Prejudiced Darcy neither approves of this match nor her playing in public. Matlock knows just what he’s doing with his awkward poses and obsequious bows, but we know the flame for Georgiana will not be extinguished. No matter the obstacles – and there are many to be thrown in his path – he will win her, he thinks, even after years of not seeing her. It’s a detailed performance, right in every way.
Clara Marsh, as Kitty, has to battle with a few plot predicaments that don’t ring true, but she rides over them with a bubbly and true personality. Ian Lewis, who has lost his rich Irish accent since last he played Thomas O’Brien in 2023, still possesses devilish charm in spades. As boisterous Lydia who refuses to be bored at Pemberley, Helen Rios needs a net thrown over her to keep her down. Way over the top. Always the diplomat, Laura Kaldis, as Elizabeth Bennet, is all poise and soothing sister to her siblings, charming and attractive as the robin’s egg blue of Pemberley’s wallpaper. Tsk-ing in the background or making peace between her adored husband and his once-adored sister, she and Darcy (a proud and ramrod Spencer Plachy) don’t have much to do in this play except run interference for the others, but Darcy’s heartfelt apology to Georgiana at play’s end is the moral of the tale and is rendered with conviction and sincerity. Bravo, Plachy.
Dare I say, many complications arise for the indefatigable and irrepressible Bennet sisters, yet the comic play keeps all the balls in the air with immense grace and charm. It has a lovely way of blending the ancient regime with our new one. Clever and witty, the repartee is Austen-like, skewing toward the distaff at Darcy’s expense. There’s a satisfactory twist at the end which is neat, a proposal long overdue, family arguments to get settled with sisterly wiles, recitals at the pianoforte, and Donna Southern Smith’s radiant costumes to keep you enthralled. There are tail coats to be whisked up before sitting for the men, and multiple empire gowns for the ladies of the manse with detailed embroidery or diaphanous overlays.
It’s quite the picture at Main Street’s Pemberley. Immerse yourself in another world that often looks surprisingly like our own.
Georgiana and Kitty, Christmas at Pemberley continues through December 21 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 3 p.m. Sundays at Main Street Theater, 2540 Times Boulevard. For more information, call 713-524-6706 or visit mainstreettheater.com. $15-$64.
Everett Baugarten and Amber Ward in Narnia, the Musical Credit: Pin Lim
Narnia, the Musical
Not to be confused with Narnia, the Ballet, or Narnia, the Interpretive Dance, or Narnia, The Symphonic Poem, Narnia, the Musical (off-Broadway, 1993) is exactly what it says it is. The show is built for kids, and for the most part they should eat it up. Of course, I doubt they will understand the religious parable that C.S. Lewis weaves through his hit books that chronicle the adventures of the four Pevensie children (Lucy, Susan, Peter and Edmund) sent into the English countryside to escape the German blitz on London during the early days of WW II.
Inside the immense wardrobe in the Professor’s gothic country house, the children enter a magic portal that transports them into the fantasy world of Narnia, where talking fauns carry umbrellas (he talks in this show, but no umbrella), unicorns run free, cantankerous married beavers bicker, and there is now perpetual snow and ice. There’s winter, but no Christmas, say the enchanted inhabitants. The tyrannical White Witch rules the kingdom., but the actual king is Aslan, the mighty and fierce Lion, who is the actual ruler. His return is dreaded by the Witch and by the prophecy of her power being defeated by “two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve.” Hence, any humans in her kingdom are immediately killed or seduced into her service, as is Edmund by Turkish Delight and the promise to be made king.
In an abbreviated adaptation by Jules Tasca of Lewis’ classic tale The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,the musical skips over motivation and character development to give us archetypes and easy-to-decipher plot points. The music, by prolific composer Thomas Tierney, is a bit Sondheim-light with jagged melodies that cry for that master’s orchestrator, Jonathan Tunick. Ted Drachman’s lyrics are fine and serviceable, but the music, prerecorded, sounds thin and undistinguished via synthesizer. That’s too bad, because a few of the numbers are quite memorable: “Doors and Windows;” “Narnia (You Can’t Imagine), sung hymn-like by Saroa-Dwayne Sasa as Mr. Tumnus, the faun; a jazzy “Hot and Bothered,” sung by the White Witch (a deliciously evil Amber Ward with the belt of Merman); Aslan’s gorgeous ballad to a repentant Edmund, “From the Inside Out,” or his anthem “To Make the World Right Again,” both rendered in the sonorous tenor of Daniel Z. Miller. There’s gold in this score, it’s just insufficiently mined.
Watch and listen to Mark Quach and Leah Bernal as Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. You can’t miss ‘em. They delightfully chew up the scenery and sing up a storm. What a pair of English music hall vaudevillians.
I must say, the child actors are very good indeed. And they can sing. Jonah Mendoza’s Peter can really sing, loud and crisp, and effective. It was a pleasure hearing him. Everett Baumgarten’s falsetto relayed Edmund’s petulance and vanity; Paige Klase’s Susan was no-nonsense in her anti-war stance; and little Annalise Wisdom, as young Lucy, displayed great chops in the lovely “A Field of Flowers,” an ode to Aslan.
The pacing by director Ashlee Wasmund is lackluster with awkward pauses or entrances and exits abnormally drawn out. Even the turntable turns too slowly. Pick up the pace, please, or else the kids will be falling asleep after the opening number.
The biggest disappointment is Afsaneh Aayani’s puppet for Aslan. Her prior work in Houston theater has always been amazing, clever, often verging on the astonishing. But here, big ol’ lug Aslan is a bore. Moved by three puppeteers, among them Miller as his voice, head, and front leg, Aslan has no grace, charm, or much imagination. His mouth doesn’t even move. Really, we’ve seen The Lion King and The Life of Pi. We know how incredibly believable life-size puppets can be, even when manipulated by onstage hands. But this Aslan needs an overhaul.
The Sunday matinee performance was sold-out, so the story of Narnia still sells. An international best-seller for decades, always listed as one of the great reads for children (and some adults, too), Lewis’ magic carpet ride speaks to children of all ages. A.D. Player’s production, abetted by Tatiana Vintu’s fanciful sets, Kristina Miller-Ortiz’ whimsical costumes, David Palmer’s lighting, those talented kids, the grand ol’ troupers enlivening the Beavers, and Joel Sandel’s crusty ol’ Father Christmas and a wry, all-knowing Professor, keep this story of faith, hope, and community alive for another generation. It just needs more magic.
Narnia, the Musical continues through December 23 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at A.D. Players at The George, 5420 Westheimer. For more information, call 713-526-2721 or visit adplayers.org. $10-$85.
If you can disregard the paint-by-numbers plotting of Ekundayo Bandele’s Take the Soul Train to Christmas, now playing at Ensemble Theatre, you can sit back and relax while the song and dance numbers play like sugarplums in your head. There is mighty fine talent on display, especially from the young thespians who are a delight, although their faux bickering gets a bit annoying as the show progresses. But they can also stop the show like the pros-in-training they are.
Kyra Bob (Ida), Imani Belle Giles (Rosa), and Raimi Alford (Ned) are school chums writing an essay on how Blacks have celebrated Christmas through the years. They awaken Ida’s grandpa (a sprightly Kevin Davis, Jr.) and before you can say magic pixie dust, he summons up the Soul Train to whisk them back into history. He was a proud Pullman Porter in his day. So off they go, bickering all the time, especially Ned and Rosa, the bossy one. The train is conjured by the diverse seven-member ensemble who chug and choochoo to Aisha Ussery’s perfunctory choreography, but they sing like angels.
There’s also a slinky Narrator (Ramaj Jamar) in high hat, aubergine coat, and canary yellow shirt and trousers, twirling a cane like a drum major, who sets the scenes for us. He appears throughout as spectator or commentator, changing his top hat for an Igbo cap in the ‘80s. Jamar has a devious charm, sort of a stepchild of Cabaret’s master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Club. He weaves his way into the narrative as he sings and struts, insinuating himself into the proceedings.
First stop is an antebellum plantation during the 1800s accompanied by drumbeats and the Nativity tale, “The Drinking Gourd.” Swoosh, off to Harlem during the ‘20s Renaissance where Billie Holiday sings “I Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” sung with aplomb and velvety charm by Brytanni Davis. At the end everyone breaks into a jive dance, one of Ussery’s best numbers, if fleeting.
Except for Holiday’s classic, the songs are original, and credited to a “Don Wright,” which turns out to be the name of the musical production company of Ussery and Soul Train’s music director Melvin Johnson. I assume the duo composed the songs. The numbers are not listed in the playbill, which is a grave slight on Ensemble’s part, considering this is a musical. Not to list the songs and the singers who sing them is disrespectful. So here they are: Hindolo Bongey, Ryhan Brown, Brytanni Davis, Jarius Jones, Melody King, Fortune Onwunali and Brianna Wyatt.
Eras are ticked off like an old movie’s calendar pages: the ‘60s are mired in Civil Rights protest with “We Shall Overcome,” with power to spare by Jones and Wyatt; the ‘80s boast big Afros, dashikis, and the nascent Black Pride Movement with a cute contest for biggest hair. The ‘90s are rap-fused with a slam contest between Ida and her girls, and Ned and Rosa with their posse. Along the way, little Alford blows the roof off the Ensemble with a plaintive blues number, “Someday at Christmas.” He croons like a soul singer from yesteryear, ending in heavenly falsetto, and received the loudest applause all night. He deserved it. Young Kyra Bob is a natural scene-stealer with a mega-watt smile and dance talent for days. I hope she uses her talent well, for she’s going to be a star. Mark my words.
Well, that’s the kids’ trip down memory lane. Christmas seems shoehorned into this pageant that doesn’t have enough singing and dancing. It feels under-baked with so many avenues of history left undiscovered.
But there’s always Grandpa’s truckin’ and the kids’ prodigious talent on display to keep your interest. This musical is a pleasing stocking stuffer, just not enough of a grand present to unwrap under the tree.
Take the Soul Train to Christmas continues through December 21 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays at Ensemble Theatre, 3535 Main. For more information, call 713-520-0055 or visit ensemblehouston.org. $45-$65.
Chris Hutchison as Marley’s Ghost in A Christmas Carol Credit: Melissa Taylor
A Christmas Carol
The Alley Theatre needn’t rely on auto-pilot – its actors are too good for that – but muscle memory is definitely required for A Christmas Carol.
In Artistic Director Rob Melrose’s production from 2022, the choreography is as important as Dickens’ goose gravy-rich prose. Characters enter, say a line, then are replaced by another character carrying on the dialogue. Everybody keeps moving. It’s an immensely fluid staging and permits Dickens’ timeless tale to sled along as if played on snowy Cornhill.
This adaptation is one of the most faithful to Dickens. Dialogue is taken verbatim from the 1843 novella, so we are treated to some of the most fragrant prose in the English language. It’s a delight to hear, but the young ones might be a bit perplexed with such ripe descriptions and old-age adjectives. But the story is clear-cut, the characters well-defined, and the cast is superb in delineating each Victorian portrait.
Obviously, there are still theater goers new to Carol’s wonders, for there were audible gasps when complications arose that most of us know by heart. No matter, Dickens’ little ghost story never grows stale, and Melrose’s production breathes refreshing life into it. The tale almost feels new.
This year’s cast is nearly the same as last year’s, but the Alley pros always manage to find something new in their interpretation, some little expression or piece of business that keeps everything crisp. David Rainey reprises his patented Ebenezer Scrooge and delights as the covetous old sinner morphs into the very spirit of Christmas after the visitations of the three Ghosts: Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Blustery and mean in his counting house, when his reclamation arrives Scrooge does a jaunty little jig as he learns his dire fate isn’t set in stone. He can “expunge the writing.” I can hear the little ones, “Mommy, what does expunge mean?” But they get it through osmosis. And Rainey shows them the way.
All the familiar Alley resident actors fill out the cast in subsidiary roles: Elizabeth Bunch as Christmas Past, all light and white; Dylan Godwin as good and pure Bob Cratchit; Michele Elaine as flirtatious Cornelia; Chris Hutchison as a very scary Marley, whose proclamations echo ominously; Melissa Molano as an underwritten Belle; Christopher Salazar as nephew Fred, among a host of others like Adam Gibbs, Julia Khron, Luis Quintero, unrecognized as the looming Ghost of Christmas Future; Brandon Hearnsberger, Jeremy Gee, and many more. Former resident company member, now retired, Todd Waite is boisterous Fuzziwig, without his Scottish burr from last year.
But the scene-stealer deluxe is Shawn Hamilton as the rousing Ghost of Christmas Present. His laughing entrance, rising from under Scrooge’s bed, in front of a stained glass window, was greeted by rousing applause. He earns it. What a stunning portrait in his sweeping green gown and bedecked with dreadlocks. He plays with this juicy role like a sly cat pursuing a mouse. He plays with us, too. Slowly he wraps his fingers around his magic staff to bestow Christmas cheer to the dispossessed and sad. When he presents “Want” and “Ignorance” from under his voluminous robe, he booms his denunciations. We lean back into our seats. This sly puss is not messing around. Take heed.
The Alley’s new version of A Christmas Carol is perfect holiday entertainment. Glossy in production and execution with Michael Locher’s wood and brick warehouse look, Raquel Barreto’s detailed Victoriana, Cat Tate Starmer’s Hallmark card lighting, Cliff Caruthers’ sonic sound design, some Christmas carols, some dancing, and Shawn Hamilton in diva Rasta mode (where has he been?), who could ask for a better present? Unwrap this now!
A Christmas Carol continues through December 28 at various times and dates with matinees and evening performances at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Avenue. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $36 – $138.
It’s not unprecedented to have dark moments in a bio-musical.
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical documents the singer’s ongoing physical abuse at the hands of her husband, Ike. On Your Feet: The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan details the horrific tour bus crash that nearly left Gloria paralyzed for life. MJ The Musical dealt with the child abuse claims leveled at the superstar…oh wait…never mind. The Jackson estate forbade any mention.
Point is, just because there’s famous songs to sing along to and musical actors who serve as a kind of tribute act doesn’t mean that hard stuff can’t be addressed in these shows.
But man, does Neil Diamond take it to another level. A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical (book by Anthony McCarten, music and lyrics by Neil Diamond, who also collaborated on the show) forgoes one difficult stage of evolution and instead plasters the entire show with angst.
Not that it’s a bad thing. At least not if you’re being open-eyed and honest about Diamond’s demons and what was being communicated in many of the songs you and your boomer parents/grandparents adored. But it sure makes for a bumpy ride in a musical that whiplashes us from impressively bang-on musical numbers to the hurt, fear, loneliness and self-sabotage that’s baked into Diamond’s hits.
The framing of the show takes place in a psychiatrist’s office. An elderly Neil (Robert Westenberg) seeks the help of a therapist (Lisa Reneé Pitts) at the urging of his third wife and children. He’s become “hard to live with” and, not wanting to lose another family and marriage, Diamond is trying something different this time. Namely, looking inward instead of galloping forward.
Not that it’s going well. Neil doesn’t want to talk about any of it. Everything you need to know about me is in my songs, he quips. So peels the onion of the musical. By exploring the lyrics of his songs (fully sung throughout the musical, of course), he and the doc discuss the timeline of his life and the “clouds” that hovered over him the entire time.
The singing of those songs falls upon the younger Neil (Nick Fradiani), who plays Diamond from his early days writing hit songs for the Monkees and others, right up until he was bigger than Elvis, commanding never-ending worldwide tours.
From a costume/wig standpoint (Designed by Emilio Sosa and Luc Verschueren), this means going from slicked-back Elvis coif and black clothes to flowing, feathered locks and more sequins than a Vegas showgirl could boast.
For anyone wanting to get their Diamond on and feel like they’re seeing the real thing, you couldn’t ask for a better performer. I’ll admit that I’m old enough to have seen the man live (to be clear, I was very young at the time and I’m sticking to that story) and Fradiani is spookily similar.
“Gravel wrapped in a velvet voice” is how Diamond’s voice is aptly described in the show and Fradiani has that cadence and effect down pat. Close your eyes at moments and I dare you to believe it isn’t him.
What people may not expect or even appreciate is the Neil Diamond Fradiani is tasked with playing when not singing. A gloomy man full of insecurity and self-doubt. Never present or available to his first two wives (played by Tiffany Tatreau and Hannah Jewel Kohn). Unlikable and charisma-less. A cheater, a bad father, a man chasing fame to finally feel a sense of belonging. It’s messy, honest, and simply not nice.
Not exactly the man every person in the house is DYING to sing Sweet Caroline with.
But then whiplash sets in when Diamond explains how he came to write the song out of desperation and fear with a thankful spark of inspiration. Seconds later, though, any heaviness is forgotten as the entirety of the Hobby Center is invited to scream out So Good…So Good….. So Good….in a song that comedian Trevor Noah has astutely called “pure, uncut Caucasian joy.”
As elderly Diamond and his therapist wind down their session, and his songbook (we’re gifted with almost 40 songs in this show, and yes, all the hits are there), the pair circle around the musical’s supposed epiphany. What has Neil learned from mining his songs and his life stories? Does he know what he’s running from or running to?
Like most therapy sessions, they’re really only interesting to the person mining their own issues. So, it’s more than a letdown when, after almost two and a half hours of fly-on-the-wall sessions, we don’t get a concrete answer as to why Diamond is the way he is.
Instead, we get shades of anxious Jewish parents, maybe a kid that should have been medicated from the get-go, or perhaps just an artist that thrives on woe is me to excuse bad behavior—probably all the above and then some.
This non-epiphany is a bit of a wet blanket. Kinda like Neil himself is portrayed. But here’s that whiplash again. Would we muddle through the therapy sessions and an inconclusive ending to revel in superb Neil Diamond cosplay? To see spectacular performances of Cherry, Cherry, Cracklin’ Rose, I Am…I Said, and all the rest of that prolific songbook?
Hell yes. I’ve certainly been gleefully belting out Diamond’s songs since exiting the show. Now with a fuller understanding of the less joyful elements contained in them.
In a letter penned by Neil in the program, he states how open he’s been about his time in therapy, wrestling with his mental health. How he’s thankful that the stigma around seeking help has abated over the years.
Let’s hope audiences take away from the musical that good times never felt so good as when you do the work to get your head as healthy as the rest of you.
Performances are scheduled for November 4-9 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Thursday and 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter,org. $55-$265.
The story of Neil Diamond has been built into a musical telling how a boy from Brooklyn New York ended up writing and performing music that sold more than 120 million records worldwide.
For his fans, with a host of their favorite songs to choose from, the Houston arrival of the tour of A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical offers a chance to bask in “Sweet Caroline,” “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” (his memorable duet with Barbra Streisand) “I Am … I said,” Kentucky Woman,” “Solitary Man,” and more.
The setup is that an older Neil talks to his younger self and the songs come out along the way.
Besides the lead performers, the ensemble, re-christened The Noise in this musical, provides all the needed background harmonies as well as filling specific spots in the show as needed.
One of those “swings” is Jer who fills in when someone falls ill or goes on vacation. Jer, who is non-binary, is based in New York City and their previous experience includes swing duties for the Jesus Christ Superstar 50th Anniversary national tour.
“I cover all The Noise in our show,” they say, adding that usually covers the male-presenting tracks but also covers female roles as well if needed. In some cases, they say, they’ve been called upon at the last minute to fill in, but they’re helped in this by the camaraderie and support they get from other members of the show. And besides, they say, it’s kind of exciting to do.
Jer, a Hawaii native, says one of their best moments was getting to meet Diamond during a matinee performance in Los Angeles. “That’s an icon, superstar legend. I didn’t expect that we were actually going to meet him. He surprised the whole show. At the end of the show he sang ‘Sweet Caroline.’
“As much as I see the people getting really excited about our show, that seeing Neil Diamond, people immediately burst into tears. He’s done so much. He’s made people feel so good. People love him and adore him and his music has done so much for their lives. I think that’s a special thing. “
Diamond retired from touring in 2018 after a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease but collaborated on the making of this Broadway musical. “He chose to continue his legacy through a musical,” Jer says.
Audience members sing along all the time, Jer says, often saying they have their own favorite song.
“If you love theatrical magic, I think our show does that so beautifully. We label this as a small intimate play with music.”
Performances are scheduled for November 4-9 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Thursday and 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hobbby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter,org. $55-$265.
A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical has raised $750,000 for the Parkinson’s Foundation. For more information on how you can help, visit abeautifulnoisethemusical.com/partners
It’s an interesting notion to think that audiences who loved Dirt Dogs’ stellar production of Tracy Letts’ play, Bug, last season will similarly be smitten with the company’s production of The Minutes, Letts’ 2017 effort and most recently produced play.
After all, Bug examines the clinically catchy phenomenon of paranoia as the trodden-upon spiral towards insanity. The Minutes is a 90-minute fictional small town council meeting told in real time. To quote Chandler Bing, could they be any more different?
Yes and no.
Place and space, they sure sound dissimilar. But both get chewy with a core pillar of Letts’ work –namely, realism that turns into something else entirely. A bit abstract, a bit other-realmy, certainly absurd to pointed effect.
Where The Minutes ends up is a spoiler that will remain unnamed here, except to say it’s both political and personal. More specifically, it addresses how we conduct ourselves in politics and what kind of world we want to make for ourselves and others.
And it’s quite funny for most of its 90 minutes, right up until it unfortunately falls prey to preachy-ville.
The play begins as the newest member of Big Cherry’s city council, Mr. Peel (a wonderfully earnest Brock Huerter), returns to a meeting after a brief absence following his mother’s death. He’s eager to dig down into issues and effect positive change, much to the grumblings of most of his fellow council people.
Here Letts gives us a wonderful cast of oddball characters with crackling dialogue. Each one marvelously portrayed by this talented cast.
Head of the council, Mayor Superba (Trevor B. Cone) likes to hear himself officiate. Secretary Ms. Johnson (Jenna Morris Miller) is agitated and withholding. Country Club good old boys Mr. Assalone (Bill Giffen) and Mr. Breeding (John Raley) may not be smart but they’re used to being heeded. Decades-long member Ms. Innes (Melissa J. Marek) speaks endlessly but will not listen and Mr. Oldfield (Ron Jones) can barely follow the plot to great hilarity. Mr. Hanratty (Jimmy Vollman) shows compassion, selfish as it may be. Mr. Blake (Todd Thigpen) drinks for most of the meeting. Ms. Matz (Malinda L. Beckham) drinks too and pops pills, leaving her a spacey, foggy, pliable mess.
If you’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through one of these gatherings (Letts watched hours and hours of council meeting archives), you’ll recognize the archetypes instantly and have a great many laughs at their expense.
All seems to be moving along fine for the Big Cherry elected officials – if you count endless discussion about parking spaces, unclaimed bicycles, accessible park fountains and the city’s heritage fair as political progress.
But throughout the proceedings, Mr. Peel simply can’t drop his concern about the absent minutes. Or his questions about what befell Mr. Carp. Try as Peel might to question both issues, no one on the council is talking. His suspicion grows as does the tension between the group. And yes, it does all blow up into something much bigger and surreal.
Kudos to director Curtis Barber for facilitating a smooth transition between the play’s two genres and gifting us with some genuinely hilarious scenes. If nothing else, everyone should see this show to witness a reenactment of the town’s hero battle mythology. Not since Monty Python’s coconut-banging horse hooves have we seen such a silly-good cavalry effect.
Problem is, neither the solid direction nor superlative acting can help the play from buying into its own importance in the end. Not that what Letts is saying about privilege, erasure, power and willful blindness is wrong. His message is more righteous and vital now than ever. But it lectures instead of lightly leading. Scolds instead of showing. Whiplashes instead of wading.
We may walk out agreeing with the point, but the power of it is like a battery left uncharged.
The Minutes did get notable acclaim, Pulitzer and Tony nominations no less. But even Letts himself knew that it just didn’t have the success or adoration of his other works. “I wrote a play about fascism and nobody came,” Letts has said.
But Dirt Dogs’ production gives us a reason to go. This is a company working its way through the playwright’s works and they do it superbly. So go, punch your Letts card and see a cast and director working at the top of their form. We promise it’s way better than any live council meeting you could ever see.
The Minutes continues through November 8 at MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, visit dirtdogstheater.org. $35
The snarky, wonderful The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee began as an improv sketch conceived by Rebecca Feldman, then as a play written by her called C-R-E-S-P-U-S-C-U-L-E, then as a musical when composer and lyricist William Finn (Falsettos, A New Brain, Little Miss Sunshine) was added to the zany troupe. Along the way, young choreographer and Broadway gypsy Dan Knechtges was added to the mix, and the show, after workshops at the Barrington Stage Company, Massachusetts, opened off-Broadway in 2005. A cult hit, it quickly transferred to Broadway that same year where the show ran for three years, winning two Tony Awards: Best Book (Rachel Sheinkin) and Best Supporting Actor (Dan Fogler as “magic foot” William Barfeé.).
The musical is small, perhaps too intimate for the mighty Hobby Center, but the charismatic performances, the detailed school set by Beowulf Boritt, and the inspired direction and movement by Knechtges enlarges this little tale. We love these misfits who can toss off words like capybara, cystitis, and tittup while suffering from dysfunctional families, the feeling that they are dumb, or an overachieving Marcy (Gemini Quintos) who speaks six languages. These little fellows just want love and acceptance for the nerds they are. Winning the spelling bee will be their validation. When they don’t win, they get a hug and a juice box from parolee Mitch (deep-dish JD Houston), who’s doing community service, and are quickly ushered off the stage.
The Bee is officiated by Putnam County’s lead realtor and former winner Rona Lisa Peretti (beautiful- voiced Julia Krohn), who is lusted over by assistant principal Douglas Panch (Tony-nominee Kevin Cahoon from Shucked), who has returned after a suspect “incident” at the Bee a few years ago. They pronounce the word, give the definition, and use it in a sentence. Like the one given to Logainne SchwwartzandGrubenierre, she of two dads (adorable Abigail Bensman) – “strabismus,” a squint caused by a defect in the eye muscles. She asks Panch to use the word in a sentence. He replies in perfect deadpan, “In the schoolyard Billy protested that he wasn’t cockeyed. ‘I suffer from strabismus,’ he said, whereupon the bullies beat him harder.”
Sheinkin’s book is so wondrously wicked and non-PC, the audience lapped it up.
Finn’s music is easy on the ear, Broadway-bound, and does its job with neat efficiency, even if the tunes are instantly forgettable. This isn’t Sondheim, Rodgers. or even Herman, but the jaunty songs mesh with the fun of watching adults play kids. And the “kids” are most memorable indeed, all Broadway babies who can sing their heads off and act up a storm.
Mark Ivy, as allergic, acerbic Barfeé, steals the spotlight like the pro he is. When he melts under Olive’s spell (a radiant Adell Ehrhorn), a collective sigh washes through the Hobby. It’s just what we want for him. Marco Camacho’s Leaf Coneybear, who goes into a trance when he spells, is innocence personified, and our hearts rush to him as he sings “I’m Not That Smart.” Yes, you are, we think, just under-appreciated. Michael Alonzo, as hormone possessed Chip, has a field day with “Chip’s Lament,” when an errant erection stymies his turn at the competition. The first to be eliminated, he ends up hawking candy in the aisle, hiding behind his tray. Adding to these follies, are the audience participants in the Bee, selected before the performance and then coached by the cast during the show. It’s great fun.
Everyone shines in this musical, thanks to Knechtges’ prowess and utter theater professionalism. This show is teen spirit on steroids with a grand wash of sweetness. There’s no social significance, no great message, just a fun time in the theater. Nothing wrong with that. Spell it “S-a-t-i-s-f-a-c-t-i-o-n.”
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee continues through November 2 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at Theatre Under The Stars at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-558-8887 or visit tuts.org. $46 -$195.
Don’t spoil the ending. Don’t spoil the twist. Don’t spoil the surprise. Don’t spoil the show.
This refrain drums through my critic’s brain with every review I write. After all, the point is to paint a thought-filled picture, not plunder the plot of all wonder.
Not a problem with Midnight High, the Western-themed immersive show written by Beau York, produced by The Octarine Accord, now playing at MATCH. It’s hard to spoil a show when you’re uncertain what it’s about. Or, for that matter, what it’s attempting to say or if there’s any relevance to be found.
But before you click off this review thinking, well, forget it then. Stick with me if you will.
What Midnight High lacks in comprehensive storytelling, it makes up for in stellar production. And when it comes to immersive shows, experience is king of the jungle. Or the king of the saloon in this case.
The MATCH black box theater is unrecognizable as we walk into the 1800s Oxhead Saloon. Set Designer Santiago Sepeda has worked magic outfitting the space as a dusty, moody, wooden-clad working bar (entry gets you whisky, beer, sarsaparilla or water). Two small anterooms flank the space, areas to explore. A second story is off limits, but brings great Western gravitas and expansiveness to the feel of the room.
Before entry, we’re given bandanas to wear either around our necks, should we wish to engage in conversation with the cast, or over our faces if we want to observe. Kudos to the team for making these take-home items – no one wants to think about wearing a germy piece of cloth that others have donned in this day and age.
On opening eve, most of us wanted to talk, so into the saloon, neck bandana-ed we waded.
Unlike many immersive shows, once inside, there isn’t much to explore outside of talking with the cast. Some papers and written materials can be found in the saloon. They’re worth reading, if only to give you something to ask the cast about.
And ask I did.
The show is billed as a Western mystery with a supernatural bent. Something is amiss in this town. Migrants have arrived and wreaked havoc. Unlike present political times, no one really wants to talk about it. So best to act as investigator and engage, I figured. Also, it’s not as though any character came over to talk to me all that much. This is a show you need to jump into to get something back. Wallflowers are certainly welcome, but I can’t imagine they have all that much fun.
And here’s where things got good. One of the joys of immersive theater is to watch actors work up close, improvise, pivot and deal with nosy parkers like me. And this was a cast splendidly adept at all the above.
Law-keepers, past and present, bar flies, guitar players, pelt-sellers, a skittish waif, a cool as a cucumber lady, a mysterious black-clad figure – Mandy Mershon’s evocative costumes shine on every one of them. I spoke to them all. Or more accurately, I grilled each character as I got more information as to why this town was in trouble. And they all handled it gorgeously.
There’s real talent in this cast. Some of the actors I know. Most are new to me. But all with compelling presence that made the inquisition entertaining. Even if it lasted too long.
With an approximate hour-long run time and nothing much to do but talk to the cast for most of it, I ultimately ran out of characters to engage and questions to ask.
Thankfully, the show eventually takes the reins back from us, switching from audience-guided discovery to scripted performance so we can sit back and watch, hoping that things will finally be explained/revealed.
Unfortunately, both the general plot and the climax of the show end up having as many holes as a saloon after a gun battle, sucking all the wind out of the ending.
It ends not with an aha! But rather a, huh?
Outside, I was approached by a couple that noticed I was asking lots of questions during the performance. Perhaps I understood the show better than they did? We spoke for a while. They were immersive fans, enjoyed the experience but were baffled as to what exactly happened or what it was about.
We traded theories. And frustrations. They want to go again and see if they glean more. That’s a win for the show. I hope they get something more next visit.
I wish I had understood more the first time. Immersive theater doesn’t have to be neatly tied up with a bow. There should be room for different experiences and interpretations. But we should walk away knowing what the point of it was and what the writer was trying to say, regardless of how we engaged with the show.
Instead, Midnight High felt as though it brushed up against both the Western and supernatural genres but did neither full justice. York probably has a whole backstory in his mind about what goes down – but it’s certainly not communicated to us in any satisfying way.
Still, I’d sit in that space with those actors and shoot the shit anytime. A world has been created here – no small thing – and that alone is something to celebrate.
Midnight High runs through October 25 at MATCH, 3400 Main.For more information, visit matchhouston.org or midnighthtx.com/tickets $65 including drinks.
For a spooky play that traffics in grave robbing, fog-enshrouded nights, serious anatomy lessons, and what ethical lengths a loving father – a famous surgeon in 1899 London – would go to save his beloved daughter from dying, The Body Snatcher, a world premiere from Katie Forgette (Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily, Alley 2023) needs more heart.
Like other doctors before him (Jekyll and Frankenstein come quickly to mind), Robert Noakes (a fiercely committed David Rainey) is ahead of his time as he plays God. He needs a fresh young heart to transplant into his daughter Elizabeth (dewy Alyssa Marek) to keep her from succumbing to his wife’s previous condition of “cardiac inefficiency.” She died young, too. As we’re in the Victorian age of the “resurrectionists,” that shouldn’t be much of a problem, just hire opportunistic Fettes (an unrecognizable Brandon Hearnsberger gleefully eating up the scenery) to snatch a body. What could go wrong?
Everything, really.
Awash in the Alley’s munificent production provided by Yu Shibagaki’s pungent set design replete with tomes, vials, anatomy charts; Pablo Santiago’s gang-bang lighting; a gothic sound design (beating hearts, frightened horse whinnies, thunder claps that would have lit up the heart of Hollywood’s master of horror, James Whale); and Asta Bennie Hostettter’s plummy Victorian costumes with their mutton sleeves, swishing muslin dresses, and mismatched plaids, none of this is enough to counter the sketchy rom-com romance between Noake’s daughter and Noake’s precocious assistant Dr. John Brook (Luis Quintero, sporting the most faux mutton chops that immediately stop any romantic notions from the start.) The quick romance never ignites.
And what are we to make of obsessed Dr. Noakes? This seemingly most ethical of physicians, a paragon of science, beloved by his students, will do anything to get that heart. His standards are lower than Fettes’. Where are his principles? Is this love for his daughter or love for the historic recognition he will garner from a successful operation? When he is willing to operate on his daughter while still alive, even in his misguided belief that he can save her, we tune out and lose our sympathy. He becomes his own Fettes.
Act II dips into melodrama as if in a Victorian romance, culminating with Noakes entering the operating theater and addressing his students, preparing to begin a dissection. A shrouded body lies on the table. A veiled female figure sits in the background. Which woman is where?
Although set ten years after the terror reign of Jack the Ripper in 1888, perhaps that thread could have be woven into Forgette’s drama. Talk about a body snatcher; there was a natural.
Nimbly directed by the Alley’s Associate Artistic Director Brandon Weinbrenner, this world premiere while fragrant with chills fails to fully deliver. Talky at the beginning with too much exposition, it never catches the fire it promises pictorially. The heart everybody references repeatedly fails to materialize. It beats on the soundtrack, but nowhere else.
A note to the author: You mention Puccini’s aria from Il Trittico, “O, mio babbino caro.” That opera premiered in 1918, two decades later than your play.
The Body Snatcher continues through October 26 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; and 7 p.m. Sundays at Alley Theatre’s Neuhaus Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $45-$74.
This week, as Alley Artistic Director Rob Melrose settles in his seat to watch a play at London’s West End, it won’t be just any production he’s seeing. It’ll be Born With Teeth first developed at Alley Theatre. And he’ll be seated with its playwright Liz Duffy Adams.
In fact, these are good — the Alley Theatre calls them historic — times for Houston’s premier regional theater. Four productions that began in Houston are now on major stages in New York and London. They are:
Torera at WP Theater (Off-Broadway) by Monet Hurst-Mendoza.
Gruesome Playground Injuries revival at Second Stage (Off-Broadway) by Rajiv Joseph.
The Emporium at Classic Stage Company (Off-Broadway) by Thornton Wilder adapted by Kirk Lynn.
Born with Teeth at Wyndham’s Theatre (West End) by Liz Duffy Adams.
As he told the Houston Press in June, Melrose credits the Alley’s success with new works not only to commissioning them and being open to them through the Alley All New Reading Series, but to the support work they do during and afterward.
“By the time we do a world premiere we’ve got a pretty deep relationship with the playwright, and we’ve been able to put it on other people’s radar way in advance,” Melrose said.
“We have partners in other artistic directors and agents and commercial producers and we’re constantly letting them know.”
“In the case with Born With Teeth we were in many ways agents for the show. We believed in it so much, we put it in Alley All New, we encouraged artistic directors to come see it,” he said. They also sent out videos.
“It’s a lot of advocacy. There’s kind of two big responsibilities when you do a new play. You’re really responsible for giving it the best production you possibly can and a production the playwright feels proud of. It should really fit with what playwright feels is best representation of their work.”
Even after the production is over, Melrose said they have meetings, make phone calls. “We kind of take responsibility for getting it its next step.” In the case of Emporium, Melrose will be directing its off-Broadway debut.
Besides being, as Melrose put it “the right thing to do,” this, in turn, of course helps the Alley. In the past seven years, Melrose said, the Alley has really ratcheted up its support of new plays.
“It’s a way of showing the world that the Alley is a leader in the American theater. When we do something, other folks follow. It also makes playwrights more excited about having their play done with us.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever had this much success outside of Houston, Melrose said. “This is the first time we’ve just done a play because we believed in it and it got picked up by the West End.”
Agamemnon, commander of the Greek forces that invaded Troy, survived the 10 years of the Trojan War, only to come home and be murdered by his wife and her lover.
An ironic death that begat a cycle of bloody vengeance through the generations as Sophocles details in the one-act Electra about to go on stage with Houston’s Classical Theatre Company.
Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, had sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to placate the goddess Artemis who had stopped him setting off for war with high winds so that his ships couldn’t sail. Those winds calmed after the sacrifice.
His wife Clytaemnestra(Shannon Emerick) justified killing Agamemnon upon his return because he sacrificed their daughter. Now another daughter, the title character Electra (Lindsay Ehrhardt), wants revenge on her father’s death and is ready to kill her mother and Aegisthus (Andraes Hunt), who also happens to be Agamemnon’s cousin.
Sophocles, like most Greek playwrights, got to the point fairly quickly in his plays, according to Classical Theatre Company’s Artistic Director John Johnston.
When Electra’s long lost brother Orestes (Seth Carter Ramsey) returns from exile – and at first they don’t recognize each other – a plot to kill Clytaemnestra is quickly hatched.
“She doesn’t recognize him because she hasn’t seen him since he was a very, very young child. It’s been like 20 years or so. He’s a grown adult man now. And also why it takes him a while to confirm that it is her.”
“This is an exploration of the dark side of human nature. As I feel that very prevalent right now.”
“It is a cycle of blood and revenge basically and that really is the exploration of this dark side of human nature,” he says. “Blood begets more blood and so the result is this nevitable demise. There’s no glorification of the deaths of Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus at the end of the show.
The death of Clytaemnestra is “quite gruesome,” Johnston says. “The son stabs his mother multiple times . While the action takes place off stage, the body is brought onstage.”
Greek mythology which of course all of this is drawn from does have a great deal of this idea of destiny, a foregone end determined by the Fates. The Greek plays historically, the comedies and the tragedies both, are examinations of Greek culture and society.
“Was it worth it to sacrifice Iphigenia so that they could fight the Trojan War and defeat the Trojans? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? I suppose you would have to ask the few about that,” Johnston says.
“The Greeks at large probably would have found it a worthwhile sacrifice but when you ask the Agamemnon family, they do not feel that way. “
Greek audiences knew the stories, knew what they were getting into when they went to play festivals. Johnston says. What they were looking for was how effective the playwrights were at political and social commentary within the plays, he adds.
Other cast members include Matthew Keenan as Orestes’ tutor and Elissa Cuellar as the Chorus. Jon Harvey directs.
Asked why he likes this tragic play so much, Johnston says:
“I like the way it kind of ramps up towards the end of the play. The beginning of the play there’s a lot of exposition, there’s a lot of setting of the scene so that everyone understand how everyone feels about everyone else.”
“And then once it starts rolling it just kicks off and it really hurdles towards the climax. It comes to an end in a very somber and resigned way. “
The play doesn’t have a firm ending, Johnston says. “What lies down the line for Orestes and Electra is not certain. But it’s certainly not a glorification. There’s nothing triumphant about the deaths.”
Performances are scheduled for October 10-12 (Opening night October 9 at 7:30 p.m.) at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2:30 Saturday and Sunday at The DeLuxe Theater, 3303 Lyons. For more information, call 713-963-9665 or visit classicaltheatre.org. $10-$30.
Let’s get the headline out of the way first – and we do mean this article’s literal headline.
In past theater seasons, we’ve highlighted the fresh talents everyone should take notice of and we’ve called our feature the Up and Comers article—a nod to emerging talent bursting onto the Houston scene.
And trust us, there’s plenty of that on our list this year. We’re fortunate in Houston to have a strong network of high schools, colleges, educational programs and mentors who champion theater arts and help forge a thrilling pipeline of young talent to our stages.
However, this year, we’ve included some artists that are beyond what could be considered the emerging or “new” phase of their career. In some cases, it’s because they are new to Houston. In other cases, they’re newly back on the stage. Some are taking their talents in a new theatrical direction.
Together, they comprise a diverse group of artists who have made us sit up and take notice. These are the theater artists who had us madly flipping through programs, wondering who they were and if we could get more of them. They are the ones we’re most excited to see continue to grow, stretch and show Houston audiences what they’re capable of.
These are this year’s Ones to Watch.
Credit: Violeta Alvarez
Jazmyn Bolden
Jazmyn Bolden credits supportive parents and an extracurricular pursuit for the blossoming of her acting talents.
The Houston native joined the Speech and Debate team in high school, and a love of performance was instantly born. “I loved the forensic side of speech and debate,” says Bolden. “It gave me a real understanding of the depth of acting. Not just reading words on a paper and pretending to do something, but truly feeling and understanding what it was to embody a character and understand their story.”
For many students, one demanding club would be enough. For Jazmyn, speech and debate operated alongside her developing in theater and a rigorous involvement in sports.
“My parents always wanted us to be extremely versatile,” says Bolden. “So, when I said I think I’m a little more interested in debate/theater than I am in sports, they said do both, and let’s be great at both. And so, every rehearsal or practice, they showed up and they showed out, and they made sure that they tapped in truthfully into everything we wanted to do.”
Bolden’s debating prowess landed her a full ride to college and it was there that the acting bug once again caught up with her when she participated in a community play reading. Her involvement in theater continued back home in Houston in 2017 with roles in festivals and a small mainstage credit.
But it was 2025 in Ensemble Theatre’s production of Flex that launched Bolden into our minds. Playing the lead role of Starra, the competitive captain of her high school basketball team with dreams of getting out and making her dead mother proud, Bolden vibrated with informed intensity, hard on the outside but churning with vulnerability beneath.
It was an affecting, emotional and physical performance, especially for a young woman with no formal training just kicking off her professional stage career. Not that either of these facts fazed her all that much once she got past the shock of landing the role.
“I think everything in me said, you have the capability regardless of the history and the resume and you know that you can embody this woman and really show up,” says Bolden. “And I think what was so beautiful is being an athlete my whole life. I understood the drive of Starra, I understood the need and the grit behind her. She felt like home to me.”
Now that Bolden is running headfirst into acting as a lifetime pursuit, she says she’s looking forward to diving more into the comedic side of herself in her work. “I’ve always been the drama queen. So typically, I end up with a role of that nature, but recently, I just started tapping into comedy, and so that has been the super thing on my mind and I really want to dive into that,” says Bolden. “My friends call me a comedian all day every day. I’m the jokester of the group and I definitely enjoy being able to put a smile on people’s faces. So, I think that’s really where I’m heading.”
Regardless of what kind of roles Bolden takes on in the future (and we hope there are many), she knows to bring a little of herself to each performance.
“I spent a lot of my life not wanting to live in my own shoes,” says Bolden. And so originally performing was being able to live in someone else’s shoes, and then finally finding myself, it became even more beautiful to be able to be me inside of something else.”
This season, she will be working to fill many shoes as she’s cast as the understudy for all the female roles in the stage adaptation of Toni Morrison’s debut novel, The Bluest Eye, at Ensemble Theatre. Bolden says she’s excited for the responsibility and grateful to be trusted with such a big task.
The Bluest Eye at Ensemble Theatre runs January 23 – February 22, 2026
Credit: Violeta Alvarez
Benjamin McLaughlin
Keep the fire lit. Art doesn’t retire or die. It just waits.
Bemjamin McLaughlin believes strongly in this notion, as well he should; it succinctly sums up the trajectory of his career as a theater artist.
When we saw his hysterically genius performance as the insufferable Tuzenbach in Classical Theatre’s production of Three Sisters, it had been eight or so years since he’d been on stage.
By choice.
McLaughlin’s love of theater and performance began at 15 when his family moved from Tomball out to Tyler, Texas. Feeling like a fish out of water, he sought out a welcoming and energetic community and that’s where he discovered drama club.
“At first, it was just kind of being in the social sphere, you know, just trying to stay busy, but I didn’t do any shows,” says McLaughlin. But when the school produced a classical play, he figured, why not jump in and give it a try?
“I had no idea what I was doing, but our drama teacher at the time helped guide me through it. And I ended up really liking it. From there I was able to springboard off into a leadership position in the drama club and help foster new people coming in with similar situations as mine.”
By the end of high school, Mclaughlin was president of the club and enjoyed it so much he started looking around to see if there was a college program he could jump into. His parents weren’t so keen.
“Everyone in the family, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, everyone knew that I was the odd one out. We have doctors in the family; we have engineers in the family. I was expected to become a businessman. But I pursued theater instead at University of Houston.”
His parents ultimately did come around to support his artistic ambitions, driving up to see shows, but McLaughlin respects how they approached the whole situation. “Gradually, they weaned me off and said, you know, if you keep doing this, then you’re gonna have to start paying your weight to keep going with it and I’m actually very grateful because it did highlight my need to be self-sustaining. And so that was actually very helpful to get early on.”
McLaughlin graduated in 2015 and worked in Houston for a bit, but gradually had to decide: keep at it, or get a more stable job.
“Ultimately, I decided to pull back from theater because I was cognizant of rising prices and I had a timeline and goals. I focused on just being able to pay the bills and building a professional resume and I got a house, I got married, I did all the stuff I wanted to do.”
But when he saw that Three Sisters was casting, with a company and director he knew and liked, he knew it was time to jump back in. He missed the theater and the community and, despite his reservations about being away for so long, McLaughlin says returning to the stage was inevitable for him. It’s something he’s looking forward to doing more often, now that he’s racked up more life experiences.
“This time has given me the ability to hone certain skill sets,” says McLaughlin. “You go through all these years and things change. I’ve fallen on financial hardship, I’ve lost people during COVID, etc. These are things I could have researched before to portray a role. But now I have a repertoire of things I’ve experienced that I can relate to the text. And I imagine as time goes on, I’ll change even more.”
This season, McLaughlin will pour his honed talent and life skills into playing Rodrigo in Classical Theater’s production of Othello. “I’m fired up to explore a character driven by obsession and desperation! He may be viewed as a gullible fool, but his devotion to Desdemona and willingness to be manipulated by Iago reveal a man who is both foolhardy and incredibly vulnerable.”
Othello at Classical Theatre runs April 16 – May 2, 2026
Credit: Pin Lim
Alexandra Szeto-Joe
It was competitive figure skating that ushered Alexandra Szeto-Joe into what is quickly becoming a busy professional theater career.
As a sport, figure skating has an artistic side that requires fine-tuning to complement the skater’s training. Szeto-Joe explored other performative art forms, eventually bumping into theater. “I would do dance, and then, I would discover the beautiful world of dance and then through dance, I discovered theater and was like, ‘Oh, I can, like, speak on stage?’”
Pretty soon, theater eclipsed skating, and Szeto-Joe was setting her sights on the high school musical and auditioning for college drama programs. Something she was prepared for thanks to the arts education she was fortunate to have.
“I was lucky enough to be able to attend theatrical programs and camps throughout my childhood and adolescence, one of which was the summer Young Actors Conservatory program at Stages,” says Szeto-Joe. “I think my experience at Stages really helped me put my theatrical dreams into a professional context.”
She also credits a pre-college program at Carnegie Mellon University for enriching her training and giving her the tools to make theater and acting a tangible career.
Attending NYU for Drama was a dream come true until she graduated into a pandemic. “I’d already heard all the warning stories about how hard this career is, but to graduate into an industry that didn’t exist was like, whoa, I had a plan, and now that’s gone.”
She ended up moving back to Houston to wait it out, and when things opened back up, she started auditioning and getting roles locally. “And it’s crazy because that was hardly in my plans. A big reason I chose NYU was because it was in New York City and that’s where I wanted to build my career. I figured, let me move to New York City now and then I won’t have to move there later on postgrad. But I’ve been very lucky to find a career here in Houston and also travel back and forth to work in New York. So, I figured out a way to have my cake and eat it too.”
Last season in Houston, Szeto-Joe’s talents caught our attention with her excellent performances in Three Sisters at Classical Theater, The Heart Sellers at Stages and The Mirror Crack’d at the Alley—an impressive list of credits for an emerging actor.
“I feel very lucky and a little bit, like, not that it’s moving too fast, but I do feel like okay, I have to soak everything up right now…and learn as much as I can.”
Szeto-Joe says one of the most rewarding things that’s come out of her performances is being able to turn people on to theater. “I’ve had a few friends come up to me after a performance and talk about how they’re not really theater people, but seeing me in multiple shows, in multiple different companies, makes them want to consume more theater in Houston, which is always really gratifying.”
Szeto-Joe says she also pays close attention to when there are younger audience members at a show. “I always go back to the idea that in every audience, there’s at least one person who is at their first play or first theatrical experience….so having a direct line to that makes me think, this is what I’m meant to do.”
Szeto-Joe will return to The Alley this season to join A Christmas Carol as a swing performer, her first time taking on the challenge of multiple characters.
“The thought of exploring all their different perspectives, wants, objectives, etc., is equal parts daunting and thrilling,” says Szeto-Joe. Though they’re all individual characters, I’m excited to find the things that unite them, and I hope to contribute to the joy that is already happening onstage and bring my own unique sense of heart and play to the work.”
A Christmas Carol at Alley Theatre runs November 16 – December 28, 2025
Credit: Violeta Alvarez
Elia Adams
Elia Adams is coming full circle this fall.
Back in 2017, when he was attending Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Adams auditioned for the Broadway premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy. “I actually stumbled across my audition tape for it the other day,” says Adams. “Wow. It was a very young me trying to sing, but I definitely wasn’t mature enough at the time for that production.”
Fast forward to this season and almost a decade more under his belt, and this time, Adams has what it takes. He’ll be playing AJ in The Ensemble Theatre’s production of the musical in the new year. A character, he says, offers a meaningful opportunity to “Explore themes of brotherhood, identity, and resilience.”
We didn’t know about the casting last season when he turned our heads with his earnestly optimistic and affecting performance in the Ensemble Theatre’s production of Camp Logan. A performance that helped the show earn a Houston Theater Award for Best Ensemble.
But we did know was that while this might have been his first big role on a Houston mainstage, it wouldn’t be his last.
Adams says he knew from a young age that he wanted to perform.
“The ability to just entertain people and make someone smile, be comfortable within your own skin and to just laugh at yourself. That’s the beauty of life. And that’s what performing gave me.”
After high school, Adams attended the California Institute of the Arts to get his BFA in acting. However, two years in, COVID hit, and Adams came back to Houston and took a break from theater. “They were trying to do things online,” says Adams. “But it didn’t suit my spirit and my passion for the arts. So, I just took a break. I wasn’t one of these people who could sit on a computer and do it.”
When things opened back up, Adams scored a part in a musical playing at MATCH. ” I don’t usually do musicals, so it was kind of out of my comfort zone, but I think that was what I needed to get back in the theater, right? Do something that’s completely out of my comfort zone. So that now I’m able to go back and do the things that I am comfortable doing, like fiction and just real storytelling.”
One of the biggest lessons he’s learned is to be as natural as he can be on stage.
“Natural to me is interpreting the character as if I am the character,” says Adams. “So, you start with yourself as the foundation and then add the character’s details on top of that to who you are. They cast you in the role because of something you brought to the table, right? They didn’t see the character in the audition, but maybe they caught a glimpse. It’s something you brought to the table, so you have to continue bringing yourself to the table and then add the layers of character on top of you. It’s not me completely disappearing into a character. It’s layering.”
Choir Boy at The Ensemble Theatre runs March 20 – April 12
Olivia Knight Credit: Violetta Alvarez
Olivia Knight
There was no worse time for a theater artist to graduate from college than the pandemic. This is the situation Olivia Knight found herself in after getting her degree in Theater in her home state of Virginia. It was 2021, and theaters across the country were shuttered. No one was casting or producing shows.
With nowhere to perform, Knight thought auditioning for grad school seemed like a good option. One that could expand on her talents.
“I was really looking for a program that offered a lot of physical training as an actor and also somewhere that was really text and detail oriented, because that’s something that I really enjoy digging into,” says Knight.
It was her University of Houston audition that sold her on the school. “I felt like I left that audition, having learned something unique. Most of the others felt like we were just checking each other out. Seeing if I would be a good fit. But I left the U of H one feeling like I’d already picked something up that I could use.”
Knight has put her acting/physical training to good use. This year, she won the Houston Theater Award for Best Breakthrough for her trauma and rage-filled performance in Dirt Dog’s production of Blackbird. She also lends her talents behind the scenes as an Intimacy and Fight Director, this past season working with Houston Grand Opera and Sheppard School of Music.
Initially, Knight wasn’t sure she’d stick around Houston after graduation, but her first professional role (while still in school) cemented the deal.
“After that show, I really got to see what the theater community here was like,” says Knight, who loved the quality of work and how tight-knit and supportive the artists were. “So, I decided to stay for at least another year. And after that, I got even more connected. I found friends, found people that I really, dearly love working with and creating art with. And it’s just become, well, I don’t see where else I would go now.”
When it comes to her work onstage, Knight says what connects her to a character is figuring out what they are fighting for, digging into the text and tackling difficult, more dramatic situations. But at the heart of it, it all comes down to telling stories.
“I’ve always found comfort, healing and lessons in stories,” says Knight, a self-described bookworm. “I fell in love stories and with the ability to share them with other people. To go through and exist in these moments together, learning together and experiencing things that you might not have a chance to experience in your daily life.”
This season at Classical Theater, she’ll be sharing the story of Othello when she takes on the role of Emilia. She says she’s excited to explore the character’s complexity because, “She’s trying so hard to be wise, warning Desdemona, being a good wife, but she’s simultaneously naive about Iago’s manipulation. So, her best intentions become his weapon against the girl she cares for, which makes her final act so powerful.”
Knight will also continue fight and intimacy direction with Houston Grand Opera’s productions of Porgy and Bess, Silent Night, and Hansel and Gretel, the Sheppard School of Music’s productions of The Magic Flute and Falstaff and University of Houston’s production of The Magic Flute.
Othello at Classical Theatre runs April 16 – May 2, 2026
Credit: Violetta Alvarez
Juan Sebastian Cruz
Late into his second year at Rice University, Juan Sebastian Cruz told his mother that he was going to switch gears from mathematics and engineering to a major in theater. It didn’t go over well.
Cruz hadn’t shown an interest in theater until freshman year, when a friend of his suggested he audition for a show. In high school, he had been part of the band program and he was missing involvement in performing arts, so he went for it. Cruz got the role and found that theater was both fulfilling and a whole lot of fun.
“Then, in my sophomore year, I was trying to double major in theater and engineering. And then at some point, I was like, What am I doing? What is it that I really want to do?” Cruz knew he wanted to be in the arts, but even with his high school band experience, the music program at Rice was out of his reach. Rice’s small theater department, however, was inviting and they welcomed him to take classes and be in more shows.
“It was very difficult at first,” says Cruz. “I think a lot of my family members, my mother, included, who has always been the rock of my life, she was concerned. She was like, Are you sure? Is this really what you want to do? Is this the best use of your time at the school?”
Once she realized that not only was I happier in the theater department, but also putting in the work to really make something of it, her worry turned to support.
After graduating in 2016, Cruz decided to stay in Houston rather than go to grad school or move away.
“I decided that I needed to try to see if working in theater and in the arts was a path of sustainability. And since I was already in Houston, I wanted to use the connections and the foundation that I had here first…and give myself a few years,” says Cruz.
Every year, he would check in with himself to see if things were going well, if it was still what he wanted to do. “And every year, even if it wasn’t going all that great, it was like, I still want to give this more time and it took a little bit of time, but the more I discovered, the more I realized that I didn’t want to move, that I could live here and make a career for myself.”
It’s been a fruitful and diverse career, with Cruz performing on almost all of Houston’s mainstages. We first noticed his talent in Stage’s production of My Manana Comes and he just recently turned in a monumental performance in Moody Center for the Arts’ production of Spill with a pin-drop 10-minute monologue that haunts us to this day.
So why then is this seasoned actor on our ones to watch list? Much like his U-turn in sophomore year, Cruz is now taking on a new challenge, one we’re excited to follow.
“I recently had a son,” says Cruz. “I’m realizing that as much as I love theater, time is becoming an even more precious resource when you have a family. And so, I’m very, very happy for all the roles and all the accolades and success that I’ve been able to have with theater, but I’m purposefully not going to act this year. Instead, I’m exploring all these other artistic facets that I have and new things that I want to explore.”
The first fruit of this exploration is an all-ages short musical, The Legend of Julio Star, that Cruz wrote and will be directing at La Vida es Cortos, TEATRX’s short film/play festival.
“It’s a coming-of-age story about a small-town Colombian man who loves Cumbia music …. he loves his town, and he loves playing music, but he also dreams of bigger things,” says Cruz. “Because this is a musical suitable for young audiences, there is also a fantastical element where the man gets transported to Mars and gets to share his music throughout the galaxy.”
As a first-time playwright, Cruz says he now has a deep respect for the process of developing new work. “When I first started as an actor, new work readings and festivals weren’t important to me. I was like okay; I’ll do a reading. It’s a one-day thing. That’s fine. But now it interests me so much. And I absolutely think it’s so important …. I think new works are going to be priorities as much as possible going forward.”
The Legend of Julio Star at La Vida Es Cortos is playing November 29, 2025
Houston Actors Credit: Violeta Alvarez
Andraes Hunt
Andraes Hunt says it was his mother who set in motion his love of storytelling.
“I have vivid memories of her acting out characters and telling me stories,” says Hunt. “She would always do voices or her face would change; she was my first storyteller.” Hunt also enjoyed doing voices, imitating characters from his favorite movies starring Jim Carey and Jamie Fox.
But it wasn’t until late high school that Hunt channeled that energy into theater.
After watching a UIL production in junior year, a light went on for Hunt as he regretted not being a part of theater making from the start of his schooling. So, in his senior year he got involved with the production of West Side Story and while he loved the experience, it didn’t propel him into full-time performance.
After taking some time to work and make money however, Hunt did enroll in HCC Stafford and it was there that his theatrical path was set.
“Post high school theater was always an interest, but it wasn’t on the front row. I was focusing on working and making a living. I thought I could do this on the side for fun. And I eventually did a show per semester while I was taking classes at HCC and it became like, okay, I’m looking forward to the next show.” Through participation in regional competitions and exposure to artists who were living the theater life, Hunt realized this was possibly something he could do for real.
“I felt like I belonged, but I knew that I didn’t have the technique, I hadn’t honed my craft…Then I got to visit Texas State, and I knew that that was my next step on the path. And so, I enrolled in the Spring of 2011, and there, I got the rigorous training that set me up to pursue this professionally.”
For the next several years, Hunt worked in Houston, but in 2018 after a busy performing season, he decided to step aside and take a job that better paid the bills.
“My theater cup was so full but I needed to go make some money. Then 2019 went by, and I didn’t have a desire to do a show. Then I thought, hey, you know what, 2020, I’m going to get back out there. And then lockdown.”
Which was why when we saw Hunt give a searing performance as a cutthroat lawyer in Dirt Dog’s production of Race, it felt like a new discovery of sorts. A reawakening, if you will. One that almost didn’t happen.
“I wasn’t certain I was going to audition, and then, the day of, I got out of work, and I was like, you know what? I’m going to this audition. I just called and said hey, I know you guys have been auditioning people for the past couple of hours, but I’m free. Can I show up?”
Hunt says he’s drawn to complex roles. “I like smart characters. I like characters who are misunderstood because it feels like a challenge for me to make you understand. If I’m playing the villain, then you’re going to see my justification.”
Coming off of Race, Hunt is eager to once again flex and stretch his actorly muscles. This fall, he’ll be playing Aegisthus in Classical Theater’s production of Electra. “I don’t think tragedies are most people’s first choice for entertainment”, says Hunt. “But my goal is to find the universal themes that are relevant today and share them. Mostly, I’m excited to get in the rehearsal room and start playing.”
Electra at Classical Theatre runs October 9-18, 2025
Credit: Violeta Alvarez
Cameron O’Neil
Singing was the first performance high that hooked Cameron O’Neil.
From singing karaoke at the age of four to performing in community theater musicals in third grade to being one of just a few sixth graders invited to perform in a production of Into the Woods in middle school, O’Neil knew that singing on the stage was magical for him.
“I did start high school at HPVA as the Broadway baby,’ says O’Neil. I was like, I’m going to go to Broadway, and I’m gonna be in New York and going to I’m gonna do everything I can. And then I realized how cutthroat it was and how expensive it is to hone not only acting talents, but having a voice teacher and having dance training and not just one curriculum, but also do ballet and jazz and modern. And I learned that it was it was such a cutthroat intense path to go down.”
Rather than sour him, this realization opened his eyes to the beauty of plays.
“I still love singing, but HPVA taught me what straight plays are and like that they’re so rich and just because there’s not singing and dancing doesn’t mean that you’re not going to walk away completely moved…I learned that theater is an art and you could say so much with your art.”
From high school, O’Neil attended Webster Conservatory in St. Louis. “It’s so crazy to think back that at 18, I was ready to pack up my bags and move to the other side of the country. And there it was very intensive. It was live, eat, breathe, theater, we did it from sunup to sundown.”
Graduating into the pandemic meant that no work was forthcoming, so O’Neil moved with a friend to Austin, hoping the vibrancy of the city would bear fruit. But despite going on auditions and doing some readings and fringe festival work, he found that Austin’s theater scene just wasn’t as vibrant as it was in Houston.
O’Neil says he tried to give up acting. To get an office job, a golden retriever, a conforming life. But that itch to be onstage just wouldn’t let up. And that’s when he heard that Rec Room Arts was producing Spring Awakening, a musical he’d been obsessed with since his early teen years. He wanted in and he would do whatever it took.
Lucky for him and us, his efforts and talents aligned and this is where we first spotted him. As the painfully neurotic yet utterly sincere Moritz, O’Neil tore up the stage with his double threat heart-ensnaring acting and singing.
It was one hell of an outing for his first professional stage role. Followed quickly by a very different but equally compelling turn as Bernard, in Rec Room’s Death of a Salesman.
The experience and accolades have helped draw O’Neil back home to Houston.
“I think that initially I had to get away from Houston because I was born here and it seemed like the hometown blues,’ says O’Neil. “But I’m now starting to see the beauty of the Houston theater scene and the community. There is some Broadway-level acting here, some really passionate people who love what they do, and they pour their hearts and souls and that’s what I love to. I don’t want to do it as a business. I don’t want to be in a play, just to be in a play. I want to pour my heart and soul into it and be with like-minded people who also want to do the same.”
O’Neil says that at this point, he’s open to both musicals and plays. But mostly he loves language and the ability to bring words to life. This fall, he’ll help bring new words to life as Kieran in Marisela Treviño Orta’s Womb 2.0 for the 2025 Alley All New Festival.
“I’m excited to be working with a new script and creating a character based on my own instincts instead of what’s been done before,” says O’Neil. “A huge theme in Womb 2.0 is privilege, so I want to work on manifesting Kieran’s privilege in the work and see how that tells the story in a more dynamic way.”
Womb 2.0 at Alley All New Festival is playing October 24 and 26, 2025
Credit: Tim Tiebout, Folger Shakespeare Library
Brandon Carter
When Brandon Carter stepped onstage last season as Biff in Rec Room’s production of Death of a Salesman, we marveled at his prowess in the role. Surely, he was an out-of-towner brought in for the production – a seasoned actor like that doesn’t just appear in Houston out of thin air.
Lucky for us, it does and he did.
Now calling Houston home, Carter has already made an impact, winning the 2025 Houston Theater Award for Best Supporting Actor for his first role on Houston stages.
It’s a long way from his early dreams of being a fisherman, like his father and grandfather. When he found himself floundering at Longwood University, taking a minor in theater, his family suggested he stop wasting money and time and go work on a boat.
Heeding their advice, Carter paused his study to see if the fisherman dream still spoke to him. And that’s when the theater really came calling.
“I still remember it, I was on the fish boat and one of my professors called and said, hey, I’m doing Othello, and I want you for the lead. I know you’re out of school, but I want you to come back and give it a try, says Carter. “I had the fishboat, I had Othello in my hands, and I had an opportunity to go back to college. So, I read it while I was fishing on the boat and it won my heart. I was reading verse on the open sea in the Gulf of Mexico and Shakespeare’s words actually won me back into college.”
From college came grad school at Penn State, where Carter participated in commissioning the Dominique Morisseau play, Blood at the Root. “We raised a bunch of money, which gave me my first taste of administration/fund raising and we toured that show around the world for three years from South Africa to Adelaide.”
Shakespeare’s works continued to pull on Carter. His first gig after Penn State was with the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of The Tempest. Carter then was a company member with American Shakespeare Center for seven years, and the company’s Artistic Director for four years up until March 2024.
Carter says it’s the music of Shakespeare’s work that draws him to it.
“My grandfather used shanties to help pull in the fish by hand. They would sing a verse, and then they would pull the nets … he sang these shanties to me and it is the undercurrent to the musicality I hear in Shakespeare’s work that helps me to be able to find the jazz in it. I’m able to connect to it and think about home and my bloodline. There’s a familiarity, even though you’re talking about two different time periods, to different cultures, two different ways of communicating.”
Regardless of which play or writer, Carter says he strives never to think he knows everything about the character. “I think I think we sometimes don’t hear the playwright because we put on the assumptions of what we think is going to happen and that doesn’t allow us to listen to the person that’s opposite us and what story they’re telling and what this moment might be. But if you avail yourself to the moment, you’ll deepen the experience for yourself and for others.”
Carter will get to deepen his experience with Shakespeare this season, coming back to Othello, the play that started it all for him. This time, he’s in the lead role with time and experience under his belt.
He hopes that his portrayal of the ‘psychological damage of a black leader who has reached the top of his craft’ resonates with audiences and inspires young actors to fall in love with Shakespeare the way he did.
Othello at Classical Theatre runs April 16 – May 2, 2026
Grave robbing was a real thing in Victorian times and not always for the very worst of reasons. Yes, the people who dealt in this trade were in it for the money and wouldn’t be considered reputable members of society.
But fresh corpses were often the only way the doctors and researchers could learn about anatomy or practice surgical techniques. And while removing a body from a grave was initially not illegal in itself, that changed following the infamous Burke and Hare case in which the enterprising pair in Edinburgh, Scotland, running low on cadavers started killing people to up their supply.
In The Body Snatcher by Kate Forgette – “inspired” by a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson — the ethics of going to a grave and digging up a corpse are intertwined with the story of a scientist desperately trying to save the life of his daughter. She has a heart condition, although whether it is the same as her mother died from is unclear.
David Rainey, a Julliard-trained actor now celebrating his 25th year as an Alley resident acting company member, plays Dr. Noakes, whose daughter Elizabeth (played by Alyssa Marek) is about 19 years old, he says.
“She doesn’t really know yet that she has the kind of heart condition that could kill her. Her mother died around the same age,” says Rainey. Noakes had taken notes during the days leading up to his late wife’s death and now he’s comparing those notes with his daughter’s condition.
“I’m a brilliant scientist. I’m at the top of my field in medicine , in particular the study of the heart and abnormalities of the heart. I’ve made a specialty of it because of issues I’ve had in my family,” he says.
“He’s trying to do heart transplants at a time when there really was no such thing., He’s desperate to find another heart so that when she does pass he can at least make an attempt to try to do a transplant.”
And that’s the reason he’s dealing with the body snatcher Fettes played by Brandon Hearnsberger.
Noake is also a university professor. “I have students I’m also trying to cultivate trying to build a mindset about pushing medicine past where it is. I’m also a very determined person because of the situation that I’m in. I’m very no nonsense, very much on a quest because the clock is ticking and if I don’t find a solution then she will expire and I won’t have any chance to help save her.”
There is a student who Noakes picks out as someone who could help him with the procedure, Rainey says. “He’s sort of the prize student of any of them out there. He also has all the sort of right credentials. He’s got lightning-fast hands and every physician who’s worked with him ends up praising him to the heavens.”
That student, Dr. John Brook played by Luis Quintero, “also had tragedy in his life, he’s lost his young sister recently which devastated him to the point where he felt like he needed to move.” As a result, he transferred to where Noakes is teaching.
The two doctors begin working together in Noke’s home lab to try to perfect the procedure. In due course, Dr. Brook and Elizabeth fall in love. “There’s two love stories going on. The love for a father and the daughter and the love story between the doctor and the daughter as well.” Others in the cast include: Carolyn Johnson as Mrs. Keene who works in the lab and has a lot of medical knowledge, and Sophia Marcelle as A Young Girl. The Alley’s Associate Artistic Director Brandon Weinbrenner is directing.
Asked why he wanted to be in this two-act play which, of course, immediately evokes the Frankenstein story of a doctor also seeking to revitalize the dead, Rainey says:
“It’s exciting. It’s a thriller. Doctor Noakes is a great part. There’s a tremendous love story – a father’s love. And the passion he has to try to save her. It raises the question of what lengths would you go to in order to save the person you care about the most
“You know what’s right; you know what’s moral. You know what’s too far. But how close can you get to the edge of that? if you don’t act are you willing to let your daughter die?”
Adding to the spooky aspect is that the play is being presented in the downstairs more intimate Neuhaus Theatre. “And we have all kinds of cool effects. Body parts and blood. It should be a fun ride for an audience to take in this very British Victorian world.
“I think there could be one or 2 moments where whole audience could jump.”
Performances are scheduled for October 3-25 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays , 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and 7 p.m. Sundays at Alley Theatre’s Neuhaus Theatre, 615 Texas . For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $45-$74.
This ancient axiom neatly describes Stefano Massini’s epic play The Lehman Trilogy, now mesmerizing at Stages. Adapted from the Italian (and its five-hour long length) by Ben Power, Lehman now clocks in at a more reasonable three-and-a-half hours with two intermissions. Believe me, the time flies by.
Consistently entertaining, the drama encapsulates the history of the largest and most powerful of all American investment companies, Lehman Brothers, whose bankruptcy in 2008 rocked Wall Street and led to the collapse of the tottering global financial empire that had been built on sand. The fall was big, huge, and the consequences are still felt to this day.
Trilogy is the story of one side of American capitalism. Grit, greed, and hubris play a part in this kaleidoscope of global economics that begin in 1844 with the arrival of young Bavarian immigrant Hayum Lehmann (Spencer Plachy) who flees Germany’s rising antisemitism. Arriving “excited and trembling” at New York’s Castle Garden, he’s immediately given a new identity. Like so many other immigrants, this land of opportunity is his for the taking, if he’s up for it. Everything changes in America, he exclaims. With his new name Henry Lehman, the family tale spins wildly onward.
Settling in Montgomery, Alabama, he opens a dry goods store. With the later arrival of his two brothers, Emanuel (Orlando Arriaga) and Mayer (Robby Matlock), the store is christened Lehman Brothers. Henry is the head, Emanuel the arm, and young Mayer is the “potato,” smooth and just peeled.
For three years, saddled with debt, the three “work, work, work,” selling clothes and necessities to the poor sharecroppers, until Henry’s brainstorm that they should be dealing in Alabama’s golden cash crop, cotton. There’s profit to be made from this, as numbers fly across the stage floor and up the back wall. They can be the “middle men” between the plantation and the northern weaving factories. How many carts of raw goods will turn a profit? Cotton bolls are strewn across the stage. More numbers fly by, signifying their growing business acumen. The yellow fever pandemic takes Henry in 1855, but as the two surviving brothers sit “shiva,” their mantra of “we make money” takes root.
As Ash Parra’s lighting design pulses bright then dim, the brothers’ fortunes rise and fall with the catastrophe of the Civil War, the ruination of the cotton crop, a fortuitous move to New York, and then new prosperous business ventures into tobacco and coffee…and money management. Wall Street’s 1929 disaster ends Act II. In three acts, each an hour long, the Lehman brothers delineate the changing face of America’s economy.
Throughout, the three actors play multiple characters with a panoply of accents, tics, and subtle gestures. They grow old, they die, they totter off, while their fiancees, wives, wily sons, or politicians take their place. In Afsaneh Aayani’s marvelously efficient and atmospheric set design, lawyer’s file boxes are rearranged as desks, podiums, or seats as the fascinating family saga unfolds.
Power’s poetic adaptation, replete with repetition, overlays the drama with a mythic ancient vibe akin to Homer or Virgil. The brothers speak in the third person, whether talking about themselves or to others, that subtly distances us, and them, from the mundane. The drama goes universal.
Breathlessly directed by Stages’ artistic director Derek Charles Livingston, this story of an American dynasty’s pride and ultimate fall moves nimbly. While the third act veers into rushed territory, as if the author wanted to get to the ending as quickly as possible, we aren’t as moved as we should be by the inevitable decline of this family.
After nearly 164 years, the Lehman Brothers’ fortune dissolved into the largest bankruptcy in history, taking down numerous financial institutions with it. When the Lehmans moved from selling solid goods like cotton and plows into the province of ephemeral cash like prime mortgages, the end was almost certain. The fall was swift and ugly. American history is filled with such tales, and The Lehman Trilogy is thoroughly American in its own tragic way.
Stages has grown up with this thoroughly engrossing production of the 2022 Tony Award-winning Best Play. A crown jewel for its ’25-’26 season opener, it can’t be bettered. Glorious work by all.
The Lehman Trilogy continues through October 12. 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 7 p.m. Fridays; 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturdays; and 1 p.m. Sundays at The Gordy at Stages, 800 Rosine. For more information, call 713-527-0123 or visit stageshouston.com. $25 to $109.
Odd and quirky, musically smooth, emotionally resonant, wise, and a little raunchy (thanks to Aunt Debra), Kimberly Akimbo has racked up innumerable theater awards from the Tonys, Drama Desks, Off-Broadway Obies (Best Musical, Actress, Supporting Actress, Book, Score, Design). Now we know why.
If a very prescient A.I. process generated a contemporary hip musical, this would be it; although there’s nothing mechanical about the show. With its great beating heart at center stage (that would be 16-year-old Kimberly), a dysfunctional family straight out of a comic O’Neill drama, an outlaw aunt on the run, and teenagers spilling their angst and hormones across the stage, Kimberly shakes you up in the story’s comedy and pathos.
Kimberly, you see, suffers from a rare genetic disorder that ages her prematurely, about four-and-half years for every one of ours. She turns 16 at the beginning of the play, which would make her about 72 years old. She’s a granny in kids’ clothes. She goes to high school and has all the conflicting emotions of a teenager. Set that against her whacked-out family (Dad’s a drunk, Mom’s a pregnant hypochondriac, and libido-expressive Aunt Debra who arrives on the lam with another scheme to get rich quick), the tensions sing and dance most proficiently. The obvious moral, a heart breaker naturally, is Live for Today, time is passing, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Live Every Moment.
The most haunting line comes from “Our Disease,” sung to and by her young school posse (Grace Capeless, Skye Alyssa Friedman, Darron Hayes, Pierce Wheeler – all young pros). They want to get out of New Jersey like a bat out of hell, they can’t wait to grow up and experience life to its fullest. Kimberly tells them in a sort of dream sequence, “Getting older is my affliction, getting older is your cure.” It’s bittersweet and so true.
Even during the show, Kimberly ages. She has trouble walking near the end, and is admitted to a hospital where we think this show is inevitably going to end in tears. But the creators turn the tables on us, as they do throughout the show, and after the mailbox heist (Aunt Debra’s screwy check-washing plot), she and her nerdy crush Seth go on the adventure she’s been dreaming of for years. No doubt her last car trip, nevertheless she gets her dream. It’s her private Make-a-Wish. And a beautiful high on which to end the show. The show might end with our tears, but they are tears of joy as we smile for her courage, spirit, and grit. She also gets her first kiss. Bliss.
Adapted from the play by Tony-winner David Lindsay-Abaire (whose lyrics abound with juicy satire as they did in Shrek), with a pop and Broadway pastiche sound supplied by Tony-winner Jeanine Tesoro (Thoroughly Modern Millie; Caroline, or Change; Shrek), this musical — brought to Houston by Broadway at the Hobby — leaps into a soft imaginative fantasy that seems most real and down-to-earth.
Ann Morrison, Miguel Gill and Jim Hogan in the National Tour of Kimberly Akimbo.
Photo by Joan Marcus
The cast is superlative, as most Broadway tour performers are these days, with special mention to veteran Ann Morrison (the original Mary in Sondheim’s 1981 Merrily We Roll Along) as achingly sympathetic Kimberly; young Miguel Gil as nerd deluxe Seth; Jim Horgan and Laura Woyasz as clueless parents Buddy and Pattie; and, last but not least, scene-stealer Emily Koch as hot-to-trot Aunt Debra. She brings the house down as a criminal Auntie Mame, belting out her anthems “Better” and “How to Wash a Check.” She’s the life force Kimberly desperately needs, although Kimberly turns the tables on her in a most satisfying way at the end. They’re not relatives for nothing.
The production glides as if oiled under the direction of Jessica Stone, abetted with impressionistic choreography from Danny Mefford, and maestro Leigh Delano’s octet of an orchestra with orchestrations that include lone guitar, ukulele, and cello. It’s pristine and cuts to the heart.
Only one-and-a-half years from its Broadway closing, I think this show is destined to become a classic. It’s got the bones, the musical chops, and an inspiring, fantastic story that encapsulates teenage longing for something far off on the horizon. It speaks to us all. This is a Kimberly who will not grow old.
Kimberly Akimbo continues through September 21 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday; 2 p.m. Saturday; and 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $55-$131.
The Alley Theatre knew back in July it had a winner on its hands, already adding five performances because of the high demand for The Da Vinci Code opening this week. It is, of course, based on the international bestselling book by Dan Brown and with fond audience memories of the 2006 movie starring Tom Hanks
Zach Fine (Seascape, The Servant of Two Masters and Pictures from Home) is returning to the Alley to play Robert Langdon, the American professor of religious symbology who just happens to be in Paris when a Louvre curator Jacques Saunière is found murdered in the famous art museum. Langdon becomes the prime suspect when a message left by Saunière directs his granddaughter Sophie Neveu to find Langdon, which the police decide means he’s the culprit.
Langdon and Neveu (Alley Resident Company member Melissa Molano ) team up, escape and seek to solve the crime in a thriller chock full of cryptic references and biblical interpretation. The trip, of course, is not without its dangers and dangerous characters. They end up not only seeking Saunière ‘s killer but in a search for the truth about Mary Magdalene. And, of course, with a title like The Da Vinci Code, Leonardo DaVinci plays a part as well.
As anyone knows who’s read the book, author Brown covers a lot of ground in its 682 pages. How did adaptors Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel wrestle that into what Fine describes as “a very brisk two-act?”?
“The good thing about the book is that it has such good action in it so you can really go from action event to action event,” Fine says. “Some of the historical detail that Dan Brown adds in the book, you don’t get as much of that in the play.” The result, he says, goes pretty quickly.
Describing his character, Fine says: “Intrepid, passionate, balanced, a truth seeker and someone who is a bit more comfortable with books than people. A deep lover of history and in particular the symbols that are important for culture and for history. The passion for the way symbols in art and literature and religion have impacted us and help us create meaning.
“There’s some comedy in that because he’s not someone who’s comfortable in an action movie. He’s not Indiana Jones. He really has to step in another part of himself that he never expected to experience before. He’s an adventurer intellectually not physically.”
Other cast members include Resident Acting Company Members Elizabeth Bunch as Vernet, Michelle Elaine as Collet, Dylan Godwin as Rémy, Chris Hutchison as Silas and Christopher Salazar as Bezu Fache. Also: Kevin Cooney as Jacques Sanuière, Victor J. Flores as Philip, Susan Koozin (Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d) as Sister Sandrine, and Todd Waite (Resident Acting Company Member Emeritus) as Sir Leigh Teabing. Alley Artistic Director Rob Melrose directs.
Of special note: This will be Chris Hutchison’s 100th production at the Alley.
Brown’s book was first published in spring of 2003. Asked why it continues in its many forms to interest people, Fine says: “In a simple way I think like Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle a great mystery stays with us for a long time because it pulls the audience forward.
“He’s done a great job of pulling us into a mystery. And that mystery is specific to Leonardo Da Vinci and and Christianity. It pulls at the part of us that goes ‘I think there’s something more underneath what we call the truth.’ It pulls at some big themes and good mysteries pull us into that part of our intuition that there’s something more, but I don’t know what it is. It does a really effective job of just drawing us in. It engages in puzzle solving and I think puzzles are just endlessly intriguing for people. There’s a sense that there’s an order to the universe at times; there’s an order behind what feels like chaos.”
Another major factor in the book is all the places Langdon and Neveu travel in their quest. How can that be represented on the Alley stage?
“You’re going to be thrilled by it. This production is going to be using cutting edge scenic design, projections, sound and lighting to capture these iconic locations like the Louvre and cathedrals. We’re going to move all around the world. It’s going to be a showcase for how amazing the Alley Theatre is. It will utilize the full spectrum of resources and artists on every level. It’s going to be even better than the movie. You can quote me on that.”
Performances are scheduled for September 19 through October 19 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. Opening night is Wednesday, September 24. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org.$36-$135.
Hamm is blind, paralyzed, and can’t stand. Despite this, he’s the one who sets the rules in his living quarters in a post apocalyptic world. Clov, who cannot sit down because of crippl9ing pains in his legs, is his ever present attendant and a very tired one.
Completing the household are Nagg and Nell, Hamm’s parents who have no legs at all and live in garbage bins filled with sand. They lost them in a tandem bicycling accident.
It’s all part of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame which Catastrophic Theatre co-Artistic Director Jason Nodler will be directing for the third time when it opens this weekend at the MATCH. And no, Nodler insists, Beckett’s plays (Waiting for Godot, Happy Days) are not about despair, but hope.
“Even in Waiting for Godot, Didi and Gogo show up every day on this road as for what they’re waiting for, we know this is a mystery. But they continue to return in spite of any distress they might experience. That’s also true of the characters in Endgame,” Nodler says.
“His plays are not particularly dour. They’re certainly often considered to be about despair and they really aren’t. None of Beckett’s characters are without hope or they wouldn’t continue.”
“They’re not tragedies but tragic comedies. Clov is probably ready for his servitude to Hamm to be over with, but “just because someone is ready for something to end, that’s not despair when it doesn’t,” Nodler says.
“Hamm and Clov talk about how they’re handling the ending. What will come at the end. Clov is suffering quite a lot and has a sort of romanticism about the ending because he’s performed the same routine everyday at the orders of Hamm and he seems ready for things to end. That’s not despairing because he keeps doing it. He doesn’t leave. At the end of the play there’s an open question about this.
“The difference with Hamm is he’s ready for things to end, but not quite yet.”
Nodler compares what happens in Endgame to a game of chess. “You have a certain number of pieces left on the board and you’re essentially moving them around and you’re avoiding the end of the game. You’re putting it off. And that’s what I think we do quite a lot in life.”
At this point, Nodler catches himself, saying: “And now I’m talking about the play like it’s a very very serious thing.”
Actually, Beckett was a big fan of silent movie comedians, Nodler says. “There was no one that Beckett loved better than the silent film comics like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keeton.”
Beckett wrote Endgame over several years and there are radically different drafts, Nodler says. He believes it is a wonderful start for anyone who hasn’t seen a Beckett play, calling it the funniest one he did. “There are laughs all over the place.”
Catastrophic Theatre attracts a lot of what Nodler calls “non-traditional theater audiences,” many of whom find things to like about it that they may not have embraced in other more realistic theaters. Nodler is not against Houston’s more traditional theaters, in fact, he celebrates them, sees and respects their work. But part of the reason they have the pay-what-you-can philosophy is to attract people who might otherwise never go to the theater and discover it has something that speaks to them, just as he found when he was 13 years old.
Performances are scheduled for September 19 through October 11 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. at the MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or matchouston.org. Pay what you can.
Mark St. Germain’s Dancing Lessons, now playing at Match via Lionwoman Productions TX, is what you’d call Sweet.
This pleasant rom-com takes a very serious subject, Asperger’s syndrome, a neuro-developmental disorder now considered within the autistic spectrum, and treats it with a light touch. It works, like some modern day fairy tale, although the emotional changes come a touch too quick.
Ever (Brad Goertz, in a phenomenally sympathetic portrayal) wants to dance at his own awards ceremony but is seriously concerned over having to touch somebody. “I don’t like to be touched,” he yells out to Senga (Katrina Ellsworth), a Broadway dancer who’s suffered a possible career-ending accident after a car smashed into her on the sidewalk. Living in the same apartment building, he has a proposal for her and a huge payout if she teaches him how to dance without attracting unwanted attention. One hour is all he demands of her.
Naturally she is skeptical of this strange man who says whatever is on his mind no matter the consequences. He’s not kidding, he just can’t control himself. Germain’s soft comedy builds from this, and the dialogue is paced with many non sequiturs and twists as Ever misinterprets or reads everything at face value. It’s rather charming, because you know these two will open up each other and eventually find a kind of peace, if not romance, through this odd-couple pairing.
With short scenes – his lectures at the university, her phone calls from her aunt, and some dance moves – they do eventually warm to each other. Of course, we expect this from the get-go. They probe, jab at each other, discover layers. What’s the point of a rom-com if these two disparate people can’t get together?
There are two very fine scenes in which Germain finds the sweet spot. Ever is ready if not absolutely comfortable for an attempt at a physical example of a handshake, then an air kiss, and finally a hug. He has a physical reaction to Senga that he can’t control. “You excited me,” he says bashfully while turned against the wall. “Mentally?,” Senga asks. “No, lower,” he confesses. The bedroom scene soon follows. Senga blows the dust off a condom and in darkness, except for a flashlight, they connect. Whether this would ever happen to someone with Asperger’s I couldn’t say, but the audience is primed for this. We root for it. There were appreciative “ahhs” from the row behind me.
Director Michelle Britton keeps the comedy and the pathos on a comfy edge. Only 90 minutes without intermission, the play flows. Edgar Guajardo’s studio apartment set and lighting design is first-rate, and the sound design from Hayley Christensen is spot-on.
Ellsworth, who looks like a dancer, is astringent from the start but softens near the end. Granted, her character is facing life-threatening surgery for her shattered knee and she’s allergic to anesthesia, so she’s allowed to be a bit brittle, but then there’s her family dysfunction that’s treated a bit perfunctorily to add to her problems. She seems more damaged than Ever.
But it’s Goertz who holds this play together and gives it its heart. What a committed performance. Known as the Tyrannosaurus Nerd, with his shirt buttoned up to the neck, his eyes dart around the room or look down whenever he makes contact with Senga; he moves in spurts, uncomfortable in everyday movement; he talks in an unnatural cadence, always thinking ahead of what he wants to say, or blurting out what he’s thinking. It’s a very finely etched performance, utterly believable and thoroughly empathetic.
What doesn’t work so well is the character of the Dancer (Adrienne Shearer) who is the avatar of Senga. Either before or after various scenes, she dances Senga’s emotional state. Why is she here? Germain already tells us what Senga is feeling, we don’t need some superfluous layer to tell us again. The best use of the Dancer is after the sex scene, when she appears with wide smile and red boa to perform a Jules Feifferesque “Dance to Spring.” The audience got it.
As the second production from Lionwoman (last season’s intriguing Jacobean historical drama Playhouse Creatures was the company’s premiere), Dancing Lessons is an hors d’oeurve. We want more from them. Any new Houston theater company is welcomed. Come back soon.
Dancing Lessons continues through September 21 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays; 6 p.m. Sunday, September 14; 7:30 p.m. Monday, September 15; and 2 p.m. Saturday, September 20 at Lionwoman Productions at MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit matchhouston.org. $25-$35.
When the curtain goes up, Kimberly Akimbo stands center stage holding a pair of ice skates and a necklace. There is no sound — rare for the start of a musical — until after she takes a bite of her necklace (it’s candy) and the music begins.
In Kimberly Akimbo, a 15 year-old girl is about to turn 16, usually important for a teenager but not one that should fill anyone with dread. Unless you’re suffering from a rare genetic condition that causes you to age four-and-a-half times the usual pace.
Broadway veteran Ann Morrison is now on national tour as the title character which she says is the perfect role for her because “I really don’t have to do much acting. I am 70 with the mind of a 16-year-old.” The musical while on Broadway won five Tony Awards including Best Musical.
Morrison loves the attention-getting start and, in fact, all the details that go into Kimberly’s persona. “She’s very optimistic no matter what’s going on. And even though there’s a possibility that her life expectancy may be up — they don’t really live much longer than 16 — who knows?”
In the opening scene, Kimberly “looks like the lunch lady dressed like a 16 year old,” Morrison says. She’s just moved to a new town in suburban New Jersey and clearly other students don’t know what to make of her. Since high school students are not always the kindest to others they consider odd, Kimberly has a tough start.
On top of that, “Kimberly has a very dysfunctional family,” Morison says. “Her mother and father mean well but they don’t always make good choices.”
“Even though her family’s dysfunctional, you can’t help to love them even though you want to smack them around a little,” she says, laughing. “And there may be a felony charge coming up.”
But she soon begins forging what Morrison describes as a wonderful relationship with 16-year-old neuro divergent Seth.
Besides her parents and Seth, she has four characters who are part of a show choir and “an aunt that’s crazy nuts,” Morrison says. “Everyone in the show is a misfit. They all have to find each other and to figure out how to be in the world with each other.” The show is set in the late ’90s which means no cell phones to quickly contact one another and clear up any misunderstandings.
The show has musical theater royalty at its helm. Book and Lyrics are by Tony and Pulitzer Prize-Winner David Lindsay-Abaire, music by Tony Award-Winner Jeanine Tesori and it’s based on the play by Lindsay-Abaire. Tony Award nominee Jessica Stone directs with choreography by Danny Mefford.
Added to that lineup is Morrison who among other things, played Mary Flynn in the legendary original Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical, Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway. She has acted on and off Broadway and in the West End. She has performed in various solo actor shows and through her theater company, Sarasota Productions, she teaches 16- and 17-year-old how to create their own one-person shows. “They have a solo play that helps them get into college.”
Asked about how she got into theater, Morrison responds: “I was dragged into the theater kicking and screaming. Kicking like a chorus dancer and screaming like Ethel Merman.” A perfect response soundin glike a punch line from vaudeville except her father was a university professor and her mother was involved in a variety of performance arts who between them “wrote three musicals, three ballets, one opera, art songs.”
Why should people come to this musical?
“When audiences leave they just feel so good about themselves,” Morrison says. “And right now, why not go see something like that? The message is: life is short so just enjoy the ride. Make positive choices with your life not negative ones.”
Performances are scheduled for September 16-21 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $55-$131.
Purlie Victorious — its full title is Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch — is about to make its regional premiere at Main Street Theater, telling the story of a traveling preacher returning to his hometown with two missions in mind.
He hopes to save the community’s church and free the cotton pickers working on Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s land. Toss in a lost $500 inheritance that he’d like to recover and you have the comedy (with serious subjects) written by the late actor and writer Ossie Davis. Davis had the title role when it went on the Broadway stage in 1961 with his wife, Ruby Dee, playing opposite him as Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins who among other duties, pretends to be a dead woman.
What complicates the entire endeavor is that Purlie and company are dealing with Jim Crow era laws and attitudes.
Director and Texas Southern University professor Errol Wilks, who most recently directed Stagolee and the Funeral of a Dangerous Word for Main Street, calls Purlie Victorious “a wonderful piece of American literature.” And although it’s set in the 1950s, Wilks says some of the same attitudes are present today.
Wilks describes Purlie (played by Timothy Eric who just shared 2025 Best Actor honors in the Houston Theater Awards with Brandon Morgan for their Topdog/Underdog performances) as “an idealist who thinks he can lead his people to some kind of promised land.” Central to the story is Cap’n Cotchipee (Seán Patrick Judge) and his unwillingness to part with ways of the past.
“He’s the owner of all the people there, so to speak, because he runs a cotton farm and the people who work on it have to buy everything from the commissary. He keeps them in perpetual debt so they can’t leave,” Wilks explains. In addition, he abuses and bullies his own son, who doesn’t agree with his father’s treatment of his workers.
A relative has left $500 to Purlie’s cousin. Unfortunately, the cousin has died. “[Purlie] wants to bamboozle the Captain to get the money that was left for his cousin. He recruits this young lady, Lutiebelle (Krystal Uchem, also a 2025 Houston Theater Awards winner, in her case for Best Costumes) to come home with him to try to fool the Captain to believe she’s the cousin,” Wilks says.
Even though there is very serious subject matter, Wilks says, ” it is a farce, a comedy. He (Davis) gives us some beautiful words and all the actors get in on the fun onstage.” Other cast members include Andrea Boronell-Hunter, Kendrick “KayB” Brown, Wykesha King, Domenico Leona and Jim Salners.
At the same time, however, Wilks says, “Let’s not forget that there are uncomfortable images subliminally as well as overtly in this play and I dare say that there’re going to be times that the only thing that’s going to be comfortable about this piece of art is the seats that you’re sitting in.”
In 2023, Purlie Victorious had a Broadway revival and starred Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton) in the title role. Main Street Theater chose it as the season opener for its 50th anniversary season.
In the Main Street production, there are eight cast members, several of whom Wilks has either worked with before or seen on stage many times. He hadn’t worked with Leona before but says Leona contacted him, saying “I love that play. I want to be Charlie.”
Wilks says he wanted Seán Patrick Judge because of his height and acting ability. “When I looked at the play — he’s tall and I want him to tower over everyone on stage. That’s a symbolism of race relations in that you have this giant who has hovered over everyone spewing hate and derision. I’ve seen him on stage and he’s an incredible talent. As soon as he walks on stage you’ll see the wisdom of my choice.”
Wilks thinks Purlie is an idealist truly concerned for his people. “Whether or not he’s going about it in the right way. we don’t know. We have to see how it plays out. I think he’s a good man; he wants good for his people and for his family. He wants to eradicate some of the bad that has happened to his people.”
“I would really sincerely love to thank Main Street Theater because this is their 50th anniversary and they chose this play and this particular director to helm it,” Wilks says. “I’m really keen on making sure we convey the messages that are there as well as the fun stuff that is there.”” Performances are scheduled for September 13 through October 12 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays at Main Street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Boulevard. For more information call 713-524-6706 or visit mainstreettheater.com. $45-$64.
