Music
April 25, 2024
How TikTok Made Line Dancing Cool Again
After a few decades in the purgatory of corniness, fans of artists such as Beyoncé and Dasha are embracing the separate-but-together choreography.
Performing Arts
Arts & Entertainment
April 4, 2024
Lights Down, Curtain Up: A Solar Eclipse Musical Debuts in Waco
Baylor students will sing alongside Broadway actors in the first public concert performance of ‘American Eclipse.’
Arts & Entertainment
February 13, 2024
Palo Duro Canyon’s ‘Texas’ Is More Than a Musical
A visit to the long-running outdoor stage production reveals how members of the cast and crew are connected to the show in personal ways.
Travel & Outdoors
February 8, 2024
The Tutu Live Krewe Brings the Good Vibes (and Sequins) to Galveston’s Mardi Gras
This “grown-up drill team” will strut and sparkle in five parades this month.
Style & Design
December 7, 2023
How Houston Ballet Brings 1,750 ‘Nutcracker’ Costumes to Life
For its big-butted bumblebees, hairy rats, and Sugar Plum dancers, the festive ballet requires complex wigs and opulent costumes, many of which need to be zipped on or off in seconds.
Style & Design
September 25, 2023
Frank Lloyd Wright Built Just One Freestanding Theater in His Lifetime. Dallas Has Let It Fall Into Disrepair.
The Kalita Humphreys Theater was built by arguably the most famous American architect of the twentieth century. It’s now a shell of its former self, and the city can’t decide how—or if—it’ll restore it.
Texas History
September 18, 2023
The Donkey Lady Has Haunted Generations of San Antonians. She Has Her Own Talk Show.
The legendary Donkey Lady is alive (sort of) and has a lot to say about San Antonio.
Arts & Entertainment
July 20, 2023
A Sanitation Worker, a Climate Scientist, and a Modern Dancer Walk Onto a Stage . . .
. . . and Allison Orr, the founder of Forklift Danceworks, helps them turn their everyday movements into choreography with a mission.
Music
March 29, 2023
San Antonio Almost Lost Its 80-Year-Old Orchestra. The Musicians Didn’t Go Quietly.
The Alamo City’s once-legendary symphony officially collapsed last year. But its musicians have continued to play just steps from their former home.
Arts & Entertainment
March 23, 2023
“ ‘Hamilton’ With Breasts” Is a Very Dallas Musical Experience
'cleaVage: the front story' is the world’s first musical about silicone breast implants. Do we need a punny goof-fest about the saga of fake boobs? Yes.
Texas History
February 28, 2023
This Texan Was a Master of a Curious Midcentury Art Form, the Industrial Musical
Brands once staged elaborate productions for their employees. No one was better at making them than Mexia-born Michael Brown.
Arts & Entertainment
February 22, 2023
The Cross-dressing, Bank-Robbing, Outlaw Tale of Cowboy Bob Is Now a Musical
An all-female creative team set Peggy Jo Tallas’s story to a score of country, folk, and riot grrrl punk.
Arts & Entertainment
February 16, 2023
Onstage in Houston, Abortion Activists Find Common Ground
Updated for the Dobbs era, ROE is an empathetic look at the landmark Supreme Court decision.
Art
December 21, 2022
The Best Books, Film, TV, Art & More Coming to Texas This Winter
From Bruce Springsteen to Ballet Austin, there are plenty of ways to break out of the winter doldrums this season.
Arts & Entertainment
October 5, 2022
You Will Know Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton’s Voice
Houston’s poet laureate emeritus started out at competitive slams. Now she’s expanding her work into theater, opera, and books.
Music
June 16, 2022
Why the Best Musicians in the Country Descend on an 81-Person Texas Town
Pianist James Dick has spent half a century crafting the Round Top Festival Institute into a world-class destination for classical musicians, where architecture, fine arts, green space, and history meet.
Art
June 2, 2022
Things to Do, Read, Watch, and Visit in Texas This Summer
Our staffers share the art and entertainment they're most looking forward to this summer, from an opera about Frida Kahlo to a true-crime book about a famous Austin gangster.
Arts & Entertainment
May 17, 2022
Broadway’s Next Great Playwright Is a Texan
Award-winning, Dallas-raised writer Will Arbery has plumbed his siblings’ personal dramas for his own, including his latest, ‘Corsicana.’
Arts & Entertainment
April 28, 2022
In Vogue: How the House of Lepore Is Bringing Ballroom to Central Texas
Ballroom—competitive drag shows—dates back to drag balls and masquerades in 1860s Harlem. Now it’s making headway in Texas.
Arts & Entertainment
April 19, 2022
Robert Wilson Brings the Avant-Garde to a Century-Old Opera
After a lifetime away from his hometown of Waco, the legendary director and playwright returns to the Houston Grand Opera with ‘Turandot.’
Texas History
December 1, 2021
It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Barbette, a Gender-bending 1920s Aerialist From Round Rock
Performing death-defying trapeze stunts in drag, he shocked Parisian audiences.
Arts & Entertainment
November 22, 2021
Houston Grand Opera’s ‘The Snowy Day’ Celebrates Black Joy
An evocative adaption of the beloved 1962 children’s book casts aside stereotypes and focuses on wonder more than trauma.
Arts & Entertainment
October 20, 2021
Houston’s Harper Watters Is a Boundary-Breaking Ballet Star
The gay, Black social media influencer and Houston Ballet soloist is shaking up the world of classical ballet.
Arts & Entertainment
October 20, 2021
Can Harper Watters Make Ballet Matter Again?
The Houston social media influencer is a gay Black man with a gift for the absurd and a passion for platform heels. He’s also a star dancer in one of the world’s most rigid, gendered, and segregated art forms.
Film & TV
August 6, 2021
How Alvin Ailey Built a World Where Black Dancers Felt Free
A new documentary about the dance visionary from Rogers shows how he nurtured fellow artists—even while pushing them (and himself) relentlessly.
Arts & Entertainment
January 8, 2021
With Theaters Closed, Austin Thespians Embrace Audio Dramas, Drive-through Musicals, and Plays by Mail
The city’s resourceful artists are connecting with audiences everywhere but on stage.
Arts & Entertainment
December 2, 2020
The Sugar Plum Fairy Is on Zoom: Texas Ballet Companies Take ‘The Nutcracker’ Virtual
The Christmas classic is the ballet world’s biggest annual event (and a major moneymaker), so dancers and administrators have gotten creative.
Arts & Entertainment
November 19, 2020
A Bold, Experimental Dallas Play Explores How Shakespeare Inspired the Suffragists
Activists have always used the Bard’s work to make social statements. Jenni Stewart's new play explores that history through a feminist lens.
Music
October 14, 2020
Why Quinn Mason, a 24-Year-Old Composer From Dallas, May Be Classical Music’s Next Superstar
Mason, one of the most sought-after young composers in the country, has a new work set to premiere in November.
Arts & Entertainment
July 24, 2020
How One Texas Ballet Company Is Surviving the Pandemic
While dancers at Fort Worth’s Texas Ballet Theater do pliés at home barres improvised from pipes and shower handles, administrators are making do with a $2 million budget shortfall.
Arts & Entertainment
July 23, 2020
How Alvin Ailey’s ‘Revelations’ Has Helped Me Find My Way Back to Texas
While quarantined and away from home, I keep coming back to the late Texan choreographer’s works—which are newly available to watch online.
Music
July 8, 2020
In a New Virtual Series, the Dallas Opera Tackles Race and Inequality
The performing arts institution is facilitating forward-thinking conversations with artists and educators online.
Politics & Policy
June 19, 2020
A Broadway Veteran Channels Ann Richards
Holland Taylor’s renowned one-woman play about the late Texas governor is now airing as a part of PBS’s ‘Great Performances.’
Arts & Entertainment
May 1, 2020
After Their Semester Was Cut Short, a University of Texas Class Worked to Stage a Shakespeare Production Over Zoom
Students in the beloved Shakespeare at Winedale course got creative with online theater, overcoming grainy visuals and bad Wi-Fi.
Arts & Entertainment
April 28, 2020
Boxed in by Social Distancing, an Endlessly Inventive Theater Festival Powers on Online
Some of Fusebox Festival’s most poignant moments came when performers stopped trying to put on a show, and instead simply bared their souls about the present predicament.
Music
April 1, 2020
For Performing Arts in the Age of Social Distancing, the Show Must Go Online
From theater to opera, Texas culture has moved toward virtual events.
Arts & Entertainment
March 25, 2020
Remembering Terrence McNally, a Theater Heavyweight in Texas and Beyond
The visionary playwright, who grew up in South Texas, passed away this week from coronavirus-related complications.
Arts & Entertainment
January 17, 2020
A New Quixote Adaptation Reimagines the Borderlands
El Paso-born playwright Octavio Solis’s 'Quixote Nuevo' rides into Houston’s Alley Theatre this month.
Arts & Entertainment
November 19, 2019
How Concheros Use Dance to Connect With Their Indigenous Roots
Dozens of Azteca dancers, clad in regalia, came together during Austin’s largest Día de los Muertos celebration.
Arts & Entertainment
November 18, 2019
Austin’s FuturX Festival Is Carving Out a Space Where Latinx Performing Arts Thrive
The second annual celebration of theater, comedy, and dance displayed the many dimensions of Latinidad.
Arts & Entertainment
November 11, 2019
Blake Hackler and Alex Organ’s Final Act
For their last play together at Dallas’s Second Thought Theatre, the actor-director duo took on a ‘Texas Monthly’–inspired story.
Arts & Entertainment
October 14, 2019
When ‘Angels in America’ Came to East Texas
Twenty years ago my hometown made national headlines when the local college staged an internationally acclaimed play about gay men and the AIDS crisis. The people I grew up with are still feeling the aftershocks.
Arts & Entertainment
August 29, 2019
On Texas Time: Harper Watters, Houston Ballet Soloist and Internet Sensation
The ballet standout dishes on viral stardom, modeling for Ralph Lauren, and becoming a queer icon.
Arts & Entertainment
August 20, 2019
At Houston’s Embattled Alley Theatre, a Breath of Fresh Air
Artistic director Rob Melrose ushers in a new era for the storied institution with the upcoming fall season, from Shakespeare to Octavio Solis.
Arts & Entertainment
July 26, 2019
How Katherine Owens Transformed Dallas Theater
The prolific avant-garde director, who died earlier this week, was an unparalleled innovator on North Texas stages.
Music
June 26, 2017
Bad Girls Get Old
How Jo Carol Pierce went from adventurous Lubbock teen to restless single mother and social worker to Austin’s most underrated songwriter is a story unlike any other in Texas music. Now, at 72, she’s ready for her next act.
Being Texan
June 10, 2013
Act of Faith
Once a year, a San Antonio congregation relives Jesus’ last days—and leaves the cellphones at home.
Arts & Entertainment
January 20, 2013
Texas Primer: The Drill Team
Good, clean sex, brought to you by high-kicking, rosy-cheeked Texas gals.
Arts & Entertainment
February 1, 2000
Alvin Ailey
Which Oscar-winner did Alvin Ailey act alongside in the play Call Me by My Rightful Name ?
Arts & Entertainment
June 30, 1998
Brad Maule
When I was five, my family got a television, and it was like a meteorite had landed on the farm. That’s when I knew I wanted to be in show business, but I had to keep it a secret because you couldn’t tell people that. My school had this talent