Home Events Arts

Every Sunday evening this summer, at the Hartman Concert Park in front of the Long Center's City Terrace, the ASO performs music spanning from jazz and light classical to pop selections and film scores, with concertgoers encouraged to bring a picnic dinner and blanket and make it a group outing.

The Contemporary Austin and grayDUCK Gallery present new work by eight artists who participated in the museum's Crit Group – a program combining group critique with professional development. For viewers, this means an array of sculpture, photography, painting, drawing, collage, installation, and ceramics by Adrian Aguilera, Christa Blackwood, Christine Garvey, Ron Geibel, Jenn Hassin, Landon O'Brien, Dawn Okoro, and Rachel Wolfson Smith.

He's brought us Confessions of a Mexpatriate, among other powerful works of theatre, and now look: Austin playwright Raul Garza's newest is about the current immigration crisis – illuminating the fraught history between the U.S. government and Mexicans seeking that “shining city upon a hill.” Starring Karina Dominguez as Gloria and Giselle Marie-Muñoz as the Virgen de Guadalupe. Aaaaaand: Mical Trejo! Directed by Patti Neff-Tiven for Ground Floor Theatre. And reviewed here by Robert Faires.

After 20 years in advertising design, animation, and video game development, this local artist is best known for his iconic Austin scenes and neon sign paintings; his latest series combines characters and text pulled from brightly colored food packaging.

Natalie George Productions presents this night of lounge acts featuring Hannah Rose, Veronica Williams, and a surprise guest – with Jason Phelps and Karen Jantsch as emcees and a fine array of edibles from Savage Culinary Adventures with Chef Chris Crowley. Bonus: Cocktails, too!

This exhibition is enhanced with artifacts providing historical context for the paintings, rich with the unbroken connection the Comanche people have with their roots. Also, Rodeo: The Exhibition. Boy howdy, it's the history of the Texas rodeo – vibrant, interactive, and fully documented in this fine new show.

What is this? This is "a gathering place. An imagined living room – at the bottom of the ocean – a home, where all there is is Love." This is a new performance and installation from Sharon Bridgforth, featuring Sonja Perryman, Walter Kitundu, and Florinda Bryant, with songs in the tradition of Black spirituals, with oracle readings, with "everyday objects that shapeshift … as we call the ancestors forward, and celebrate." And Robert Faires has a review of the show right here.

You just know Zach Theatre's gonna do this fabulous sockdollager of a crowd-pleasing Broadway show up right, with Abe Reybold at the helm and Allen Robertson handling music direction. Hell, you could attend just to hear that hilarious "Gaston" song performed live, couldn't you?

Here we go again, right? Recommending something beyond the city limits? We know, we know: There's already too much to cover properly and we should stick to Austin. But, damnit, this work by Anita Cooke, tell you what, it's so worth the drive to see it. Layers upon layers, textures upon textures, patterns and colors like these big and striking fabric-based pieces just grew, like some especially baroque form of coral. But you know the woman's spent hours and hours and hours, days on end, on each one. So, maybe make a day of it? See this show, check out the surrounding antique shops and all, get you a fine lunch or dinner in one of G-Town's decent eateries? Yes.

Ed Ruscha, anyone? We'll bet yes – we're big fans ourselves – and now here's a diverse selection of the celebrated American artist’s books, photographs, drawings, and pprints. With archival production materials, preliminary sketches, and studio notebooks; with more than 150 objects providing visitors an unprecedented look into Ruscha's creative process. And the Chronicle's Melany Jean tells more about this show right here.

You know this Grammy- and Emmy-winning comic is "is a towering figure on television, on tour, and in publishing," right? Then you'll be sure to be front and center for this stop on her current "Laugh Your Head Off" world tour.

Chris Van Loan, Sr., has curated up a fine exhibition of abstract works by himself and Murdock, Ryan Runcie, Glenn Towery, Juanita Cole Towery, and Zen Van Loan.

In the latest iteration of this series from BossBabes and the Ney Museum, meet the conceptual artist who emphasizes exaggerated versions of femininity, with notes of pop culture and drag. Much of her work – Popp art, right? – has been influenced by fashion editorials, makeup artists on Instagram, B-movies, clowns, and comedy.

Teatro Vivo presents this bilingual comedy by Josefina López, about a group of women who work at a sewing factory and reveal their dreams for the future and their relationships with their husbands, lovers, and children. The cast features Martinique Duchene-Phillips, Gina Marie Hinojosa, Eva McQuade, Ana Laura de Santiago, and Minerva Villa, directed by Claudia M. Chávez.

Almost a decade and a half of SouthPop already? Yes, and now the venue that celebrates all the long strange years of live-music Austin that have gone before, now that bastion of funky cultural puissance on South Lamar brings an eclectic show of works from the permanent collection to their storied walls.

This is the workshop Hannah Kenah led for Rude Mechs while they were creating their Field Guide. Together, you'll write, you’ll share – and there'll be a mic and a stool. Sign up now for this one-day class that's low-pressure, high-fun, and makes the last Sunday in September worth waking up for.

The Austin History Center's latest exhibit spotlights local efforts to create social change over the decades, including the Civil Rights and Women's Liberation movements. Residents are invited to upload personal photos of recent marches and rallies for inclusion.

City Theatre is trampling out the vintage with Frank Galati’s stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s literary masterpiece, following the Joad family's troubled 1930s journey from the Oklahoma dust bowl to that promised land of Califor-nigh-ay. Directed by Andy Berkovsky.

When a “stripper on the run” comes between an agoraphobic housewife and her tollbooth collector husband, mayhem ensues among the tightknit array of manufactured homes. This country-rock and blues musical about Eighties nostalgia, spray cheese, roadkill, hysterical pregnancy, a broken electric chair, kleptomania, flan, and disco is directed by Sarah Gay for TexARTS, with Susan Finnigan as music director.

The new Austin Actors' Studio presents this classic Tony-winning play by Texas native Jay Presson Allen, here directed by Milton R. Zoth. Set in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1930s, it's a cautionary tale about a passionate, charismatic teacher and her students.